BU Research Blog | Sociology & Social Policy

Category / Sociology & Social Policy

15 November 2014

Congratulations to PhD student Rachel Arnold

PG research, Publishing, student research Edwin van Teijlingen

HSC postgraduate student Rachel Arnold just had the first paper from her research in Afghanistan accepted by the scientific journal BJOG. Her paper analyses the culture of a Kabul maternity hospital to understand its impact on the care of perinatal women and their babies. A heavy workload, too many complicated cases and poor staff organisation lead to a low quality of maternity care. Cultural values, social and family pressures influenced the motivation and priorities of healthcare providers.

The centrality of the family and family obligations in Afghan society has emerged as a major theme. Another theme is the struggle for survival – as health care providers work to support their families, to maintain the power that they have, and to survive within a hospital system where fear rather than compassion appears to drive and motivate. Rachel presented some of the key issues at the 2013 GLOW conference in Birmingham. Rachel is supervised by Professors Immy Holloway, Kath Ryan (LaTrobe University, Australia) and Edwin van Teijlingen.

Rachel’s paper Understanding ‘Afghan healthcare providers: a qualitative study of the culture of care in a Kabul maternity hospital’ can be found here. The paper is Gold Open Access.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

13 November 2014

Helping men to lose weight

Fusion, Knowledge Transfer, Public engagement, Publishing, Research assessment Edwin van Teijlingen

High quality research from a collaboration of three UK universities has been turned into practical advice. The ROMEO project (Review Of Men and Obesity) by the University of Aberdeen, the University of Stirling and Bournemouth University found that men are more likely than women to benefit if physical activity is part of a weight-loss programme. Also although fewer men joined weight-loss programmes, once recruited they were less likely to drop out than women. The perception of having a health problem, the impact of weight loss on health problems, and the desire to improve personal appearance without looking too thin were motivators for weight loss amongst men. However, the type of reducing diet did not appear to affect long-term weight loss.

The charity Men’s Health Forum linked up with Public Health England and published a ‘How to’ guide based on the evidence of our ROMEO study. This ‘How to make weight-loss services work for men’ guide offers advice for local authorities, commissioners and weight management providers, who are trying to attract men to weight-loss programmes. The guide highlights, for example that:

Programmes that include exercise and behaviour change components as well as dieting are more successful in helping men to lose weight.
Men respond well to programmes that have a higher degree of personalisation, such as setting individual goals, as it increases their sense of control.
Weight-loss programmes based in the workplace or associated with professional sports clubs have been particularly successful.
Using humour and encouraging camaraderie makes programmes more attractive to men as does knowing that there will be other men there.

Furthermore, this ‘How to’ guide includes, amongst other advice, a list of Ten Top Tips.

This is an excellent example how research conducted between three different universities has been turned into easy to understand advice for man who are overweight. The past decade or so has seen an increasing interest in making academic research ‘useful’ to society. Creating and measuring the impact of research conducted at universities has been introduced as key element on the REF, the Research Excellence Framework. The REF assesses the quality of research in, and affects the amount of government money each university in the UK receives.

For a traditional academic publishing the HTA report would be a success in itself. Which, of course, it is to culmination of a large-scale and extensive review, well conducted, published through Open Access, which also attracted considerable media attention from across the globe when it came out. However, ROMEO did not stop there. Due to the involvement of the Men’s Health Fora right from the start of ROMEO, the Men’s Health Forum in England linked up with Public Health England to create and publish ‘How to make weight-loss services work for men’ guide is published today.

The ROMEO project, led by Prof. Alison Avenell (University of Aberdeen), examined the evidence for managing obesity in men and investigated how to engage men with obesity services. The evidence came from trials, interviews with men, reports of studies from the UK, and economic studies. ROMEO was funded by the National Institute for Health Research, Health Technology Assessment Programme (NIHR HTA Project 09/127/01). Our full report is Open Access and can be freely downloaded here.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

School of Health & Social Care

Bournemouth University

12 November 2014

Congratulations to Dr Sarah Hean & colleagues!

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Congratulations to Dr. Sarah Hean in the School of Health & Social Care and her colleagues Staddon, Clapper, Fenge, Heaslip and Jack on the acceptance of their article: ‘Improving Collaborative Practice to Address Offender Mental Health: Criminal Justice and Mental Health Service Professionals’ Attitudes Towards Interagency Training, Current Training Needs and Constraints’ by the Journal of Research in Interprofessional Practice and Education.

The paper is Open Access funded by BU! A copy is available in BU’s repository BURO: http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/21462/

Well done

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

31 October 2014

Paper added to CEL collection

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

The latest paper of BU’s Centre for Excellence in Learning (CEL) was published in the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology. The lead author Padam Simkhada (BU Visiting Faculty) together with BU’s Edwin van Teijlingen and three academic colleagues in Nepal published their paper: ‘Accessing research literature: A mixed-method study of academics in Higher Education Institutions in Nepal’ [1].

This latest paper reports on the knowledge of and practice in accessing electronic research-based evidence among university teachers in the health and medical field in Nepal. This paper originates from a recently finished DelPHE (Round 4), British Council: award. The study called Partnership on Improving Access to Research Literature for HE Institutions in Nepal (PARI Initiative) was a collaboration between Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal, the University of Sheffield and BU’s School of Health & Social Care. This is the second paper to appear from the PARI study, the first paper reported on research methods teaching [2].

The paper argues that accessing electronic research literature provides an opportunity to gathering up-to-date research-based information that should be core to all health curricula in Nepal. The authors call upon curriculum developers and university authorities in Nepal to revise health curricula and help build electronic searching skills among staff and students.

The Nepal Journal of Epidemiology is a full Open Access journal which means anybody across the globe can access it for free.

