Thinking Allowed
Episodes
Ambient religion - Poverty and social work
29 Feb 2012
Contributed by Lukas
"poor mentality", "placidly bovine", "volubly unreachable", "feeble minded" - just some of the terms used by social workers as they tried to describe ...
22/02/2012
22 Feb 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In 1980 there were around 300,000 students in forty-six universities, now there are some two and a quarter million students studying in 130 universiti...
Citizens without Frontiers - Monogamy in men
15 Feb 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Taylor considers why men 'cheat' in relationships. 78% of young male students have been unfaithful to their current partners according to the s...
Obesity - Cruel Optimism
08 Feb 2012
Contributed by Lukas
We inhabit a precarious world of crisis and calamity which mocks the post war promise of upward mobility, social equality and job security. We remain ...
The Politics of Alcohol - Cooperation
01 Feb 2012
Contributed by Lukas
'Sprezzatura' is an Italian word describing a nonchalant effortless style which conceals the skill and artistry involved in doing something. It is a q...
Conspiracy theories - International suffering
25 Jan 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Do you remember the moon landings? Up to 20% of American believe they never happened. When it comes to 9/11 the public suspicion is even greater. Poll...
Stag tourism - Men and childbirth
18 Jan 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Vomiting, urinating openly, dressing up as women and public nudity - some of the features of the Stag Tour which show a new kind of masculinity, claim...
Cosmetic tourism - Debt 5,000 years
11 Jan 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In Britain the market for cosmetic surgery is now estimated to be worth about £900 million per year, and world-wide it is growing fast too, with peop...
Uniforms and status in hospitals - Cities under siege
04 Jan 2012
Contributed by Lukas
How important is the way we dress for work? Laurie speaks to Stephen Timmons who has studied the impact on a hospital of removing professional markers...
Home Life 4: Shared Home
28 Dec 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Is there an age in which people should couple-up and settle down? Laurie Taylor visits the home of 6 young people who are extending their student shar...
Madness - Anti Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis
21 Dec 2011
Contributed by Lukas
The Anti Psychiatry movement of the 1960s, pioneered by R.D. Laing, asserted that societal ills were at the root of mental illness. Insanity was there...
Tipping points
14 Dec 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Taylor explores the idea of the Tipping Point using a multidisciplinary project at Durham University as a springboard to examine what tipping p...
Parents, Teens and the Culture of Sex: The Claims of Parenting
07 Dec 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Taylor examines research into the advice offered to parents with Judith Suissa from the Institute of Education and Frank Furedi from Kent Unive...
Grammar Schools and Social Mobility; The Opera Fanatic
30 Nov 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Taylor explores opera fanatics at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires and compares them to fans in Cardiff, with Professor Claudio Benzecry from t...
Older gays in rural areas; Protest over art and culture in America
23 Nov 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Protests against art and culture occur every day across America. Conservatives object to artworks deemed blasphemous or obscene; liberals rally agains...
Race and the Seaside - The Brain
16 Nov 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Taylor examines the limits of science and the machine age with writer Bryan Appleyard and philosopher John Gray and asks whether we are in dang...
Power Restoration After Hurricane Ike - White Middle Class Identity In Urban Schools
09 Nov 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Taylor explores new research examining the motives of middle class parents who deliberately send their children to failing or under-performing ...
Kissing men - Decline of violence in history
02 Nov 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Taylor explores Professor Steven Pinker's notion of a decline in human violence with Anthony O'Hear, Professor of Philosophy at the University ...
Muslim women's basketball - Still life
26 Oct 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Is tradition under threat from capitalism, or are we overly negative about the cultural impact of globalisation? Henrietta Moore challenges what she s...
Becoming Yellow - Journalist bias
19 Oct 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Taylor explores impartiality in TV political interviewing and he examines how the colour 'yellow' became applied to people of Asian origin. Pr...
Migration - Music and Politics
12 Oct 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Taylor explores new research that resonates in society. In the recent Arab Spring a Syrian singer has his vocal chords cut after singing at pro...
Surnames - War, Politics and comic strip Superheroes
05 Oct 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Taylor talks to Marc DiPaolo and Matthew Sweet about the relationship between war, politics and comic strip superheroes. He also examines the i...
Tour guide - Changing incomes
28 Sep 2011
Contributed by Lukas
New research compares income distribution in the UK with a multi storey apartment building in which the poorest dwell in the basement, the richest occ...
Understanding Suicide - Families, Secrets And Memories
21 Sep 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Taylor explores the latest research into how society works. He examines a new book seeking to understand suicide and talks to a sociologist abo...
Tales from the Field - Beauty capital
14 Sep 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Being beautiful apparently brings big dividends: "The total effect of facial attractiveness on income is roughly equal to that of educational qualific...
Home Life 3: Nuclear Household
07 Sep 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Thinking Allowed explores the changing nature of home in a 3 part summer series recorded in the homes of our listeners. Who do we live with, how do ou...
