Archive
Applied Conversation Analysis, edited by Charles Antaki, will be published this autumn by Palgrave. Featuring chapters by Loughborough authors Liz Stokoe and Sue Wilkinson among a host of other internationally--acclaimed researchers, this book brings together exciting developments in the application of Conversation Analysis to mediation, psychotherapy, telephone help-lines and other services where good communication with clients is vital.
"This groundbreaking volume stands as an important milestone in the development of Conversation Analysis. It brings together works devoted to the use of Conversation Analysis to address practical problems in which human interaction plays a central role."
Steven E. Clayman, University of California, Los Angeles.
"This highly insightful and illuminating collection of studies powerfully demonstrates how the fine-grained analysis of talk and interaction provides a distinctive contribution to our understanding of social organisation and social institutions, and in turn reveals important implications for policy and practice."
Christian Heath, King’s College London.
Charles Antaki was a Visiting Fellow at Helsinki University's Collegium of Advanced Studies, for the period April-September 2011.
An ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE to celebrate
25 years of the Discourse and Rhetoric Group (DARG)
10 years of the Culture and Media Analysis Research Group (CAMARG)
Dr Martyn Chaimberlain's latest book - Doctoring Medical Governance: Medical Regulation in Transition - which came runner-up for the 2010 BSA Sociology of Health and Illness Book of the Year Award, has been reviewed in the Sociology of Health and Illness - Volume 33, Issue 3 Pages 502 - 503.
Dr Sabina Mihelj was a visiting scholar at the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, The Elliot School of International Affairs, George Washington University, Washington D.C., US.'
In December 2010 Professor Ruth Lister was elected as Honorary President of the Child Poverty Action Group, the leading charity campaigning against child poverty in the UK. She follows the late Professor Peter Townsend in that role.
Who Cares About Me?: The Mental Well-Being of Young Carers in Manchester
Findings from a new YCRG collaborative study show that the longer children take on caring responsibilities in the home the more damaging the affects of caring can be for children’s emotional and mental well-being.
The study, which was conducted by the YCRG with Manchester Carers Forum and funded by Manchester Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services, used in depth interviews and psychological measures among 50 young carers in Manchester.
For more details about the study, a summary and full report of the findings click here.
Professor Sue Wilkinson was presented with a Senior Scholar Award for "Outstanding Research in Mid-Late Career" at this year's British Psychological Society's Qualitative Methods Biennial Conference. She also gave the closing Plenary Address at the Conference, on "Constructing Ethnicity Statistics in Talk-in-interaction". This Address, attended by over 200 conference delegates, was described by the Chair of the BPS Qualitative Methods Section, writing in the Section's October 2010 Bulletin, as "an extremely well-received presentation".
On 3rd November 2010 Professor Sarah Pink gave an Invited Masterclass, ‘Walking at the edge: intersections between documentary film, photography, arts and social science practice’ at OPEN DOCUMENTARY: imagens do real imaginado, organised by the Instituto Politecnico do Porto in Portugal. She is returning to Porto in December to give another invited talk as the Keynote speaker, for the International Workshop VISUAL METHODS: RESOURCES AND USES IN SOCIAL SCIENCES at the, Instituto de Sociologia da Faculdade de Letras, University of Porto, her keynote is titled ‘Images, senses and applications: engaging visual methods’
Professor Sarah Pink has given two invited talks on the ‘Ethnography of the Invisible’, at a workshop on Irregular Ethnographies at Lund University in Sweden and about ‘Sensory Ethnography’ at 'FEATURES, Laboratory of the Senses: Dialogues between Art Medicine' in Vienna, Austria.
The Loughborough Qualitative Digital Research Lab (LiQUiD Lab) is a collaborative project developed between SS, SSEHS and Geography, in what is currently the faculty of SSH.