References:

Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Devkota, B., Pathak, R.S., Sathian, B. (2014) Accessing research literature: A mixed-method study of academics in Higher Education Institutions in Nepal, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 4(4): 405-14. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/11375
Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Pokharel, T., Devkota, B., Pathak, R.S. (2013) Research Methods Coverage in Medical & Health Science Curricula in Nepal, Nepal Journal Epidemiology 3(3): 253-258. www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/9185

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health
Bournemouth University

29 October 2014

Participation in regional and national conferences provides challenging learning opportunities for BU social work students

Public engagement, student research Jonathan Parker

In October, Michelle Lillywhite and Karen Sampson, final year students on the BA Social Work programme at Bournemouth University attended two conferences, one organised by a local charity working with adult survivors of childhood abuse Dorset Action on Abuse (DAA) and the second organised by British Association of Social Workers (BASW) in conjunction with the Northern School of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy.

DAA, who offer support groups and one to one counselling for adult survivors, held their annual conference in Boscombe, Dorset. The theme of the conference was supporting people who have been sexually abused though the criminal justice system and how this can effect the working relationship between practitioners and survivors, alongside the personal impact of this work on practitioners. Speaking on the day were representatives from both the local Dorset police’s Child Protection Unit Senior Investigating Officer, John Merrick and Julia Woodward, Senior Crown Chief Prosecutor, from the Crown Prosecution Service Wessex.

The questions from the floor about when the police ‘believe’ a victim were answered with a refreshingly honest account of a police investigator who explained their role isn’t to believe but to build a case with evidence that has a ‘high chance of conviction’. We felt, however, that it is the role for the social worker/counsellor to offer this trust, belief and acceptance of the victim and that the police had a very different, more process-led role within the journey of criminal proceedings. This provided us with significant insights into the differences between professions engaged in the same kind of work with people.

The support that DAA offer people within the local community through these difficult and challenging processes was a continual theme in the personal account shared offered of a survivor’s journey through the criminal justice system which for them resulted in a conviction and ‘validation’ that the horrific abuse they endured was wrong.

It showed us though that while the triumph of a conviction is a positive thing the essence of the entrenched abuse and the victims’ mind-set resulting from their experiences is not so easily eradicated. An important lesson for us as trainee practitioners was that even though we see that justice has been done it does not mean that ‘closure’ can ever really be attained; something we will remember.

The national BASW conference, held in Leeds, was entitled ‘Unsticking the stuck’ and based on a live supervision session with a willing volunteer. The facilitator demonstrated to us how we, as practitioners, can get ‘stuck’ within a case by not concentrating on the most important aspect: understanding and working towards the needs of the client.

In this scenario, the delegates comprised a good mix of students, like us, and more experienced and qualified practitioners who dealt with complex cases – something we aspire to do once qualified!

The initial expectation of the day was that we would come away with some therapeutic interventions to add to our ‘toolkit’ before undertaking our practice placement. However, this was not the case, rather the day prompted an exploration into the meaning and importance of supervision for us as practitioners. I think as well being able to understand and get to grips with a real case and not just a case study the conference gave our discussions on the day more credence and depth as this was a real situation, laced with complexity. It introduced us to something, unfortunately, ever prevalent within our society.

Attending external conferences gives us, as trainee practitioners, the ability to step outside of our comfort zone – the classroom – and explore our knowledge, experiences and natural instincts of working with an increased understanding of complexity. Crucially, this gives us the opportunity to gain insight into the remit and responsibilities of other practitioners which can only strengthen our awareness of the importance of today’s multi-agency working. It creates an understanding of working strategies and thinking outside the box plus the opportunity to network, share ideas and in these cases add something to our ‘personal toolkit’ as future practitioners.

Michelle Lillywhite & Karen Sampson

Social work students

28 October 2014

Impact, outcome and research methods – HSC PhD student on LSE Impact Blog

PG research, Research assessment aharding

With working at a university and the rise of the REF, you would have almost certainly come across the terms ‘impact’ and ‘outcomes’. Whilst there might be a great deal of similarity and overlap in the use of these terms, it is important to discuss the sometime subtle differences between ‘impact’ and ‘outcome’. What consequences might this have for the design of social research?

The health and social care literature uses these terms in a rather haphazard manner. The differences are rarely discussed and it can be suggested that many use the wrong terminology. In this blog post on the LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog, relating to the field of information and advice on welfare issues, I briefly discuss and propose that there are fundamental differences between what an impact refers to and what an outcome refers to. Furthermore, I suggest that these differences are significant and profound enough to align each to opposing research methodologies.

These thoughts relate to the key areas of my PhD project with Elderly Accommodation Counsel (EAC) in London. EAC coordinates the FirstStop service which provides information and advice to older people (and other stakeholders) on housing and care issues. My research is focused on how older people use information and advice on housing and the wider impact that this has.

If anyone has an interest in this area, do get in touch!

23 October 2014

Shaping European Social Work: BU Hosts Erasmus SOCNET 98

Publishing, student research, Women's Academic Network Sara Ashencaen Crabtree

Sara Ashencaen Crabtree & Jill Davey

For the first time in April 2013 BU hosted the SOCNET International University Week (IUW). This is a high profile international event held rotationally at host European universities drawn from across the 19 Higher Education Institution (HEI) members of the SOCNET community. This important annual event brings together a wide range of European academics and students with an interest in social work and social welfare.

It also provides an opportunity for HSC Social Work and Sociology & Social Policy students to interact with international academics and accompanying European students with educational, cultural and social aims in mind. During the IUW a busy series of workshops and lectures are offered based on a particular chosen theme, to which both academics and students contribute as pedagogic peers. Learning through active scholarly participation is the pedagogic approach that has proved very popular and successful over the years.

The theme of each IUW, alongside other organisational business vital to the continuation and the expansion of Erasmus SOCNET initiative, is managed at each host university in the month of October. Consequently, the Centre of Social Work, Sociology & Social Policy was proud to host this year’s organisational event, represented by HSC Erasmus Coordinator, Jill Davey, and Sara Ashencaen Crabtree, Deputy Director of the Centre.

