"Guilty," freedom, strength, relief.

Joanne Alldritt "Guilty," freedom, strength, relief. As soon as the judge said this single, amazingly powerful word, these forgotten feelings rushed through me. I had finally got my revenge. The confusion lead me to let out tearful sighs of joy and sudden outcries of relief. The man who had made my adult life a misery and ruined my teenage memories didn't have any domination over my thoughts or feelings anymore. From going ahead with the prosecution I felt satisfied that no other innocent teenager or harmless child would have to worry about this particular evil, pathetic man ever going near him or her again. It had taken twenty years for me to work up the courage to prosecute but it was worth it. My personality is now like it was, I'm outgoing, less sensitive and I've learnt to trust people. I just hope no one has to go through what I did. When my mother sent me to Lowood boarding school after "average results" in my first year at a state school, I found it difficult to make new friends because firstly the clothes that my mother insisted I wore at weekends were not the most fashionable and the fact that I was the weakest academically in my class resulted in low self esteem. So I was thirteen and had few friends so to speak of. I could only assume that it was because of the "introvert personality," my mother always said I had. She implied that my shortage of friends

  • Word count: 1276
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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"The British media's coverage of asylum seekers and refugees is characterised by stereotyping, exaggeration and inaccurate language" - Discuss.

"The British media's coverage of asylum seekers and refugees is characterised by stereotyping, exaggeration and inaccurate language." The quote above comes from "It's Official: media coverage of asylum is distorted and unfair" This was a piece of writing, analysing how the media displays asylum seekers as misfits and outcasts. The analysis was written by a Cardiff University research team, which studied the media content on asylum coverage in depth, for a period of 12 weeks. In their research during this 12-week period they found 14 negative front-page articles based on asylum seekers in Britain. The majority of these front pages were in the Daily Mail and Daily Express, both of these mid-market tabloids are aimed at a right wing Tory biased audience, who perceive the asylum issue in many ways. The media's articles on asylum seekers uses a negative tone in the headlines and the text, it uses negative connotations to represent asylum system as overburden and intruders, for example the Daily Mail's headline on Tuesday, December 16th states: "£16,000 That's what the average asylum seekers family gets a year in handouts (and it's all tax free!)". The Newspaper has written £16000 in this bold font to represent it as a huge amount; the £16000 takes up half the page and is there to cast the reader's eye indicating what a significant amount of money it is. The headline also

  • Word count: 2162
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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"The British media's coverage of asylum seekers and refugees is characterised by stereotyping, exaggeration and inaccurate language." Discuss this statement, with reference to at least two newspaper articles.

"The British media's coverage of asylum seekers and refugees is characterised by stereotyping, exaggeration and inaccurate language." Discuss this statement, with reference to at least two newspaper articles. A Cardiff University research team found that in the 12-week period studied in depth, there were fourteen negative front page articles on asylum, more than one per week. The majority of these front pages were in the Daily Mail and the Daily Express. In the two articles we studied, both had negative representations of asylum seekers and gave the audience a biased opinion of refugees seeking asylum and benefits in the UK, just as the statement suggests. The articles use an unflattering use of language to outline what the Mail and Express call an 'overburdening' and 'troublesome' problem. Stereotypical images are portrayed in these newspapers and readers would imagine their 'average asylum seeker' as undeserving, unemployed and just 'scrounging' money from the government. The Mail and Express rely heavily on politicians and dwell on negative statistics, and examples, to represent asylum seekers in a pessimistic light. The articles continually highlighted the amount of money given in 'handouts' as a huge sum of money and other valid comments [such as family sizes] appeared irrelevant. For instance, it seemed that the bold "£16,000 in tax free handouts" title makes the

  • Word count: 1298
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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This essay based on wide background information. The writer of this essay tries to show the Hungarian stereotypes through theoretical view, statistical facts and mainly his own thoughts.

