The potential and pitfalls of putting the ‘university experience’ online
Way before the upheaval of the COVID-19 crisis, universities were gradually moving some teaching activities online. Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) such as Moodle or Blackboard are well-established for providing access to course materials, including readings and lecture slides, and the submission and marking of student coursework. More recently, a head of steam has developed around […]
Our kids have simply been cut adrift by school closures – with devastating consequences for their education
My teenage daughters are in Years 9 and 11. In normal circumstances, the younger of the two would be laying the foundations for her GCSE exams – the backbone of any pupil’s plans for the future. My eldest, meanwhile, would be about to sit them. Yet neither of my daughters has stepped past the school […]
We don’t need a lockdown to enforce good behaviour
The public has internalised the spirit of the rules. Now we must be free to find our way out of this. Widely reported research from King’s College London suggests that 48 per cent of people can be characterised as ‘accepting’ of lockdown (following the rules and coping reasonably well), while 44 per cent are ‘struggling’ […]
Has Coronavirus put an end to the generation wars?
The current coronavirus pandemic has revealed, or heightened, many underlying political issues – from the lingering effect of the culture wars to the consequences of fearmongering in political discourse. But one issue that seems to have bucked the trend is the generation debate. Going by much of the discussion of the last 10 years, young […]
The Corona Generation
The Covid-19 crisis will have huge social and economic implications for everybody. But it will have particular symbolic significance for the Corona Generation: the young people currently coming of age, who until now have travelled by the unimaginative label ‘Generation Z’. The Corona Generation is the one for whom schools and universities have closed their […]
The journey from self to selfie
Once upon a time (that is, before the millennium), there was no such thing as a ‘selfie’. People used cameras to capture an image of the world or the people around them. The closest they got to a selfie was when they persuaded someone else to take their photo. But the idea that photography could […]
Engaging with the Corona Generation
In recent years, we have become obsessed with generational labels as a way to make sense of tensions within society. Conflicts over economic, social, political and cultural resources are routinely expressed as conflicts between generations – in particular, the Baby Boomers, born in the two decades after the Second World War, and the Millennials, born […]
Covid-19 is not a ‘generation war’
We need intergenerational solidarity more than ever.* The Covid-19 pandemic will have huge consequences: for human life and health, for the global economy, for people’s livelihoods. Coping with these consequences largely depends on developing a strong sense of social solidarity: drawing on the ties that bind us to our communities, friends, and families, and setting […]
Stop Mugging Grandma: news and reviews
Review by Toni Calasanti of Virginia Tech: ‘Ageism, Generational Rhetoric, and the Rhetoric of “Generation”’, Contemporary Sociology (2021) 50(6), 453-459. https://doi.org/10.1177/00943061211050045a Review by Laura Isobel Paddon of Southampton University in Ageing and Society (40:4), April 2020, pp.921-922. Interview for BBC Radio 4 programme ‘OK, Boomer!’, 2 March 2020. Quoted in article by Melanie Wiseman in The Beacon Senior […]
Good things to watch and listen to during the Covid-19 crisis
I am using this page to collect together recommendations from friends about online lectures, podcasts and activities – the stuff you never had time to watch or listen to, and some for exercise or fun. It is mainly a way of keeping track of recommendations and quite random so far, but please feel free to […]