A2 Social Inequality - Danny Dorling

Seeing Social Inequality through the eyes of Danny Dorling, social geographer.

(As our class may not run today due to a perfect storm of external factors beyond our control, here are a series of tasks for you to investigate and make notes on, based around the work of social researcher Danny Dorling).


Task 1: Read through the simple comic illustration in the following slide deck.

http://www.slideshare.net/GeoSaSI/theories-of-potential-and-the-creation-of-inequality

Question 1: (Slides 1 to 13) How likely is it that when they have children of their own, Richard and Paula's children will have lives that follow the basic trends of their parents' lives? Would it generally be the case that successive generations will tend to pass down the same or similar societal factors to the next generation in their family?

Question 2: (Slides 18 to 30) Is poverty (of wealth; of opportunity; etc.) handed down from generation to generation through income gaps (slide 17)? Through labelling (slides 18 to 21)? Through unpredictable events (slides 22 to 24)? Through genetics (slides 25 to 30)?


Task 2: Read through the following slide deck and make notes on what Dorling sees as the changing trends in how we define social injustice:

http://www.slideshare.net/GeoSaSI/injustice-why-social-inequality-persists

Question 1: What did we used to think that the main beliefs were?

Question 2: What do we think that they are now?

Question 3: Why does it matter that this set of beliefs might have changed?

Question 4: What conclusions can we draw about social inequality from the information presented here?

Question 5: What don't we see presented here that might be useful to look at?



Task 3: Does the following slide deck provide better / more relevant data to evidence the trends that Dorling is describing? :

http://www.slideshare.net/GeoSaSI/injustice-why-social-inequality-persists-3015104

Question 1: Take one example of data that is well-presented and which appears to be relevant to the topic, and evaluate the relevance of the data/evidence.

Question 2: Now try to find an example of a poorly-presented or less relevant piece of data and evaluate why it is insufficient and what could be added or changed to improve it.



Task 4: What patterns can you see in the data presented here? What evaluations can you make of the visible methods that were used to gather the data? What else would you have liked to see provided?

http://www.slideshare.net/GeoSaSI/injustice-why-social-inequality-still-persists

Question 1: See if you can make a statement about data patterns for three of the items of data presented.

Question 2: Now see if you can make a series of evaluations about the data methods used for those three items.



Task 5: You can also watch Danny Dorling present a talk at the RSA based on his findings (50 minutes):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBzYYeAolAA