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Sociological implications

19th Nov 2009

In the wake of the University’s lat­est depart­men­tal clo­sure, Tom Pratt argues that the mer­its of the depart­ing social sci­ence sub­jects have not been suf­fi­ciently considered

A FORTNIGHT ago, the edi­tor of this news­pa­per attacked this university’s stu­dents for fail­ing to take a gen­uine inter­est in the fate of their peers — specif­i­cally the Chel­wood res­i­dents who face being re-allocated accom­mo­da­tion in the near future. How­ever, recent events would sug­gest that Nick Petrie is in fact being proved wrong. It is a shame, how­ever, that it takes the pro­posed clo­sure of a depart­ment and the result­ing destruc­tion of two degree courses to bring Birmingham’s stu­dents together in such a way.

The last few days have seen an imme­di­ate student-led response to the report which rec­om­mended the clo­sure of the Soci­ol­ogy depart­ment. A group was cre­ated on Face­book for gen­eral sup­port enti­tled ‘SAVE BIRMINGHAM SOCIOLOGY’; another, ‘Student-Staff Com­mit­tee’, allows any Soci­ol­ogy and Media and Cul­tural Stud­ies stu­dent access to the unfold­ing devel­op­ments in the sit­u­a­tion. A pro­file ded­i­cated to the cause was also set up on Twit­ter, whilst the most vis­i­ble sign of stu­dent dis­con­tent is a peti­tion, ‘Keep Soci­ol­ogy at the Uni­ver­sity of Birm­ing­ham’, which has attracted sev­eral thou­sand sig­na­tures since being started.

What is par­tic­u­larly amaz­ing is the vari­ety of sig­na­to­ries that fill the peti­tion: those who have grad­u­ated from the Uni­ver­sity of Birmingham’s Soci­ol­ogy depart­ment who have gone onto become aca­d­e­mics, esteemed schol­ars in the field from New­cas­tle to Canada and stu­dents and lec­tur­ers from other departments.

The last cat­e­gory of sig­na­to­ries should strike home. Although they do not directly study Soci­ol­ogy or Media and Cul­ture, the Uni­ver­sity com­mu­nity is clearly will­ing to sup­port the affected students.

Fur­ther­more, the clo­sure of the depart­ment could have a sig­nif­i­cant impact on other courses. From a per­sonal per­spec­tive as a third year His­tory stu­dent, I can see how the dis­ci­plines of Soci­ol­ogy and Media and Cul­tural Stud­ies are start­ing to apply to his­tor­i­cal research, or at least how they may develop in future years.

For exam­ple, writ­ers analysing the rise (and fall) of New Labour have focussed on the work of ‘spin doc­tor’ Alis­tair Camp­bell and the strate­gies he adopted in claim­ing and retain­ing the sup­port of national news­pa­pers dur­ing Tony Blair’s time in power. Recent stud­ies of gen­eral elec­tions have com­mented at some length on the media cam­paigns under­taken by polit­i­cal par­ties in their bids to win power. It’s not just the 20th cen­tury which receives this scrutiny, how­ever; recent stud­ies of the French Rev­o­lu­tion, or medieval soci­eties have focussed as much on the cul­ture of the period as on the polit­i­cal and social ele­ments of the peri­ods in question.

Turn­ing to Soci­ol­ogy, I would argue that soci­o­log­i­cal stud­ies are increas­ingly con­tribut­ing to the for­ma­tion of gov­ern­ment poli­cies, espe­cially with the many research projects into, for exam­ple, poverty across the United King­dom or the health of the pop­u­la­tion. Even in His­tory, soci­o­log­i­cal stud­ies are play­ing an impor­tant role: a friend of mine com­mented that for one of her mod­ules this year, she spends as much time read­ing from the Jour­nal of Soci­ol­ogy as she does from his­tor­i­cal publications.

Dr Hera Cook, a lec­turer in Mod­ern His­tory at the Uni­ver­sity, expands on the link between Soci­ol­ogy and His­tory: ‘Soci­ol­ogy is a vitally impor­tant dis­ci­pline which has con­tributed to our under­stand­ing of our own soci­ety. His­to­ri­ans draw on the the­ory and knowl­edge pro­duced by soci­ol­o­gists when research­ing cul­tures in the past. If the Uni­ver­sity of Birm­ing­ham is to con­tinue as a first class uni­ver­sity then it must invest in the Human­i­ties and seek to under­stand our cul­ture and soci­ety as well as to make money.’

There shouldn’t be any doubt that research from emi­nent soci­ol­o­gists con­tributes hand­somely to research in other sub­jects. If you think hard about many degrees, you may be able to iden­tify aspects of the courses where Soci­ol­ogy has played a con­sid­er­able part.

Many of the com­ments which accom­pany the peti­tion lament the clo­sure of the Soci­ol­ogy depart­ment because it has only been re-opened since 2004, with a young team of aca­d­e­mics who should go on to enjoy dis­tin­guished careers. Sec­ondly, the rep­u­ta­tion of the Uni­ver­sity of Birm­ing­ham may well take a hit because Soci­ol­ogy is one of the more pop­u­lar social sci­ences that younger stu­dents may plump for when tak­ing GCSEs and A-Levels. Fur­ther­more, as some senior aca­d­e­mics have pointed out, the dis­ci­pline of Media and Cul­ture Stud­ies was devel­oped here at Birm­ing­ham. It seems a great shame, there­fore, that the place of the subject’s ori­gin appears to want to jet­ti­son the subject.

The pro­posed clo­sure of the Soci­ol­ogy depart­ment, then, has ram­i­fi­ca­tions for the Uni­ver­sity of Birm­ing­ham as a whole. Some stu­dents face los­ing their degree course, or will have to accept a lower class of degree because the teach­ing stan­dard for their sub­jects may sud­denly drop dra­mat­i­cally as a result of less expe­ri­enced aca­d­e­mics being required to take up the man­tle left by the demise of the Soci­ol­ogy depart­ment. Other courses will suf­fer as a result of research no longer being made avail­able by the depart­ment, and the rep­u­ta­tion of the Uni­ver­sity will also be affected.

In the face of such gloomy cir­cum­stances, there is, how­ever, one pos­i­tive: the cam­paign to pre­vent the clo­sure has clearly brought together stu­dents and lec­tur­ers from all across the cam­pus, the coun­try, and even the world. The Soci­ol­ogy depart­ment clearly will not go with­out a great fight.

It should be noted that since pub­li­ca­tion there have been sev­eral devel­op­ments on this issue and as such a full con­sul­ta­tion is to take place between now and April — there will be more infor­ma­tion regard­ing this process and the devel­op­ments on the web­site over the weekend.