Attendees included academic representatives from across the SocNet-work at St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences, Austria; School of Social Work, Leuven, Belgium; University College Lillebaelt, Denmark; Hochschule Bremen – University of Applied Sciences, School of Social Work, Germany; Ernst-Abbe Fachhochschule University of Applied Sciences Jena, Germany; Department of Social Science and Care Social Work and Nursing Management, University of South Bohemia, Czech Republic; Faculty of Social and Health Studies, Telemark, Denmark; University College, Department of Social Studies, Faculty of Health and Social Studies, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen, Netherlands; Humak University of applied sciences, Finland; University of Malaga, and finally, Bournemouth University.

A highly productive and sociable set of meetings took place over the course of several days, where, alongside discussing the European Masters in Social Work (where a UK partner is currently being identified for collaboration), the issues of venue and theme for this year’s International University Week were discussed. Since then invitations from the following four universities have been issued to academics and their students across the SOCNET community to attend the IUW (April 20^th – 24^th 2015) hosted by four international HEIs:

University College Lillebaelt – Department of Social Work. Theme: Trends in social work in the year 2015.
Ernst-Abbe Hochschule, University of Applied Sciences Jena. Theme: Diversity and Innovation in European Social Work and Welfare States.
Telemark University College – Department of Social Studies. Theme: Diversity in Social Work.
Hochschule Bremen. Theme: Methods and Methodologies of Social Work – Reflecting Professional Interventions.

While the IUW clearly emphasises teaching and learning initiatives, together with internationalisation, the research element has been less publicly evident; although scholarship has always fed into the programme through the synergies between education and research.

However, over the past few years BU has altered the SOCNET landscape and is influencing the development of future trends here; where BU academics advocated for the need for high quality publications to be developed from the important lectures and workshops being annually produced in the IUW events.

Accordingly BU input has been instrumental towards developing robust academic output, which also serves to meet the BU Fusion agenda and KPIs. Thus, from the 2012 IUW at the University of Malaga, which carried the theme of ‘Active Ageing’, Professor Maria Luisa Gómez Jiménez and Professor Jonathan Parker developed the first edited SOCNET publication under London publishers, Whiting & Birch’s innovative social science monograph series, ‘Critical Studies in Socio-cultural Diversity’.

Following fast on the heels of this success, in 2013 Dr Sara Ashencaen Crabtree, proposed and developed the second edited volume from the BU event. Moreover, in Volume II, and in keeping with the sprit of SOCNET, strong chapter contributions have featured from students from Bremen and BU (Samineh Richardson neé Hall, BA Sociology & Social Policy and PhD candidate, David Galley).

The next SOCNET publication will be forthcoming from the IUW held at Hochschule Bremen under our esteemed colleague, Professor Christian Spatscheck and colleagues. This will continue an exciting precedence, first initiated and supported to-date by BU under the Centre for Social Work, Sociology & Social Policy; a fact that we are quietly very proud of.

12 October 2014

Congratulations to BU Visiting Faculty on latest publication

PG research, Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Congratulations to Bournemouth University’s Visiting Faculty Dr. Bibha Simkhada and Prof. Padam Simkhada for the paper on financial barriers to the uptake of antenatal care in a rural community in Nepal.¹ The first author (a native Nepali-speaker) conducted 50 face-to-face interviews with women and their families in rural Nepal. These interviews were thematically analysed after transcription.

This latest paper adds to our knowledge into user costs related to maternity services in Nepal as we had already published our findings on users costs in the largest obstetric hospital in the capital.²

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

References:

Simkhada, B., van Teijlingen, E.R., Porter, M., Simkhada, P. & Wasti, S.P. (2014) Why do costs act as a barrier in maternity care for some, but not all women? A qualitative study in rural Nepal International Journal of Social Economics 41 (8), 705-713

Simkhada, P.P., van Teijlingen, E., Sharma, G., Simkhada, B., Townend, J. (2012) User costs and informal payments for care in the largest maternity hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, Health Science Journal 6(2): 317-334. www.hsj.gr/volume6/issue2/6212.pdf

9 October 2014

Congratulations to Dr. William Haydock

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Congratulations to William Haydock, researcher in HSC, for his recently published paper in Capital & Class 38 (3): 583-600.

The paper “‘20 tins of Stella for a fiver’: The making of class through Labour and Coalition government alcohol policy” is available from: http://cnc.sagepub.com/content/38/3/583.abstract

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

8 October 2014

Understanding the constructions of the ‘other’: co-produced knowledge and understanding of ‘terrorists’ and ‘terrorism’

Fusion, student research Jonathan Parker

Last year, I put together a small HEA individual grant to build upon our earlier research concerning terrorism and social work education, and civil unrest and welfare in Muslim countries. Unfortunately, the bid was unsuccessful but one should never let a good bid go to waste. Given that it was education focused, based around co-production and student enhancement – a ‘fusion’-based project! -I thought rather than try somewhere else for funding I would embed it into the third year undergraduate Sociology unit Terrorism, Protection & Society, where it would have sat if successful.

The project encourages active student engagement in learning, employing a methodology of co-production of knowledge in which skills to collaborate in producing critically informed and societally beneficial knowledge will be developed. Students are reading, critically, major UK newspapers, identifying and analysing those articles that mention ‘terrorists, terrorism or terror’ and associated concepts. From this they are engaged in identifying the processes by which our dominant cultural frames are constructed and can be challenged. The project findings, once 30-days worth of newspapers have been scoured for relevant articles, will be widely disseminated through the production of academic papers, a submission to eBU and through conference presentations.

Students following the Terrorism, Protection & Society module, engage in learning how the ‘other’, in this case ‘terrorist’, is constructed within popular debate and within the public media in the UK. As part of the project rooted within the unit, students will also analyse the media’s use of target terms (terrorist, terrorism, terror and so on) through a content and discourse analysis, and debate the potential consequences of this for contemporary society and for developing a deeper and more nuanced understanding that can assist in restraining social conflict, violence and the ‘othering’ of those who may be associated with core characteristics of ‘terrorists’ according to the socio-cultural master-narratives created by media representations.

Students will produce a paper with academic staff for the eBU on-line journal; most co-production of academic papers with students occurs at postgraduate level and this project has a degree of originality in promoting co-production of academic knowledge with undergraduate students, something we have done already in respect of edited books. Other academic outputs will be developed and students demonstrating interest and capacity will be invited to participate in their production.

