social science sites of the week archive 27th march 2021

 Here is the latest list of new social science related publications.  

http://socialsciencecurrentwareness.blogspot.com/2021/03/government-reports-covid-march-2021.htm
  

Sounds of covid: a digital humanities project  

Created by a graduate student at Carleton University (Ottawa, Ontario), Sounds of COVID is the result of. a project to collect sounds to enable understanding of the experiences of lockdown in Canada during a pandemic. There are about 70 recordings on SoundCloud and a smaller album on the website. They include music and ambient sounds. The website also provides insight into the aims and conduct of the project.

  

CoronaDiaries project   

A major project coordinated by Dr Michael Ward, Senior Lecturer in Social Science at Swansea University which is collecting  textual, visual and creative diaries of the experiences of several hundred people with the aim of documenting  the social, economic and cultural impact of lockdowns on individual , communities  and society in general  

  

The Covid decade:  Understanding the long-term societal impact  

The British Academy published a report this week into the long-term effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on British society. There is a specific chapter relating to potential impact on higher education and universities   

  

 In the news this week: the Census. Useful historical resources include: 

 

A vision of Britain through time: A website from the Great Britain Historical Geographic Information System (GIS) Project, based at the University of Portsmouth. Includes statistical trends calculated for current local authorities, historic maps, and census reports from 1801 to 1961 with direct access to the main tables. 

 

Online Historical Population Reports (OHPR): 

This collection provides online access to the complete British population reports for Britain and Ireland from 1801 to 1937. It includes many great articles on topics and enumerators   

 

The UK Data Service provides information on the extent and access to its census materials 

 

 

  

Digital Holocaust Memory Project  

A project led by Dr Victoria Grace Walden, University of Sussex.  

It aims to map the digital Holocaust memoryscape, to consider how it relates to existing museum and archival practice and establish a network of heritage and archive professionals, academics, amateur and professional media producers, and digital audiences/users to explore potential digital futures for Holocaust memory   

The website includes surveys of the current landscape, a crowdsourced reading list, a section on Holocaust related video games and a Commemorations Archives Project which aims to create a digital archive of online commemorations held in 2020.  

  

  

The returns to undergraduate degrees by socio-economic group  

 and ethnicity   

Published this week by IFS. it considers evidence on the potential benefits of a degree by studying earnings of recent graduates in a range of subject areas. The focus is on whether  certain social class and ethnic groups get more economic benefit out of going to university. According to the website   

"The research finds that people from all socio-economic and ethnic groups benefit financially from going to university, but students from some groups benefit more than others. Among the state-educated, students from the poorest 20% of families have relatively large gains, even though their median earnings at age 30 are the lowest at only £25k for men and £21k for women. This is because we estimate that they would have earned much less still had they not gone to university. For state-educated 30-year-olds from the poorest 20% of families who did not go to university, median earnings are very low at £20k for men and £11k for women."  

  

see more on the Race scoop.it page  

  

UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2021
An extensive report with associated data files which estimates food waste at both national and regional levels. It also includes a methodology for countries to measure food waste, at household, food service and retail level, to track national progress towards 2030 and to report on related sustainable development  goals  

  

HerCity: Digital Toolbox for Sustainable, Equal and Inclusive Cities  

just launched by UNHabitat a resource which aims to make women the centre of the urban planning process. It has a methodology of 9 building blocks to make city design inclusive. They guide the users through the assessment phase (block 1-3), the design phase (block 4-6), and the implementation phase (block 7-9). Every blocks contains a number of activities with steps to follow, and associated tools including checklists, calendars, agendas, manuals, forms, boards, apps, templates, surveys, and visualization services.  

there are also over 40 case studies of hercity projects which can be displayed by geographic area.  

  

  

Digital works Oral Histories 

Digital works is an  arts and educational charity   

That works with communities, to create participatory media projects many are oral histories. the site includes details and films relating to  a large number of specific examples many of which are London based and include marginalised groups such as Working class and BAME communities, examples include:  

 

 

an oral history of bus workers in London 

Stories on leisure from Dorset 

  

Look out for More news and positive stories on twitter every day  

@socialsciencec2

Heather Dawson