The Sociology of Susan Boyle

Well, its holiday time still - just about- so before my big push for revision, and hopefully, in the middle of some of yours, here’s something different. Two things in the media recently have grabbed my attention: one is Susan Boyle, the other is The Apprentice.

First to Susan Boyle. So what, you are wondering, is of sociological interest in Ms Boyle?

For me, it was a great illustration of the way people are routinely judged by their appearance. When gender enters the occasion, not to mention age, and accent, sit back and watch the value-judgements fly in.

Surely, audience and judges were making some assumptions - not Simon Cowell of course; he knew all along that she’d be great. What assumptions could audience and judges have been making? Well, I’m only guessing of course, but how about these.

Susan would be useless, because:

She is not young and glamorous

She is 47,so if she was going to be a success in singing, she’d surely have done it by now

That’s just for a start. So, how nice to see them all blown away by her performance.

It’s also a good example of how people can refute the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s an interesting and indeed useful concept and it can be helpful in explaining crime and educational failure. But it can also be a little too easily applied by sociologists and there can be a tendency to overlook the fact that some people may explicitly reject judgements placed on them by teachers or other authority figures. In her own way, and in rather different circumstances, Susan Boyle provides another reminder of that point.

The Apprentice? Don’t get me started - I’ll tackle that one tomorrow.