Alongside the academic publications envisaged, this proposal meets BU’s fusion objectives in seeking also to add to the corpus of evidence of pedagogical benefits for students of knowledge co-creation and includes a focus on the student experience of the processes of learning.

Thus, as part of the teaching and learning students engage with, the project has wide reach and significance for student learning and pedagogical development by enhancing social and cultural understanding amongst students who will soon graduate, alongside producing autonomous and critically thinking individuals who can translate their learning and core skills into the employment market.

This week students energetically engaged with the preliminary data extraction and coding of those newspaper articles dealing with concepts and issues that were termed or could be termed as terror, terrorist, terrorism, extremism and so forth. The work undertaken helped to put in perspective some of the first two weeks’ lecture material and allowed the students to bring their own critical understandings to this complex and emotive area.

So far, the project has illuminated to me what an incredibly versatile and intellectually agile student body we have; people who will be an asset to the workforce of the future and a credit to our university! I am looking forward to the following weeks as the project unfurls.

Professor Jonathan Parker

Sociology students engaged in research

3 October 2014

‘It’s Only Banter!’ – ‘Lad Culture’ in University settings

Public engagement, Research themes, Women's Academic Network Sara Ashencaen Crabtree

On the evening of the 30^th September, the Women’s Academic Network hosted a well attended debate on ‘lad culture’ in the wake of the published NUS research report on women’s experiences of this phenomenon in Higher Education Institutions in the UK. The report entitled That’s what she said was based on commissioned research undertaken by the Centre for Gender Studies at Sussex University.

Crucially for our institution, two of our speakers that night were undergraduate students at BU. They were supported on the debating panel by Blogger and journalist, Reni Eddo Lodge and ‘No More Page 3’ campaign founder Lucy Ann Holmes.

The prevalence of so-called ‘lad culture’, constitutes an important debate to be had at any contemporary UK HEI; and where none are likely to be insulated from this widespread social phenomenon, which appears to be becoming more entrenched in university life, for reasons that are unclear. We were thus particularly pleased that BU took a lead in further illuminating this worrying social issue in this manner. However, the seriousness of lad culture was greatly underestimated by the organisers until this was more fully illuminated by the visceral personal accounts of the speakers.

Consequently, due to the deeply personal nature of these accounts verbatim details of the speakers’ experiences were requested to be withheld from public dissemination; permission for photographs was not given; and the names of student panellists are anonymised. Nonetheless we are able to offer the following issues and insights that we believe are crucial for all HEIs. These seek to address the student experience in relation to the personal safety of students, both female and male, as well as seeking to implement a zero tolerance approach towards intimidation, harassment and the assault of students by students, many of whom have their first encounters of such in Freshers’ Week. During the Week, as we have learned, too often a mixture of a heady sense of freedom from authoritarian constraints, and fuelled by heavy levels of alcohol consumption, create a lack of inhibition for group dynamics that can be experienced as highly confrontational and indeed menacing.

The audience, composed of a mixture of primarily academics and students of both sexes, engaged enthusiastically with the debate – articulating their own sense of unease and even distress at the manifestations of ‘lad culture’ they or their relatives had been exposed at various UK HEIs, including sadly, at BU. These experiences ranged from students (in this case, male students) feeling put off joining sporting activities at university because of the perceived, overtly alpha male, über-macho environment. Worse still were stories of aggressive verbal attacks on other students, often strangers, and often with overtly sexist and racist overtones attached. Additional examples ranged from public belittling and bullying behaviour to the revolting public rating of unwitting, student, sexual partners on an open Facebook site. Furthermore, we heard about alarming sexual molestation towards primarily female, but also male students, escalating to examples of serious assault, including rape, where victims may continue to have to face their attacker in classroom settings.

Although aware to a greater or lesser extent of the ‘lad culture’ issue (and not regarding ourselves as particularly naïve) we were still both profoundly shocked and disturbed to hear these stories, some coming from our own students. The debate put flesh on the vague, skeletal suspicions we have occasionally harboured of possible harassment and bullying of some of our students that may have been responsible for the regrettable decision of, otherwise promising, students who suddenly drop out of their programmes.

Academics, by and large, are usually blissfully unaware of the extent of these kinds of intimidation taking place in the student body. If students do complain of their treatment, it is usually not to academics that they turn, for some reason – this is particularly worrying when the pastoral role of Academic Advisors is strongly promoted. Our guess is that harassment, intimidation and assault is seen as something outside of the rarefied academic setting and as not directly linked to student studies – although of course the ramifications of these situations are clearly apparent to student progress and retention.

What therefore should be done? The extent of these events needs to be investigated and recorded rigorously in order to develop a clearer idea of the extent of the problem. The agenda to enhance the student experience at BU, laudable though it indubitably is, will not in itself eradicate victimisation of students by students; but it can be used to greatly extend its remit to offer enhanced protection of students and to severely penalise those who prey upon their fellows. It can also be used to further inform and bolster the role of the Academic Advisor as one that is integrally conjoined into a pastoral and academic enhancing role.

We would also be keen to see additional institutional support towards student safety initiatives; for example, embedding ‘consent’ workshops into Freshers’ induction in relation to sexual experimentation; in addition to the aforementioned zero tolerance policies towards the abusive repercussions of ‘lad culture’. We would like to see visible ‘safe’ spaces where women who have been assaulted can go; and in this vein, should there be a need, appropriate services for male victims. The issue of what constitutes rape and sexual assault in relation to student safety is of such gravity that more attention needs to be given from the outset to raise awareness of this among student groups, particularly among our vulnerable new Level C students, many of whom are recent school leavers.

The debate left us with mixed views: horror that these were some of the ‘normal’ experiences that predominantly (but not always) female students have; but also reassurance that at least this is an institution where we are able to talk about this issue. Now that it has been publicly raised momentum needs to be maintained: we need to talk about it, to act upon it and we look to colleagues for support in this regard.