Home Life 2: Single Person Household
31 Aug 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Thinking Allowed explores the changing nature of home in a 3 part summer series recorded in the homes of our listeners. Who do we live with, how do ou...
Home Life 1: Multi-Generational Household
24 Aug 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Thinking Allowed explores the changing nature of home in a 3 part summer series recorded in the homes of our listeners. Who do we live with, how do ou...
Blame the parents? - Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong
18 Aug 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Are we right to blame the parents? Is there anything they could do? Laurie Taylor speaks to two researchers behind a massive investigation into the fa...
Children, sex and mobile phones - Terror of history
10 Aug 2011
Contributed by Lukas
What role does the mobile phone have in showing off, hooking up and getting dumped? Laurie talks to Emma Bond about her new study into how young peopl...
The mummy's curse - Death photography
03 Aug 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Taylor discusses the mummy's curse and other Oriental myths with Marina Warner and Roger Luckhurst. The Ancient Egyptians had no real concept o...
Creating capabilities
27 Jul 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Development of a country is conventionally measured by GDP, but that can mask a growing inequality in that nation and makes no reference to freedoms, ...
Privacy and parenting by mobile phone.
20 Jul 2011
Contributed by Lukas
What is personal, what is confidential and what is private? These are all questions which are addressed in a new sociological study of the nature of p...
Liverpool Riots - Children and Politics
13 Jul 2011
Contributed by Lukas
30 years ago riots broke out in Liverpool which lead to 160 arrests and 258 police officers needing hospital treatment. The four days of street battle...
Comedy capital - Work's intimacy
06 Jul 2011
Contributed by Lukas
British comedy, from Music Hall to TV sitcom, was once a democratic medium. Humour united people otherwise divided by class and education. But new res...
Chavs - Ageing Goths
29 Jun 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Have the working class in modern Britain become objects of fear, scorn and ridicule? That's the claim of Owen Jones who joins Laurie and Imogen Tyler ...
The Politics of Sleep - Women Who Kill
22 Jun 2011
Contributed by Lukas
One third of us now think we are sleep deprived. Why should that be? Who loses the most and how is society reacting? Laurie is joined by Stephen Willi...
HG Wells, Utopias, Paraphernalia
15 Jun 2011
Contributed by Lukas
HG Wells was so involved in establishing sociology in this country that he wrote to Prime Minister Balfour to ask for a special endowment so he could ...
08/06/2011
08 Jun 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Dirt is dust, soil, refuse, excrement, bacteria, filth, sleaze, slime, smut. How easily the word changes its meaning from the physical to the moral. I...
Household breakup in New Orleans - Communist memories
01 Jun 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Hurricane Katrina led to the compulsory evacuation of all the residents of New Orleans. They were sent to shelters in distant destinations ranging fro...
Playboy - Celebrity politics
25 May 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Carrie Pitzulo, the author of a new history of Playboy claims it has "a surprisingly strong record of support for women's rights and the modernisation...
Cemetery Taboo - The City
18 May 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Cities are growing at an enormous rate all over the world. As they wrestle with overcrowding, pollution, resource vulnerability and an increasing gulf...
Russian Children in Custody - Paranormal Media
11 May 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Why is modern media teeming with vampires, witches, ghosts and ghouls? Laurie Taylor explores representations of the paranormal. Also, how Russia deal...
The Poor on Poverty and Radical Gardening
04 May 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Gardening is the epitome of a peaceful pasttime, associated as it is with semi-somnolent suburban weekends, the sound of hedges being carefully clippe...
Craft and Community
27 Apr 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Is DIY culture and home improvement linked to the ideals of John Ruskin? David Gauntlett, author of Making is Connecting believes it is and he contend...
Demise of a Welsh steel town - Sexual politics of ballroom dancing (BSA 60th Anniversary)
20 Apr 2011
Contributed by Lukas
A special edition marking the British Sociological Association's 60th anniversary. Laurie Taylor considers some of the seminal figures who've changed ...
Catholic Police Officers in Northern Ireland - Facebook
13 Apr 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In the wake of the murder of Ronan Kerr, a Catholic police officer in Omagh, Laurie talks to Dr Mary Gethins about her research into the Catholic poli...
Streetlife - Performing politics in the square
06 Apr 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In 1905 Russians gathered at 6 different points to march on the Winter Palace and the streetscape of St Petersburg contributed enormously to their suc...
Mafias - Live Music
30 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Woodstock did not have a sponsor, people flooded to Hyde Park for a free concert from the Rolling Stones but now a top price ticket to see Bon Jovi - ...
The Impact of the Temperance Movement - The New North
23 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Will power and prosperity shift to the frozen North? A new book predicts that Iceland, Greenland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Russia will be the ben...
Stuart Hall
16 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
The Prime Minister recently criticised what he called 'state multiculturalism' and said it had failed, arguing that Britain needs a stronger national ...
Outsourced Cultures - Happiness Letters
09 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In the Indian call centre or 'outsourcing' industry, workers are trained to emulate the American or British workers which they have replaced. They cha...