Name: Kornél Krámer Course: BABL Year: III. Module: Business Communication Module leader: Ildikó Polyák Date: Monday, 20th January 2003 Hungarian Stereotypes Content of pages Content of pages 2 Introduction 3 Theory of stereotypes 3 About Hungarians 4 Hungarians about Hungarians 4 Hungarian stereotypes 6 Foreigners about Hungarians 7 Conclusion 8 Bibliography 10 Introduction This essay based on wide background information. The writer of this essay tries to show the Hungarian stereotypes through theoretical view, statistical facts and mainly his own thoughts. It must be mentioned that the writer is a Hungarian person, so the ideas are more original and the essay shows the inner information about Hungarian society. The essay starts with a theoretical approach of stereotypes, then it continues with an introduction to Hungarian stereotypes. This part of the essay contains findings and analyses of certain questionnaires. Interesting things of Hungarian stereotypes in a more experience approach close this part. Theory of stereotypes1 Social psychology just like other modern disciplines rooted in sociological and philosophical customs. From the Enlightenment social psychology inherited two basic dilemmas: 1. universalism versus relativism; 2. action versus cognition. Ad 1.: The Enlightenment's philosophy says, that every man is a personality and the member of

  • Word count: 2083
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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'White-collar crime never hurt anybody'. Discuss

Assignment 2 - 'White-collar crime never hurt anybody'. Discuss We have entered the age of white-collar crime. A time when the words thieves and businessmen go hand in hand. White-collar criminals don't get their hands dirty in their work. They use their heads to get what they want instead of using a little muscle. But are these criminals are just as dangerous as the rapists and murderers? White-collar crime is the category of crime that tends to be committed by professionals, people who know how to bend the rules within the system and take what doesn't belong to them, without getting caught. Securities Fraud, Insider Trading, Bank Fraud, Tax Fraud, and Money Laundering are all examples of white-collar crime. The more common White Collar crime includes: Bank Fraud: Defrauding banks of their money, Cellular Phone Fraud: The unauthorized use, tampering, or manipulation of a cellular phone or service. Computer fraud: Where computer hackers steal information sources contained on computers such as: bank information, credit cards, and personal information.(Levi 2001) There are some more types of this crime such as; Counterfeiting, this is when someone copies or imitates an item without having been authorized to do so and passes the copy off for the genuine or original item. Counterfeiting is often associated with money however can also be associated with designer clothing,

  • Word count: 1800
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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Is religion a conservative force or a force for social change?

Is religion a conservative force or a force for social change? Functionalists, Marxists and Feminists have generally dismissed the idea that religion can cause social change in society. They believe that religion acts as a conservative force, i.e. that it prevents social change. However, if any change is going to happen, it will be changes in society that shape religion. Religion as a conservative force can be defined in two ways; the first way of defining religion as a conservative force is to refer to religion as preventing change and maintaining the status quo. The functionalist perspective and Marxists perspective both provide arguments to support this definition of religion as a conservative force. Functionalist Emile Durkheim supports the idea of religion as a conservative force with the idea of a collective conscience, which is the shared morals and beliefs which unite society. Durkheim believed "religion promotes social solidarity... which unites into one single moral community." This example of religion acting as a conservative force can be seen in Italy, where the Catholic religion binds the population into one moral community, preventing social change and maintaining the status quo. Another key idea by functionalists to support the argument that religion acts as a conservative force is how religion supports society through times of life crisis. This idea was

  • Word count: 1313
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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Families and Households are structurally diverse

