Work and Bears

Laurie Taylor on Thinking Allowed has some stuff this week on work and teddy bears. Well, I was more interested in the stuff on work, but I guess bears could be a useful addition to your material on the social construction of childhood.

To sound - briefly - like a grumpy old man, I remember the days when I studied for an O level in sociology and we did a bit on work and leisure and it shed quite a bit of light on things for me. So throw away your scheme of work for a few lessons and rig up some lesson plans on work. Alienation, human and scientific management, EP Thompson, Braverman, technological determinism, and of course, globalisation, fordism, just-in-time management. Taylor’s programme can maybe provide some ideas or light relief. But surely every sociology AS or GCSE student, should know a bit about the sociology of work? Shouldn’t they?