Sara Ashencaen Crabtree and Heather Savigny

24 September 2014

Comparing childcare and child protection in Japan and the UK: Towards constructions of the self, society and responsibility

Fusion, Public engagement Jonathan Parker

Over the last two days (23^rd-24^th September) the Centre for Social Work, Sociology and Social Policy has been collaborating with colleagues from Kawasaki University, Japan on a pilot research project that compares and contrasts two systems of childcare and child protection.

Professor Dr Tadakazu Kumagai, also a visiting faculty member at BU, Dr Katsuki Naoshima and Tim Cleminson of Kawasaki University met with Professor Dr Jonathan Parker, Jill Davey and Richard Williams from BU and held discussions with Centre colleagues from Bournemouth Borough Council led by Principal Social Worker, Stefan Kleipoedszus. They explored different conceptions and constructions of social organisation, practice and policy and what this means for individual members of society and professionals within these two countries. Outcomes from this meeting will result in a further bid being prepared by Kawasaki University to extend the research, a report for the Japanese funder of this research and two peer-reviewed papers.

The discussions highlighted a range of interesting interdisciplinary and cross-cutting themes looking at variation across cultures, different models of social organisation and welfare developing within particular contexts and some of the ways in which cross-cultural research must take into account different models of selfhood and identity, social responsibility and social policy. Matters of great importance to our contemporary global world!

Prof Jonathan Parker

11 September 2014

Communicating thought leadership – (or making known what you think, believe and why it’s important)

Public engagement Jonathan Parker

In a US right-wing on-line journal, artist, Cheryl Pass[1] made allusions to the development of ‘thought leadership’ as representative of a totalitarian world, of that scenario painted so well in Orwell’s 1984. This blog identified the marketization and branding of ‘thought’, using those who have something to say that captures a zeitgeist or something that can be used to influence behaviour and attitude or to exert political control.

Thought leaders may be seen as sinister beings, channelling or herding others by setting the words and terms for engagement which demand adherence. This requires learning the language of ‘newspeak’ or speaking the right words in context, something we note in many of our professions and academic disciplines. Such a definition of thought leadership denotes a lack of control over life except amongst those who have wrested it politically by setting the trends of thought or employing those trends for their own purposes.

The negativity associated with these political analyses of ‘thought leadership’ are reflected also within the personal. When I was asked to contribute to the Making Your Voice Heard event and to speak about being a thought leader I had to question what that meant and how that affected me as a person and academic. At a personal level I do not feel comfortable with an ascription of thought leadership which reminds one of sheep and shepherds, of superiority and, more sinister, of manipulation and control for ends which probably do not reflect altruism.

Talking about engagement with the media and why this can be important as an academic seemed more grounded and the brief to offer ‘more of a practical guide to illustrate why you have built up a reputation for thought leadership, how you did it and also look at how you think it has benefited you’ seemed to make more sense and presented a degree of comfort – if one removes the term ‘thought leadership’.

It is this that I intend to highlight, hopefully democratizing the ‘offending term’ and describing some of the ups and downs of engaging with the media and suggesting things that I wish I had done differently including examples of bad practice/good practice.

In response to the original invitation I rushed off an email and duly committed the cardinal sin of not attentively proof reading. So instead of saying I will allude to the impact of some of my pieces I stated that I would talk about the impact of my pies! What I have done in this introduction and in adding a subtitle is to communicate some of my thoughts about this process as we move towards lunch and, possibly, my ‘pies’ later.

I will use a fairly standard approach to discussing my involvement with the media: 4Ws&H, but not necessarily in that order –

Why do it?

When to do it?

How to do it?

What to do and what not to do?

Where to do it?

Why do it?

A common complaint I hear is I’m just too busy to talk to the media, or there’s no point in doing so. The power of the media in daily life is obvious, however, and if we want to make our voices heard we need to engage, and to do so in the best way possible for our integrity, our disciplines and our beliefs. I often use mnemonics for myself and with my children and this helps me in respect of why I choose to engage with the popular press and other media. A mnemonic used to help me understand why to engage with the media:

‘growing strawberries with rhubarb entirely (without) manure’

Gaining voice

Sharing your knowledge widely

Widely known for particular thoughts, views and areas of knowledge

Representing and enhancing your discipline

Enhancing reputation – university, to peers, students and prospective students, your own – think REF and impact!

Moral imperatives:

By means of ever more effective methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms – elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest – will remain.

The underlying substance will be a new kind of totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the themes of every broadcast and editorial. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit. Aldous Huxley (1958) Brave New World Revisited, http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gJANBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT69&lpg=PT69&dq=by+means+of+ever+more+effective+methods+of+mind-manipulation&source=bl&ots=B84w-jQAip&sig=Zyd-qWCWFpDsY_KQxt6Txct2dmE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=W6gFVMlR8NnRBdCQgPgE&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=by%20means%20of%20ever%20more%20effective%20methods%20of%20mind-manipulation&f=false.

Aldous Huxley’s depressing but somewhat prescient commentary on his book Brave New World presents a moral imperative demanding that we speak truth to power, that we unveil and unmask mendacity in social life and that we preserve our right and obligation to pursue truths as we see them from our informed perspectives.

Being able to contribute to debate is a privilege but also a responsibility, I believe, of academic office. This moral drive has been important to my engagement with media and popular outlets.

When to do it?

Academics are thinking, or ought to be, all the time – it is the basis of what we do. Those thoughts may well be valuable in and of themselves but it is more likely that they have something to contribute to the worlds which we inhabit and to the knowledge base of our disciplinary areas. Not sharing our thoughts and comments does not help us to extend the debate or to test our ideas.

Any time we are excited or exercised about an issue or topic provides an opportunity to comment, to blog in the newspapers, in disciplinary and higher education media

When we cannot keep quiet and there are moral imperatives to speak out or we discover something that is worth, in our eyes, talking about!

I tend to assume the role of ‘bombastic of Bournemouth’ at times, firing off letters and emails when driven by events, pronouncements and so forth. This is helpful in getting across your views, especially if you learn to sit back and, usually, write a second or third draft before you press the ‘send’ button and talk about pies!