Ethical capital - The Burden of Happiness
02 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
The British government is seeking to develop a way to accurately measure the happiness of the population. In France such a gauge already exists, but i...
Irregular and undocumented workers - America's death penalty
23 Feb 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Every country in the Western world has abandoned the use of capital punishment in the name of civilisation and humanity. Yet in the USA, dozens of sta...
Islam and capitalism - Sex before the sexual revolution
16 Feb 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Sexual Intercourse began in I963, according to Philip Larkin's 'Annus Mirabilis'. But what of the dark ages before the sexual revolution? A new study ...
Working men's health practices - Plastic surgery in Brazil
09 Feb 2011
Contributed by Lukas
With a culture which equated health with beauty, Brazil has developed the biggest cosmetic surgery industry in the world. Public clinics often offer c...
02/02/2011
02 Feb 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Britain and Ireland have always lagged far behind the rest of Western Europe in terms of second home ownership. But, MPs apart, there is a relentless ...
26/01/2011
26 Jan 2011
Contributed by Lukas
People have often referred to conflicts between the concepts we use to understand the best way to live - ideas like Liberty, Equality, Justice, Democr...
19/01/2011
19 Jan 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Committing crime in West Belfast carries a double jeopardy. As well as the police, there are the paramilitaries to look out for. Between 1973 and 2007...
Cosmopolitanism - Dietetics
12 Jan 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Many of our global problems - from climate change to terrorism - require international not local solutions. Yet the world is increasingly fractured by...
Softer masculinity in the sixth form - Dr Who
05 Jan 2011
Contributed by Lukas
The Daleks are obsessed with racial purity and dedicated to a policy of genocide: they represent the Nazis. The Jagrafess is a loathsome alien purveyi...
Utopia
29 Dec 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Taylor talks to Professor Russell Jacoby, Professor Ash Amin, Professor Barbara Graziosi and The Bishop of Whitby, Martin Warner, about whether...
Class at Christmas
22 Dec 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, children gathered beneath a sparking tree, a table groaning with turkey.....the cliches of the season are as alive...
'Over by Christmas' - Race, Sport and Politics
15 Dec 2010
Contributed by Lukas
When Jack Johnson became heavy-weight champion of the world and then knocked out the 'Great White Hope' Jim Jeffries in 1910, riots and celebrations b...
Cuban Cure - Moral Panics
08 Dec 2010
Contributed by Lukas
With the huge investment needed and patents which have the potential to generate a lot of money, biochemistry is perhaps the most capitalistic strain ...
Politically connected firms - Gangs and Territory
01 Dec 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Laurie Taylor explores the connections between politics and business with economist Mara Faccio, who talks about her new research into the s...
Civic Core - Public convenience
24 Nov 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Taylor talks to Professor Harvey Molotch from New York University about his book examining public conveniences from a sociological, architectur...
INCIVILITY - AK-47 (Kalashnikov)
17 Nov 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Taylor talks to Pulitzer Prize winner C.J Chivers, a former US Marine and currently a journalist at the New York Times about the cultural, soci...
Book publishing - Active Citizenship
10 Nov 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Taylor talks to Cambridge sociologist Professor John Thompson about his book 'Merchants of Culture' which approaches the US/UK publishing trade...
Supermax - Western Rule
03 Nov 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Taylor explores the growth of high security prisons in America alongside the increased use of solitary confinement with criminologist Dr Sharon...
Happy families? - Science's first mistake
27 Oct 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Was there ever a golden age of the family? Political debates about the family often invoke a norm of family life in which marriages lasted and childre...
Global higher education - Homophobia and football
20 Oct 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Taylor examines some new research about homophobia and football and talks to Professor Ellis Cashmore from Staffordshire University about how f...
Economic migration and happiness - Hairdressing and emotional labour
13 Oct 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Taylor asks whether migrants who move to another country for economic reasons are likely to increase their levels of happiness with higher inco...
Drugs trial calamity - McCarthy stigma
06 Oct 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Laurie Taylor looks at new research dealing with the McCarthy period in US History when actors and artists found themselves unable to work h...
Liverpool Football Club - Au Pairs
29 Sep 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Taylor explores the different experiences of au pairs in the UK and finds that the ( predominantly ) girls view of the families they work for i...
Secrets of Capitalism - Religion and Science
22 Sep 2010
Contributed by Lukas
The United States does not have the highest living standard in the world - The washing machine has changed the world more than the internet - People i...
Eavesdropping - CCTV in schools
15 Sep 2010
Contributed by Lukas
From Hitchcock's 'Rear Window' to Facebook and Twitter, from Soviet Spies to Parisian cafes, eavesdropping is a universal phenomenon. John Locke, who ...
British Society of Criminology Conference at Leicester University
08 Sep 2010
Contributed by Lukas
When is a crime a 'hate crime', and what does that term actually mean? How has living on what other people throw away become a subject for criminologi...
French culture - Network Nudge
01 Sep 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Has French culture become provincial and inward looking? France aspires to be a global cultural power. But a new book - 'The Death of French Culture' ...