Sociology Coursework Hypothesis and Aim: "Families and households at Glenthorne High School are structurally diverse" The aim of this research is to investigate whether families and households at Glenthorne High School are diverse; to see whether there are a variety of families and household structures. In order to carry out this research I will conduct a questionnaire asking pupils what type of family structure they live in. I am interested to investigate this because I personally have lived in a variety of different household structures, which is in agreement with the Rapports research into family diversity. Word Count: 91 Context and Concepts: The Rapport's believe that the nuclear family; a family consisting of an adult male and female with one or more children, own or adopted (George Murdock). The nuclear family is becoming less significant in contemporary society according to the Rapports; however this is only one aspect of diversity. Rhona and Robert Rapoport thought of five distinct elements of family diversity; these five are Organisational Diversity, Culture Diversity, Class Diversity, Life-Course and Cohort. I will be focusing my research on the Organisational (Structural) Diversity. In agreement with my hypothesis the Rapports have suggested that the Organisational diversity of the family has increased over the last 17 years; social trends research

  • Word count: 1221
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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Describe the different purposes of education according to different sociological perspectives.

Describe the different purposes of education according to different sociological perspectives. Education as a whole is a vital part of socialisation, and has been called the 'secondary' socialisation after the family. Functionalism confirms this theory with the idea that education is another social system within the structure, helping the society to function. Parsons states that the school compensates for the defective socialisation sometimes present, especially in dysfunctional families. For example some families may fail to instate the morals of society and so that is left up to the school. Merton continues the theory by concluding that within the family the status is ascribed and therefore does not reflect the real world. In the school status has to be achieved and is only done so on merits providing a better preparation for the outside world. This is a preferable socialisation as the wider society expects and relies upon achieved status. Ottoway & North suggest that the schools are useful because they pass on knowledge and skills to the next generation, this is to keep society functioning. It also sustains and in the long term will improve present knowledge. Moore & Davies back up this theory stating that the school provides an 'economic placement'. Through qualifications, it allocates placements of individuals into the employment structure. Durkheim incorporates all

  • Word count: 640
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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Deviance in Society A person would be considered to be acting deviantly in society if they are violating what the significant social norm in that particular culture

Deviance in Society A person would be considered to be acting deviantly in society if they are violating what the significant social norm in that particular culture is. What causes humans to act certain ways is a disputed topic among researchers for some time now. There are three types of researchers that have tried to answer this question. There is the psychological answer, biological answer, and the sociological answer. With all of the studies that have been performed, no one group has come up with an exact reason to why people behave deviantly. Although, sociologists' theories have not been disproved as often as the psychologists' and biologists' theories because their experiments are too hard to define and no one definition for deviance is agreed upon by all experimenters (Pfuhl, 40). My own curiosity to find out what the influences are behind deviant behaviour is the purpose for this paper. We have already discussed this topic during class in part two, chapter four of the textbook which explains deviance and crime. This section talks more about deviance being a learned behaviour. I wanted to find out more information to see if biological factors are also behind this kind of behaviour. The most knowledge acquired for why people act deviantly is from the sociological perspective. There is need for more research, if possible, in the psychological and biological

  • Word count: 2417
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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What was the impact of the 1829 Metropolitan Police Act?

Conflicts and Contradictions in Crime 2500 words essay 2 What was the impact of the 1829 Metropolitan Police Act? The Maintenance of Law and Order before the 1829 Metropolitan Act established. Authorities had few resources to cope with riot, crime and disorder. Country parishes and smaller market towns had constables and the local watch and ward; this was the old Tudor system. In London, the Bow Street Runners were set up in 1742. Troops were used to keep order. Local militias were used for local problems and spies were used to track down those who were suspected of disaffection. The industrial revolution put new pressures on society, leading to violence. Collective living led to collective organisation, which helped to create social disorder on a larger scale. The Penal Code was severe with almost two hundred capital offences and other punishments including transportation. This actually encouraged more serious crime as evidenced by the expression, "I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb". However, prisons were still a bad place to be, even after Peel's reforms of the 1820s. As Home Secretary, he undertook a refurbishment of the prisons and also a large scale reform of the penal code. Eventually prisons did improve although much of the pioneering work was done by people such as Sir Samuel Romily and Elizabeth Fry. Debate about the creation of a standing police

  • Word count: 1807
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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