How to do it?

Pragmatism and disciplinary perspectives underpin how you might engage – whatever medium you can use to get your message heard and whatever works best for you in getting your message across.

Given that we are researching, writing and teaching all the time as part of our academic roles there are many opportunities we can take from our academic work that can be simply and quickly made into blog pieces, letters for the popular and professional press.

What to do and what not to do?

Sometimes it is hard not to bash off an email in anger to the editor of a newspaper, the THE or a professional journal, to blog or respond to a blog but it is useful to spend a little time thinking about what you want to say first and WASH:

Write about what you know about (normally!)

Always be prepared

Say it simply

Have a core message to get across and break it down into two or three things you want to say about whatever it is you are commenting on

Do not be concerned that you have to follow a zeitgeist – this is not the case and as an expert in your field you can create the importance and interest; it can also be important to be controversial and play ‘the left field’. However, it is sometimes the case that you would wish to respond to something topical. The comms team are very good at identifying the latter and can help in placing your thoughts.

In terms of a few tips let’s get back to acronyms and mnemonics: be BAD

Beware of journalists – print interviews can be manipulated. Journalists will edit pieces and, unless you ask to see copy before publication, are unlikely to share their work with you – even if you do make a request this may not happen. Sometimes an editor will change what you are trying to say. I was working with a professional body on standards and regulation and whilst more a fan of a light touch was not against regulation. The journalist writing a piece about this only included what he wanted from my comments which suggested to the professional body regulator that I was taking a stand against them. Whilst this created some difficulties it did highlight the work that was being done, my position in it and acted as a catalyst for further discussion http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2010/05/11/social-work-courses-may-face-axe-as-inspections-go-public/.

Radio and TV can also be edited if recorded, doing it live allows you to say what you want but it’s not for everyone. You need to choose the medium that works best for you. Some of the training offered by staff development and marcomms has been very valuable in practicing in a safe environment and sharing stories of encounters with the media.

Adopt a thick skin – people will criticize, insult and sneer, if you are sure of what you are saying, even if you do change your mind later, say it and be damned!

In 2011, following the riots in London, I wrote a piece for the Huffington Post. This was inspired by the ‘problem’ of non-judgemental approaches in social work, and a need to adopt a nuanced rather than normative perspective to social issues. It was a deliberately controversial blog and attracted a range of comment from the engaged and questioning, if disagreeing, through to trolling and abuse as a ‘rich boy sadist’ http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/professor-jonathan-parker/the-riots-the-pms-speech-_b_927613.html.

It is not only the controversial pieces that can engender passionate comment. A piece that Sara Ashencaen Crabtree and I wrote recently for the Guardian Online concerning the development of social work services in Myanmar attracted a sneering comment that we were seeking to replace one oppressive regime by another http://www.theguardian.com/social-care-network/2014/aug/19/social-work-myanmar-burma-model.

It is possible to take the comments personally, and few people like to be abused anonymously or otherwise, however, all comment is recognition of your ideas, your name in certain areas and can assist in developing your thoughts further.

Don’t miss an opportunity to comment if you can, but don’t worry if you do miss one. There are ample opportunities. As academics we keep up with our particular niche areas whilst changes in the social and political world have impacts on those areas of work or are affected by them. In this context it is in our interests to comment.

Back to the pies and making your own!

[1] Cheryl Pass “‘Thought Leaders’: Orwell’s 1984 Moves To The 21st Century”, Freedom Outpost, October 11, 2012 http://freedomoutpost.com/2012/10/thought-leaders-orwells-1984-moves-to-the-21st-century/

8 September 2014

September: A good month for CMMPH publications

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

The Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health started well this September with four publications in academic and practitioners’ journal. Starting with final-year student midwife Joanna Lake who just had an article published in The Practising Midwife.¹

Secondly, BU midwifery staff Jen Leamon and Sue Way together with HSC Visiting Fellow Suzie Cro also have had an article published this month in the same journal.²

Susanne Grylka-Baeschlin, a midwife from Switzerland who spent time at BU as an international visitor (see http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2014/07/02/latest-hsc-midwifery-paper-in-open-access/) had her paper published in BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth this month.3

And last, but not least, Wendy Marsh, based in HSC’s Portsmouth office had a paper in the September issue of the British Journal of Midwifery.⁴

Congratulations,

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

References:

Lake J., 2014. Witnessing the art of woman-centred care by and exceptional mentor. The Practicing Midwife. 17(8), 24-26.
Leamon J, Way S. & Cro S., 2014. Supervision of midwives and the 6Cs: exploring how we do what we do. The Practicing Midwife. 17(8), 41-42.
Grylka-Baeschlin S., van Teijlingen, E. & Mechthild, G.M., 2014. Cultural differences in postnatal quality of life among German-speaking women: a prospective survey in two countries. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth 14:277 www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2393/14/277
Marsh, W. 2014. Removing babies from mother’s at birth: Midwives experiences. British Journal of Midwifery. 22(9):620 – 624.

27 August 2014

CMMPH professors to present at GOLD Perinatal Online Conference

Festival of Learning Edwin van Teijlingen

Bournemouth professors Vanora Hundley and Edwin van Teijlingen have been invited to present in the international online conference run from Canada. The GOLD Perinatal Online Conference (14^th Oct. -1^st Dec. 2014) is a continuing education conference for health care professionals working in maternity care. Focusing on care during pregnancy, childbirth and the postnatal period, GOLD Perinatal is aimed at nurses, midwives, physicians, lactation consultants, doulas, and other health care workers providing care to women, infants and families.

Vanora will be speaking about ‘Early Labour: Should we be telling women to stay at home?’ Although midwives frequently encourage women to labour at home for as long as possible, many women often seek hospital admission because they are anxious and would like more support. Vanora examines the evidence surrounding early labour in hospital and ask whether we should be telling women to stay at home.

Edwin will be presenting a sociological way of looking at the way society views and socially organises pregnancy and birth. He examines the medical-social model of childbirth to help health care professionals and expected mothers and their families to make sense of world around them.

