Sociology

Anthropological studies of India’s post-liberalisation middle classes have tended to focus mainly on the role of consumption behaviour in the constitution of this class group. Building on these studies, and taking class as an object of ethnographic enquiry, I argue that, over the last 20 years, class dynamics in the country have been significantly altered by the unprecedentedly important and complex role that the English language has come to play in class production and reproduction. Based on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork— conducted at commercial spoken English training centres, schools, and corporate organisations in Bangalore—I analyse the processes by which this change in class dynamics has occurred, and how it is experienced on the ground. I demonstrate how, apart from being a valuable type of class cultural capital in its own right, proficiency in English has come to play a key role in the acquisition and performance of other important forms of capital associated with middle-class identity. As a result, being able to demonstrate proficiency in English has come to be experienced as critical in order to claim and maintain a space in the middle class, regardless of the other types of class cultural capital a person possesses.

Focusing on low-cost English-medium schools, this article investigates whether the ideology of the transformative potential of English-medium education squares with most people’s experiences of this education in urban India. It shows how such schools enable socio-economic mobility among the middle classes, while also creating new forms of inequality. It argues that a meaningful evaluation of education outcomes requires understanding students’ and their parents’ experiences of an education system and its impact on their lives.

This thesis explores young people’s perceptions and practices surrounding ‘youth sexting’, particularly regarding privacy and consent. Youth sexting – involving the production and exchange of sexual images or messages via mobile phones and other communication technologies – has attracted media attention, public concern, and research and policy focus for some time, particularly regarding the perceived harmful nature of the practice (Crofts et al., 2015). This thesis situates harmful practices in terms of breaches of privacy and consent. The research is used to advocate for progressive, harm-reduction approaches to responding to youth sexting that centralise ethics, justice and equality, and give rights to sexual and bodily expression and exploration, as well as freedom from harm. Group and one-to-one interviews with young people revealed narratives of individualism and responsibilisation regarding harmful sexting practices. Intertwined were moralising discourses about harm-avoidance, which underpinned a demarcation of deserving and undeserving victims, and promoted victim-blaming. Analyses revealed however, that risk and harm was not inherent to sexting and was shaped by norms and standards surrounding gender and sexuality, and local peer group dynamics and hierarchies. The designation of some forms of bodily and sexual expression as shameful and illegitimate shaped harmful practices and were incorporated into young people’s self-concepts in ways that both reproduced and resisted established systems of meaning. The findings suggest that rather than being caused by technology, youth sexting should be understood as a complex, negotiated practice situated within young people’s peer, digital, relational, and sexual cultures. The thesis explores young people’s perspectives on addressing youth sexting, and concludes by emphasising the need to disrupt and challenge the meanings underpinning shame and stigma, and the responsibilisation of individuals to deal with inequality and harm.

The present paper explores how young people construct gendered social meanings and cultural norms surrounding sexual and bodily expression in youth sexting culture. Previous research suggests youth sexting is a gendered phenomenon in which young men are able to seek social capital through sexting, whereas young women are subject to social shaming and harassment. Drawing upon findings from group and one-to-one interviews with 41 young people aged 14–18, I show how constructs of risk, shame, and responsibility operated along gendered lines. Young people attributed agency and legitimacy to young men’s sexual practices, whereas young women were disempowered, denied legitimacy, and tasked with managing gendered risks of harm in youth sexting culture. I discuss how young women negotiated and navigated risk and shame and, in some instances, made space for safe, pleasurable sexting experiences despite and within these narratives. The accounts of two young women, who shared experiences sexting and social shaming, are presented to show some of the ways young women make sense of social meanings and cultural norms on individual and interpersonal levels. I conclude that challenging gendered harm requires a (re)legitimisation of feminine sexuality and bodily expression away from narratives of risk and shame.

Youth sexters are considered vulnerable to privacy violations in the form of unauthorized distribution, in which sexts are distributed beyond the intended recipient without the consent of the subject. This article draws on group and one-to-one interviews with young people 14 to 18 years of age living in southeastern England to show how they constructed privacy rights and obligations in sexting. The analysis suggests that their constructions were shaped by individualistic orientations to risk management, social meanings of privacy in the “digital world,” and broader norms and values regarding gender, trust, and approved conduct of behavior in intimate relationships. The article concludes that educational and community interventions on sexting with young people should deconstruct and challenge narrow ethical frameworks regarding privacy rights and obligations, and young people’s tendency to blame and responsibilize victims of privacy violations in sexting.

The internet is changing the way many of us interact and communicate. But how is it impacting on more historically traditional institutions like the British Conservative Party?

As more web-applications spring up as part of our everyday lives, how are political parties responding to these wider changes in the ways in which we interface with technology and one another?

Using David Cameron's Conservative Party as a case study, the book examines the role of specific internet technologies like blogs, email, ConservativeHome, Facebook, MyConservatives, Twitter and WebCameron in the organizational culture of the Tory Party. Benefitting from both academic and party insider perspectives, the book presents the case for the emergence of a new technological subculture within the party, namely 'Cyber Toryism'.

In the run-up to the 2015 UK General Election, social media (Web 2.0) like blogs, Facebook and Twitter seem to have become widely accepted and established modes of civic engagement. However, in the run-up to 2010, these media were newer, less understood and largely associated with younger generations. Therefore, it seems pertinent to examine the impact of the advent of these communication-based networks in the culture of the young people who were civically engaged at the time. Using, as a case study, Conservative Future, the young activist wing of the British Conservative Party, this paper presents findings drawn from qualitative data that were gathered while in the field with young Conservative participants, between 2008 and 2012. Observations suggest that there was an emergence of a technologically-centred innovation culture that helped dissolve traditional geographical and hierarchical barriers to grassroots activity. It is argued that a culture of Facebook participation evolved organically through a learning and copying behaviour within cohorts at the grassroots of Conservative Future, which in turn acted as a driver of change that impacted upon the more established characteristics of the party’s organisational culture. This change is described to be associated with a technologically-driven subculture that is argued to have been extant in the party between 2008 and 2010. The author calls this subculture “Cyber Toryism”.

Early on in the 2015 General Election cycle, the Tories publicised a MyConservatives revamp, but completely dropped it (very quietly). They have tried also to bury evidence of WebCameron and its output altogether. This raises the question of whether internet innovation in politics is primarily a tool for opposition parties, rather than parties in government. The jury is still out on that and it remains a question requiring deeper analysis over time. However, one question this paper can sheds some light on, is how the 2010 General Election e-campaign (#GE2010) compares to that in 2015 (#GE2015).

Facebook might act as an online bridge, providing a route back for some Ukippers (those that were once disaffected Tories) and facilitate their subtle reintegration into the Conservative fold.

(See page 75 of the UK Election Analysis Report 2015)