The LiQUiD Lab consists of a suite of lecture / presentation / exhibition / workshop rooms (U122, 130, 132, 133, 134) and quiet working rooms equipped for the development of qualitative research involving the use of digital and audiovisual methods and media. It will be equipped with state-of-the art qualitative digital research equipment including high-spec PC and Mac laptops with qualitative analysis software, large widescreen workstations, data projection, digital video and audio recording equipment and numerous add-ons.
The facilities can be used by academics, researchers, PhD students and visiting researchers, for research and training activities, meetings, some teaching, and to support research funding bids that are developed within or in direct collaboration with SS, SES and Geography.
The current directors are Liz Stokoe and Karen O’Reilly, but the Lab is managed by a team with members from each of the relevant departments. Rooms can be booked through Sue Simmons. Lists of equipment and details of each room will follow, as will the website.
Karen and Liz (on behalf of the LiQUid Lab)
Professor Graham Murdock was invited to Wuhan University in China as a distinguished visitor for the start of 2011. Wuhan University is one of China's most important and prestigious universities.
He has also been invited to give the keynote speech to the international conference on 'Political Restructuring and the Social Role of Mass Media' at the State Innovative Institute for the Study of Journalism and Communication and Media Society, at Fudan University in Shanghai in December.
Ruth Lister was granted one of two Lifetime Achievement Awards at the 2010 Social Policy Association (SPA) conference (University of Lincoln/July 5-7). The award was made by SPA President, the FT journalist Nick Timmins. Awards were sponsored by Cambridge University Press and Policy Press.
The Award
The SPA Lifetime Achievement Award is awarded annually to a member (or members) of the SPA the judges feel:
- Has made persistent contributions to research and organisation (of major conferences, influential reports, SPA Exec posts, etc.) that has raised the external profile of the subject
- Has achieved recognition by non-academics with interest in social policy - journalists, campaigners and lobbyists, activists, user communities
- Has an acknowledged international reputation, as measured in terms of translations, citations, projects, academic posts
- Has made contributions to professional bodies and associations
- Has had an impact on political process/discourse (advisor to government, consultant to voluntary bodies/local government etc.)
- Has achieved esteem measured in terms of journal editing/establishing, promotion of social policy within other social sciences, membership of research councils or similar bodies.
Religion, gender and citizenship
FEMCIT Work Package 4, led by Loughborough sociologist Line Nyhagen Predelli, presented a panel session at the international conference Beyond Citizenship: Feminism and the Transformation of Belonging, held at Birkbeck, University of London, 30 June – 2 July, 2010. Dr Nyhagen Predelli introduced and chaired the panel on religion, gender and citizenship, which saw presentations from Dr Esmeranda Manful (CRSP, Loughborough University), Professor Beatrice Halsaa (University of Oslo) and PhD Candidate Cecilie Thun (University of Oslo).
The FEMCIT Work Package 4 research team, which also includes Dr Esther Quintero, has completed case studies in Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom, interviewing Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and Pentecostal women from the majority religion (Christianity), and Sunni and Shia women from a minority religion (Islam) within the three countries. The interviews have centered on a number of issues relating to citizenship, including participation, identity and belonging. The team is currently exploring the notion of ‘religious citizenship’ in relation to the individual, civil society and the nation state, with a focus on how religious citizenship is gendered. For more information, contact Dr Line Nyhagen Predelli (L.N.Predelli@lboro.ac.uk) and have a look at the main FEMCIT website (www.femcit.org)
The department held a leaving party for Professor Peter Golding on Wednesday the 23rd of June. We have produced a montage of most of the people that attended. To download a low resolution image click here. If you would like a better quality copy please contact the deprtment.
Symposium on CATEGORIES, IDENTITIES AND PERSONS IN INTERACTION
Department of Social Sciences, Loughborough University, UK
Tuesday 29th June 2010, B1.14, Brockington Building
The Discourse and Rhetoric Group at Loughborough University are running an informal one-day symposium on 'Categories, Identities and Persons in Interaction' on Tuesday 29th June, 2010. We’d like this to be the first of an annual summer event with a specific focus on categories, identities and persons, within the context of debates about conversation analysis, sequential organization and membership categorization analysis.