For more details on the conference see: http://www.goldperinatal.com/.

Prof. Vanora Hundley & Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

12 August 2014

Reflections on an Oasis

Fusion, Women's Academic Network Jonathan Parker

Our final blog concerning our Fusion Investment Funded study leave, ENABLE: Establishing Sustainable Research Networks and Building Learning Environments, is written with very mixed feelings in mind.

For seven months we have worked across Southeast Asia to develop and establish links and research collaborations, teaching and education partnerships and to rediscover our passion for social action as ‘professional practice’ associated with our disciplines. The work has been intense, tiring, sometimes frustrating, but always illuminating and productive. It was a wrench to leave.

The return journey began with raised anxieties, heightened a couple of weeks earlier by the awful shooting down of a Malaysia Airlines aeroplane following the same route (although by then re-routed), and exacerbated when we were separated into two distinct travelling units, Jonathan with one child and Sara with the other, because the previous university travel firm booked tickets as two separate families! To make matters worse only Jonathan and Isabel’s tickets showed up and we had to wait to secure the other tickets. We were then given seats at opposite ends of the aeroplane and had to wait again for re-seating. The flight began well enough and was fairly smooth, only briefly punctuated by a somewhat antisocial ‘ramming’ of chair in front into one of our legs with particular force by someone who thought ‘turn off your electronics’ meant send texts to your friends!

However, we landed in one piece and breathed a sigh of relief, or possibly resignation, until, as in our usual practice of each taking one of the children through immigration the UKBA officer asked Jonathan rather sternly ‘where is the child’s mother?’ and when indicating where Sara was the officer proceeded to say that children have to be seen with their mother because mother’s are in general the carers of children and if present they have to be with the child. ‘Red rags and bulls’ often appear to Jonathan in unjust situations and he, as usual, took issue with this, but whilst we all got through immigration clearance more quickly, the officer insisted that his rather warped and myopic view of British law and custom was now right. Oh dear! We wondered what had happened in the seven months we had been away and whether we were entering Gormenghast!

But, back to the project itself! Our four key objectives have been met throughout the project, with varying degrees of success and changing morphologies:

1. Establish a sustainable research network promoting social sciences and interdisciplinary research at BU:

We have made contacts with individual academics, departments and universities across Southeast Asia, notably Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), Universiti Utara Malaysia, alongside contacts with Massey University in New Zealand, Hong Kong University, The Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Myanmar Institute of Theology.

We have given names and contacts to people abroad and within BU to follow up. Research projects are being developed, publications are in train or planned for the future.

2. Develop research streams of locally specific or cross-cultural relevance:

Our research, completed with the Orang Asli as part of the Tasik Chini Research Centre, has culminated in numerous publications being submitted, developed and developing, wide dissemination across many fora, and establishing on-going research links.

3. Engage and promote educational initiatives via guest lectures/research seminars, developing joint postgraduate research supervision and educational initiatives promoting student mobility:

We have presented lectures and seminars, provided postgraduate supervision and contributed to curriculum planning and development discussions, as well as negotiated an important credit transfer scheme (although uptake has been delayed until we can find students both able and willing to go on this exciting opportunity!). Professional papers have been written and submitted.

4. Engage in discipline-specific activities in relation to social work:

a number of discipline specific activities concerning social action and development have been undertaken, including curriculum planning, assisting in education developments in Myanmar and in Malaysia in reference to the new (to be implemented) standardised Malaysian Diploma Social Work, alongside contributing to NGO development work.

Overall, during the study leave period, there has been 57 outputs, also including on-going work and connections to be completed over time. The 57 outputs included:

6 books (3 published)
14 book chapters (11 published or in press)
12 peer reviewed papers (9 published or in press)
3 professional papers
1 book review
16 conference presentations/open lectures etc.
10 blogs
6 media presentations

During our time away we have worked across five countries: Malaysia, Hong Kong SAR, Australia, Myanmar and Cambodia in order to carry out our research or present it, along with capacity-building missions for professional, social work training. We have undertaken respectively between 24 to 28 flights (trying, when one of us dislikes flying) and stayed in some extraordinarily interesting as well as very grim places during our fieldwork, resulting in abuse from miscellaneous assortments of blood-sucking insects (outsized mosquitoes, the usual bed bugs and fever-inducing leeches) bedding down with us or boisterously noisy lizards, both small and decidedly large, showering us with ordure from above.

One of us was joyfully returning ‘home’ to pioneering fieldwork in Southeast Asia and the other was equally rapturous to be introduced to it. We have developed a new appreciation of the diversity of international driving styles when finding it not unusual to be driven by taxi in the wrong direction through chaotic Yangon in the middle of two long lines of equally erratic cars heading in the right direction – towards us. Above all, we remember the various wonderfully funny, kind, clever, intriguing and endlessly good-natured people we me: all our participants, our various helpers, interpreters, drivers, guides and advisors, the academic staff and students who welcomed us so warmly, the inspiring NGO workers and service users; not forgetting the local café owner in Penang, who wept when we left before running to get her camera for group photos to remember us by.

Also, we will always remember just how much our children, Isabel and Milly grew and developed in stature (in all ways possible): learning the research process, engaging with children amongst the village communities, and themselves collecting valuable data and compiling magnificent school projects on their adventures and experiences. The children put up with a good deal with great fortitude, willingness and humour (or when the going got tough – heavy irony), easily comprehending the importance of the work undertaken; albeit, as 10 year-old Milly gravely commented in her write-up later, ‘fieldwork has its dark side’! Indeed, so impressed were we with them that they will be contributing their experiences and acting as co-authors to the forthcoming book on the Tasik Chini area.

Alongside the outputs, the work is now to capitalise on the study leave by the development and submission of funded research projects. Currently, these include gendered rituals in professional working, problematizing research ethics and learning disabilities, understanding religion as resistance, and gender in higher education.

