Tagged: ethics

Applied Sociology / Opinion / Social Theory / Sociology of Children / Sociology of Health & Illness

Can young children give or withhold consent to heart surgery? Obstacles to innovative research

When we began to research children’s consent to non-urgent heart surgery in 2019, we were surprised by the healthcare professionals’ enthusiasm for consent with the right to refuse. In the first of our 45 interviews with practitioners and related experts, an anaesthetist said: “As a group, we would like to be the best in the world at doing some kind of evidence-based consent that is great for patients and legally robust.  We’re aiming to be amazing at it…Definitely some four-year-olds...

Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture

Does the Web call time on our traditional ethical arrangements?

  Ethnography is a “particular method or sets of methods” which in its “characteristic form it involves the ethnographer participating, overtly or covertly, in people’s lives for an extended period of time; watching what happens, listening to what is said, asking questions — in fact, collecting whatever data are available to throw light on the issues that are the focus of the research” (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983: 1). Ethnography therefore allows insight into the knowledge and meanings behind the composition...

Political & Economic Sociology / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Laud Humphreys' Tearoom Trade: The Best and Worst of Sociology?

In Tearoom Trade (1970/1975), Laud Humphreys’ writes about the homosexual relations that took place in various “tearooms” (i.e., public bathrooms) in an unidentified American city during the mid- to late 1960s. By pretending to be a simple voyeur, Humphreys explains that he systematically observed these activities and even recorded the license plate numbers of a sample of tearoom participants. While the systematic observation part of his study permitted an understanding of the rules and roles, patterns of collective action, and...

Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture

Celebrating Bin Laden's Death and the Return of the Knowable World

It is only hours since President Obama announced the killing of Osama bin Laden, resulting in celebrations across the United States (in the streets, on Facebook and elsewhere). I want to point the Sociological Lens at this spontaneous and widespread cultural celebration not to argue that it is wrong or right to cheer for death, but to ask, in these first few hours, why. Beyond the obvious points surrounding Bin Laden’s involvement with the events on September 11th, 2001, I think he symbolized...

Class & Stratification / Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

OkCupid Grants Special Privileges to Attractive Users

Before you ask: I did not make this picture up.  It is a screenshot taken directly from my email.  And, yeah, this is probably a bit of inexcusable narcissism. I, like millions of other Americans (OkCupid has 500,000 active users, eHarmony has had more than 20 million registered users in its history, and Match.com sees more than 20,000 users register each day), have turned to the enigmatic world of online dating.  Being a less than affluent Ph.D. student, I naturally...

Gender & Sexuality / Political & Economic Sociology / Science & Technology / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Religion, Abortion, and the Law in the United States

  If one’s religion teaches that abortion is murder, is the believer then obligated to stop abortions from happening, by any means necessary? Today, a Kansas judge decided that this is not a viable defense strategy under the law. On May 31, Kansas resident Scott Roeder is accused of shooting and killing Dr. George Tiller. Roeder had wished to use something that has been termed the “necessity defense,” which would justify using lethal force. Although the judge’s reasoning for not...

Political & Economic Sociology / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance / Sociology of Media & Communication

Visual Culture according to the Police

by kiddingthecity It sounds more and more likely that the Police have something to do with the death of a newsagent at the rally in the City of London. Many witnesses have come forward and most importantly there is The Picture: the evidence, the forensic clue, the probatio, the real stuff judges love and on which the surveillance culture of the streets in this country has been built upon. Mr Tomlinson is on the floor, surrounded by police officers, his...

Political & Economic Sociology / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

Is this person gay?

by kiddingthecity … Is s/he British? Is this person happy? Intelligent? These are some of the strong questions participants were asked to cast their vote about when faced with the anonymous picture of a stranger in latest Christian Nold‘s provocative installation. Over 14,000 people in one month cast their vote in the ‘Community Metrics’ in  Nottingham (UK) and decide ‘live’ who of the volunteers should be deported: a sort of ‘friendly fascism’, a dystopian version of Facebook, a tease out...

Science & Technology / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

Multiple Births as Media Spectacle

by theoryforthemasses In the past week considerable debate has emerged over the birth of a set of octuplets to a California woman. Controversy has surrounded both the doctors who facilitated the births as well as the mother herself, who is single, unemployed, and has six other children. The attention that is being paid to this family by both the media and ordinary people who are eager to share their opinions on fertility treatments and parental responsibility has created nothing short...