Programme and delegate information click here (pdf) or word doc.
"Theorizing and analyzing identities in language, media and society "Wednesday 9th June 2010, B114, 1-6pm Confirmed speakers: Elizabeth Stokoe, Sabina Mihelj, Maria Eugenia Merino, Daniel Chernilo. For more information click here.
On June 9, an international colloquium on ‘ Identities in language, media and society’ takes place at the Department, 13-18 hrs.. Guest speakers are Liz Stokoe, Sabina Mihel and Daniel Chernilo from Loughborough Social Sciences, and Maria Eugenia Merino from Chile. They present theoretical and empirical work about social interaction, journalistic practice and ethnic identities. For more information and registration (free), contact Christean Tileaga.
The Social Policy group and the department is proud to report that Lizzie Miller, one of our Finalists, has won this year's T.S. Shipman Prize, which is given to the student of the University or the Loughborough College who is considered to have contributed most to the development of co-operation between the University or College and the local community. She will receive the award at a ceremony in the Town Hall.
She was awarded the prize for sustained commitment to volunteering in the community. As well as contributing to and leading a variety of projects run by Loughborough Students Union’s Action group, Elizabeth has made an outstanding contribution to Action by co-founding the Disability Awareness Day at the University. She has served on the Action Committee as Equality Coordinator and is now responsible for overseeing all special needs projects. Click here fore more details.
Professor Michael Pickering contributed to a BBC Radio programme on blackface minstrelsy in Britain on Tuesday 10th. The programme can be heard by clicking here.
Line Nyhagen Predelli, leader of WP4 and a sociologist at Loughborough University in England, gave the introductory lecture on relations between ethnic majority and ethnic minority feminists in Norway, drawing a historical picture starting from the 1970s and onwards until today. Nyhagen Predelli was followed by Beatrice Halsaa of the University of Oslo, who gave an outline of the relationship between Sami feminists and majority feminists in Norway. For more information click here.
The Cost Calculator for Children's Services (CCfCS), developed by researchers at the Centre for Child and Family Research (CCFR), wins Knowledge Transfer Award for Enterprise at the 2009 Loughborough University Enterprise Awards ceremony held in October. Please click here for more information.
The Department is proud to announce a new suite of Social Psychology Laboratories, which will be used for teaching and research.
The images (click here to view), show the premises before and after the £250,000 refurbishment.
The new Lab space features two digital projectors and screens, four-way sound projection, and multi-configuration setting.
The facilities include a pioneering use of WiFi to supply as many as 50 laptops with simultaneous broadband access, allowing highly flexible group and individual work in the Lab. The laptops were partly funded by a generous donation from Toshiba UK.
The new Observation suite comprises two interview and conference rooms which are separately equipped with state-of-the-art CCTV, monitored from a central control room. Sophisticated video editing will allow selective capture and recording of data in a variety of formats for later analysis.
The Social Psychology Group looks forward to welcoming students into this exciting new facility, which will be a state of the art addition to its resources elsewhere in the building, and add to the Department's burgeoning research activity
Professor Ruth Lister elected to the British Academy
On Friday 17th July it was announced that Professor Ruth Lister had been elected as a Fellow of the British Academy. This is one of the highest honours open to a British social scientist.
Ruth Lister gave the following statement to the Academy on being elected:
'Election as a Fellow of the British Academy is a great honour and one which I believe reflects what I have gained as a member of the intellectually stimulating inter-disciplinary social sciences department at Loughborough. I am also pleased that this means an increase in the representation of social policy Fellows. I look forward to contributing to the Academy's work in the social sciences.'
