Programme full

Stream Plenaries and Special Sessions
WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015 17:45-18:45
two key questions 1) the problematisation of a specific human difference - an accredited difficulty with reading and 2)
the subsequent creation of an impairment category, analysed as technology of power. He argued that the clinical
criteria that formed 'dyslexia' were then negotiated in relation to rationalities concerned with capitalising the population
and resultant shifts in the government of literacy. Campbell's argument is that through understanding the genealogy of
specific impairment categories we can map the interplay of different rationalities and the circulation of capital in the
formation of' ableist' agendas and the constitution of a disabling society - throwing light upon values that regulate the
lives of disabled people today. His talk will draw upon this work.
Lifecourse
C236, CHARLES OAKLEY BUILDING
CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE AGE OF SILVER: PARADOXES AND AMBIGUITIES
Civil society remains a contested term. A number of scholars have suggested that civil society forms are based
increasingly on ethical and rights based concerns. Moreover, the values of persuasion, influence and charity that may
have previously dominated civil society organisations (CSOs) are being replaced by new social networks of trust,
reflexivity and reciprocity. This is happening in the context of continued economic and political crises that are having
profound and harmful effects on CSOs. Such issues throw up challenges for researchers interested in social
participation and volunteering in later life. Research has focused on how engagement in retirement leads to mutually
beneficial effects for the well-being of older people and their communities. Evidence suggests that older volunteers are
likely to come from ‘younger’ and ‘healthier’ older groups, are better educated, religious, and have higher social status.
However, research does not appear to take account of the changes in civil society that are postulated by theoretical
writings on the topic. It focuses instead on the relationship between participation and indicators of successful ageing. It
is important to examine this critically because, as some writers suggest, the promotion of civic engagement and
volunteering among older people should not be assumed to be benign; rather the rhetoric in this area implicitly lets
governments off the hook in providing for health and social needs. This paper will draw links between theoretical
literature on civil society forms and social participation in later life and highlight areas of contention and possible
avenues for future research.
Rees Jones, I.
(Cardiff University)
Ian Rees Jones is Professor of Sociological Research at Cardiff University and Director of the Wales Institute of Social
& Economic Research, Data & Methods (WISERD) and is leading the ESRC WISERD Civil Society Centre
(http://www.wiserd.ac.uk/). He is also Co-Investigator on a large ESRC funded study of dementia and the Wales
Administrative Data Research Centre. He has published extensively on Inequalities in Health, Ageing and Later Life,
Lifestyles and Social Relations, Class, Community and Social Change and Transparency and Trust in Health and
Welfare. He is a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales and of the UK Academy of Social Sciences. He is an editor
of Sociology of Health and Illness Monograph Series editor for the journal.
Chair: Wendy Martin (Brunel University)
Race, Ethnicity and Migration
CARNEGIE LECTURE THEATRE, CHARLES OAKLEY BUILDING
How Irish Catholics Became Scottish
Virdee, S.
(University of Glasgow)
RACE, ETHNICITY AND RACISM IN SCOTLAND
Sociologists and others have been engaged in a sustained and sometimes heated debate about the social position of,
and inequalities faced, by those of Irish Catholic descent in contemporary Scotland. On the whole, this debate has
been marked by an absence of any sustained analysis of the historical conditions and social forces that might help us
to better understand this present, and particularly how we got here. In rejecting this obsession with the present - a
failing that David Inglis has described as characteristic of British sociology more generally over the past two decades –
I develop a historically-situated explanation that will identify the key social actors and institutions that helped facilitate,
over the course of the twentieth century, the relative ‘integration’ of a social group that had once been deemed
29 BSA Annual Conference 2015
Glasgow Caledonian University