The study leave represented a life-giving oasis, somewhere to wash and attend to our own sacred cattle as in the photo from Cambodia, and we gratefully acknowledge the help and supported afforded us by Bournemouth University and our two main host universities in Malaysia (UKM and USM). We would encourage other academic staff to apply for study leave and we think that the productivity of our period of study leave indicates how important this can be to both individual academics but also to the greater good of Bournemouth University.

Jonathan Parker & Sara Ashencaen Crabtree

5 August 2014

Surrogate mother producing faulty goods: commodification of childbirth

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Over the weekend an interesting story appeared on the BBC news and in the Sunday papers. The story goes that an Australian couple left a Thai surrogate mother with a baby who is genetically their child. The reason for this abandonment is that the baby is not perfect. If that is not bad enough the couple has taken the healthy twin sister of this baby back home to Australia. Some newspapers reported that the Australian parents knew that the baby had Down’s syndrome from the fourth month of gestation onwards, but that they did not ask until the seventh month – through the surrogacy agency – for selective abortion of the affected fetus. The surrogate mother, Pattaramon Chanbua, says that the couple were told: (a) that she was carrying twins and (b) that one of the twins had Down’s syndrome as well as heart problems. The surrogate mother refused the intervention on the grounds of her Buddhist beliefs.

Surrogacy is often a commercial transaction e.g. in the USA, although such a ‘business contract’ is not legal in the UK (Ireland 2011) and some parts of Australia as widely reported in the media. However, in this case the Australian couple had paid Pattaramon Chanbua (a mother of two) to grow and carry the baby for them. She told the BBC that she had engaged in the surrogacy deal to get money to pay for the education of her other children.

This case epitomises several aspects of life that are of interest to sociology: (a) the commodification and commercialization of life (and health); (b) inequality and exploitation; and (c) globalisation. Commodification refers to the process by which something that was not originally bought and sold becomes a good or service, i.e. a commodity that is for sale. As we become more modern and with economic progress/the rise of capitalism, more and more parts of our lives become commodified. Modernisation changes society and its social institutions and organisations. Economic development is based on industrialisation, but is also strongly linked to urbanisation, mass education, occupational specialisation and communication development, which in turn are linked with still broader cultural and social changes (Inglehart 1997).

The second key issue sociologists are interested in is inequality and the link between poverty and poor health. In a global perspective where we, people in high-income countries, or so-called developed countries exploit people in low-income countries (or Third World, developing countries or under-developed countries).

Thirdly, globalisation refers to the world becoming a smaller place, both in terms of physical travel as well as the way we perceive it (Simkhada & van Teijlingen 2009). It takes us less time to travel to London, Paris, Kathmandu than it took our parents’ or grandparents’ generation, and at the same time the information about a disaster or a human tragedy story such as this one in Thailand reaches us more or less instantaneously. At the same time, modernisation and globalisation, particularly in many low-income societies, are contributing to rapid socio-cultural changes.

Surrogacy as commodification

Surrogacy is the commodification of a couple having a baby themselves. Other social solutions from the past to the problem of not being able to conceive include: (a) having more than one wife, a solution for men in a patriarchal society; (b) for women sleeping with their husband’s brother, to increase the likelihood that the baby ‘looks like’ the husband; and (c) adopting someone else’s child.

We must remember that aspects of maternity care have always been commodified. Rich British families in the nineteenth century would have been paying a wet nurse to breastfeed their babies and a nanny to look after their children whilst instant formula baby milk bought from a shop has been replacing breastmilk supplied by the baby’s mother for nearly a century.

We don’t think surrogacy is the interesting issue here, we should ask ourselves the more basic question ‘What makes us think that every birth and every baby is going to be perfect or even okay?’

One explanation is, of course, that we have seen a rapid decline in the number and the proportion of babies dying in high-income countries such as the UK over the past century and a half. Women having better nutrition, fewer children, having one’s first child later (but not too much later), better sanitation, and improved obstetric care have all contributed to making childbirth safer now for both mother and baby than ever before in the history of humanity. However, these changes have also affected our ways of thinking about childbirth (Mackenzie Bryers & van Teijlingen 2010).

Social scientists recognise a social model and a medical model of childbirth (van Teijlingen 2005; van Teijlingen & Ireland 2013). The former sees childbirth as a physiological event in women’s lives. Pregnant women need psycho-social support, but not necessarily high-technology interventions by doctors. The medical model stresses that childbirth can be pathological, i.e. every pregnant woman is potentially at risk. The medical model argues that every birth needs to be in hospital with high-technology screening equipment supervised by expert obstetricians. In other words, pregnancy and childbirth are only safe in retrospect. In terms of social changes, we have moved from a more social model to a more medical model in a society which is more risk averse.

Edwin van Teijlingen¹ & Jillian Ireland²

Professor of Reproductive Health Research, Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health, Bournemouth University.
Visiting Faculty, Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health, Bournemouth University; Midwife & Supervisor of Midwives, RCM learning Rep. Poole NHS Hospitals Trust.

References:

Inglehart R. (1997). Modernisation and post modernisation: Cultural, economic, and political change in 43 societies. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Ireland, J. (2011) Reflections on surrogacy-using the Taylor model to understand and manage the emotions in clinical practice, Essentially Midirs, 2(9): 17-21.

Ireland, J., van Teijlingen, E. (2013) Normal birth: social-medical model, The Practising Midwife 16(11): 17-20.

MacKenzie Bryers, H., van Teijlingen, E. (2010) Risk, Theory, Social & Medical Models: a critical analysis of the concept of risk in maternity care, Midwifery 26(5): 488-496.

Simkhada, P.P., van Teijlingen, E. (2009) Health: a global perspective, In: Alder, B. et al. (Eds.) Psychology & Sociology Applied to Medicine (3^rd edn.), Edinburgh: Elsevier: 158-159.

Teijlingen van, E. (2005) A critical analysis of the medical model as used in the study of pregnancy and childbirth, Sociological Research Online, 10(2) Web address: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/10/2/teijlingen.html

Category / Sociology & Social Policy

Other services

Don’t miss a post!

Recent posts

Search by Category

Search by popular post topics