4 - 5 November 2010: the Social Sciences Department hosted an International Conference on Political Communication organised by the Research Committee for Political Communication (RC22) of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) in conjunction with the Media and Politics Group of the United Kingdom Political Studies Association (PSA). Further information and the conference programme are available at: http://rc22.ipsa.org/pages/Conference-2010
Tribute - Colin Seymour-Ure
images
Symposium on CATEGORIES, IDENTITIES AND PERSONS IN INTERACTION
Loughborough University
Tuesday 29th June 2010
The Discourse and Rhetoric Group at Loughborough University ran an informal one-day symposium on 'Categories, Identities and Persons in Interaction' on Tuesday 29th June, 2010. This was the first of an annual summer event with a specific focus on categories, identities and persons, within the context of debates about conversation analysis, sequential organization and membership categorization analysis.
The day was organized around short presentations by speakers and informal roundtable discussions and debates.
Provisional speakers included:
- Rod Watson
- Stephen Hester
- Richard Fitzgerald
- Nick Llewellyn
- Elizabeth Stokoe
- Charles Antaki
WEBSITE: http://www-staff.lboro.ac.uk/~sscwb/Symposium.html
Dr Line Nyhagen Predelli has been re-appointed as member of the Commissioning Panel for the third phase of the Religion and Society Programme. She was also a Commissioning Panel member for the first and second phases of the Programme which is jointly funded by the AHRC and the ESRC and runs for six years (from January 2007).
RAE 2008 News
Social Sciences at Loughborough University ranked 5th in UK in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (as classified under the Sociology category, Grade Point Average x Volume)
25% of the Department’s research is classed as ‘world-leading’ (rated the maximum 4*)
75% of the Department’s research is of an international standard (rated 2*, 3* or 4*)
The Centre for Child and Family Research (CCFR) and the Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP), along with the National Care Advisory Service (part of Catch 22, formerly known as Rainer) have been granted £427,054 to assess the effectiveness of ‘Right2BCared4’ - a pilot project that aims to enhance the preparation of, and support provided for, care leavers.
For more information, see the CCFR website: Click Here.
The Centre for Child and Family Research (CCFR) has been awarded an extra £430,571 by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), to continue their research informing policies aimed at vulnerable children and young people. The funding extends the Centre’s current contract with DCSF until 2010. http://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ccfr/About_us/News/News_DCSF_contract.htm
The Centre for Child and Family Research (CCFR) are collaborating with Oregon Social Learning Center (OSLC), USA, on a project designed to translate their work on the Cost Calculator for Children’s Services for application to child welfare systems in the United States. The work is funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), USA.
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ccfr/About_us/News/News_Cost%20Calculator%20USA.htm
Professor Ruth Lister appointed to new National Equality Panel
Harriet Harman, Minister for Women and Equality has appointed Professor Ruth Lister of Loughborough University Department of Social Sciences to the new National Equality Panel. The panel will be independent and consist of eight academic experts in inequality. It will be chaired by Professor John Hills and will provide the Government with an authoritative analysis of inequality in Britain by the end of 2009.
The panel will gather and examine data over the last 10 years as well the very latest available information and will also commission new research where necessary. The panel will: provide a factual analysis of how equality trends have changed over the last ten years and map out exactly where gaps have narrowed and widened in society; investigate how people's life chances are affected by gender, race, disability, age and other important aspects of inequality such as where they were born, what kind of family they were born into, where they live and their wealth; and show how these factors inter-relate and reinforce one another.
Professor Sue Wilkinson has been awarded the Outstanding Research Award 2008 by the British Psychological Society Qualitative Methods in Psychology Section. The award is for her Social Psychology Quarterly article on 'surprise' . There will be a presentation, a certificate, and an invited keynote address associated with this award.
The 'Care Matters: Transforming Lives - Improving Outcomes Conference', incorporating the 8th International Looking After Children Conference, organised by the Centre for Child and Family Research has been hailed a massive success. The conference, supported by the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the British Academy, was held at Keble College in Oxford from 7th to 9th July and was attended by over 250 delegates from over 20 countries.
Read more about the conference click here .
Download papers and presentations from the conference website: click here.
Tribute to Professor Sue Wilkinson, Founding Editor of Feminism & Psychology
Volume 18 (1) of the international journal Feminism & Psychology includes an appreciation of the "longstanding and remarkable contribution" of its Founding Editor, Professor Sue Wilkinson (Social Sciences). Sue founded the journal in 1991, and was its Editor-in-Chief for the past 17 years, before resigning from the role at the end of 2007. More than 20 leading scholars from the feminist psychology community, spanning 3 continents, pay tribute to Sue's "enormous impact on feminism and psychology and beyond" - including not just her editorial work on the journal, but her own research and theoretical work, and her key role in developing feminist psychology as a field. Feminism & Psychology is described as "a truly great journal", "an outstanding academic resource" and "a beacon to [Sue's] worth". Sue's own research is praised for its "innovation, intellectual rigour, diversity and its academic impact", and is seen as "transformational of the discipline [of psychology]". One contributor suggests Sue "has almost single-handedly defined and shaped the nature of the field [of feminist psychology]". Others propose that "her importance and influence in the field cannot be overstressed"; that she "has long been a leader within the academy"; and that she has made "an extraordinary impact across a number of fields" - "not only in the UK ... but also in other global contexts". Contributors thank Sue for her "innovative vision", "courage, flair and persistence", and "hard work, commitment, and consummate professionalism" - concluding that "as a community, we owe her an immense debt of gratitude".
Reference: Braun, V., & Gavey, N. (2008). Tribute to Feminism & Psychology's Founding Editor. "Imagining a Space": Sue Wilkinson's Contribution to Feminist Psychology. Feminism & Psychology, 18(1), 13-20.
To read the full article, go to http://fap.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/18/1/13
In The Independent's Complete University Guide published April '08 our Communication and Media Studies Department is rated Top in the country, with Social Policy 3rd in the country, and Sociology 6th in the country.
To view the tables on-line click here.
Dr Kelly Benneworth - one of the departments PhD students, whose PhD was on 'the discourse analysis of police interviews with suspected paedophiles' is now a Lecturer in Criminology and Social Psychology Department of Sociology University of York.
(February 2008) Dr Andrew Millie has been invited to join the Editorial Board of the British Journal of Criminology. Published by Oxford University Press, the BJC is one of the world's top criminology journals and publishes work of the highest quality from around the world and across all areas of criminology.
Professor Jonathan Potter has been elected to the prestigious UK Academy of Social Sciences.
Academicians are distinguished scholars and practitioners from academia and the public and private sectors.
He joins Professor Ruth Lister and Professor Peter Golding in representing Loughborough’s Department of Social Sciences in the Academy.
Training bursaries
The ESRC Research Resources Board wishes to stimulate the uptake of high quality training courses. Each year there are 50 bursaries for up to £1,000 each to enable staff in the UK engaged in teaching methods or supervising research to update their skills. From October 2004, the scheme was extended to include contract researchers working in HEIs.
Call for bursary applications is four times a year. Call for applications will be published on the NCRM website front page Current Announcements and it will also be advertised through the monthly e-bulletin.
http://www.ncrm.ac.uk/about/funding/training/
A member of our technical staff and web master, Peter Riley-Jordan, gained a place in the 2008 Flora London Marathon and ran to raise sponsorship for The Brain and Spine Foundation. The total raised totalled £1300.
Prof Laurie Cohen, Prof John Arnold (Business School) and Dr Maggie O'Neill (Social Sciences) have received ESRC funding for a series of seminars on 'Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Migration and Career'. The proposed series will provide a forum for examining (i) the implications of migration (of both people and work processes) for careers, and (ii) the strengths and limitations of existing career theory, practice and research for understanding and managing migration (16k)
Dr Maggie O'Neill (Social Sciences) and Prof Phil Hubbard (Geography) have received funding from the AHRC Knowledge Transfer Fellowship scheme for 'Transnational Communities: towards a sense of belonging'. The project will work with 4 local/regional arts organisations committed to the transformative role of the arts in the lives of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers: Long Journey Home, City Arts, Charnwood Arts and Soft Touch. It builds upon an AHRC-funded regional network 'Making the Connections: arts, migration and Diaspora' in which all of the project partners participated. This network focused on the central role of the arts and culture in facilitating migrants' processes of belonging and integration and the importance of using research methods that generate knowledge to help us understand experiences of migration and Diaspora, challenge myths and stereotypes and produce work that can feed into social and cultural policy. (91k)
Alexa Hepburn and Jonathan Potter have been part of a group from Brisbane (Susan Danby, Mike Emmison) and Linkoping, Sweden (Karin Ostwaldson, Jakob Cromdal) who have received some $400 thousand dollars to look at the operation of Kids Helpline and the associated web support services. The grant is designed to improve understanding of the helpline and make suggestions for improvement. Alexa and Jonathan's contribution will build on their influential work on the workings of the UK's NSPCC child protection helpline and will involve a range of comparisons between Australian and UK services.
Professor Graham Farrell of the Midlands Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice has been awarded 170,000 € by the European Community for a project titled 'E-Services Crimes: Theft and Illegal Use of Electronic Services'. The Midlands Centre is the lead on a project to be conducted with a team from Transcrime, the Joint Research Centre on Transnational Crime (of Università degli Studi di Trento and the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan), and a Budapest-based team from MTA-SZTAKI, the Computer and Automation Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
The Department was ranked 5th by The Times Good University Guide 2007, and the university has been ranked 5th overall by The Guardian University Guide 2007-8.
"The Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough has been awarded 7 ESRC
quota studentships to be awarded over the next two years. We are now inviting applications for these prestigious awards.
18 November 2005 PR 05/112
World leading role in social policy wins Loughborough its fifth Queen’s Anniversary Prize
It was announced last night that Loughborough University has been awarded a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education 2005. It is the fifth time the University has captured one of the prestigious awards – an achievement equalled only by Oxford.
The Queen’s Anniversary Prizes for Higher and Further Education are awarded biennially in recognition of outstanding educational achievement in areas of service and benefit to the nation. The 2005 Prize has been awarded to Loughborough in recognition of its outstanding and widely respected work in evaluating and helping develop social policy-related programmes, such as those for cared for children, social security policy, crime prevention, education initiatives and young carers.
Concentrated within the Department of Social Sciences, the University’s social policy related research is held in high regard, both by its peers for its intellectual value and by its beneficiaries at all levels.
The excellence of the research work undertaken has been independently verified, and this high quality is achieved in all three aspects of the work – intellectual enquiry, the development of new methodologies, and the application of findings.
Relevance to practice and to national and local policy development are key characteristics. Emphasis is placed on the dissemination of research and the development of practical tools to aid social policy. Much of the research has direct relevance for Government: researchers within the department have worked or are currently working with two-thirds of Government departments on social policy-related issues. Research is also conducted in partnership with local authorities, and the voluntary and charity sectors.
“We are thrilled at this recognition for our research in social policy,” said Professor Peter Golding, Head of the Department of Social Sciences. “We take great pride in the combination of academic rigour and innovation with real impact on the quality of people’s lives and on policy making which are the characteristics of our social policy research. This is recognised by senior policy makers both here and internationally, and this prize is an outstanding reward for a lot of hard effort and top quality research.”
Loughborough has been outstandingly successful in the Queen’s Anniversary Prizes scheme:
- The University received its first award in 1994 for its partnerships with the aerospace industry, particularly Rolls-Royce and BAE SYSTEMS
- Its second award was received in 1998, in recognition of the Institute of Development Engineering’s unique service to developing countries, providing and managing sustainable infrastructure
- In 2000 Loughborough gained its third award, in recognition of the Optical Engineering Group’s pioneering role in developing applications of modern optics and laser technologies to find practical solutions to real-world problems
- Its fourth award followed in 2002, in recognition of the University’s position as the country’s premier institution for sports development, and its world leading role in sports research and education.