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Out of curiosity I followed the link Dorothy posted on the list.
Listening to the first couple of minutes and thinking back to the chap I 
heard giving a lecture as part of the 70th celebration I thought, "If that's 
what academics go through regularly I'm glad I was a lorry driver".

I've heard more informative and inspiring talks from the late lamented Jack 
Dash (London docker's leader).

I will be honest, I gave up after seven minutes as it had taken him until 
then to adjust his dress and convey three facts and a criticism which could 
have been done in the first forty five seconds or so.

Lying in bed last night the image was in my mind and I realised thinking 
back over those two talks that they were the academic equivalent of the 
plumber or builder sucking his teeth and saying "What idiot did that job 
last time?



Bob (Contributor)



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "SS Duncan" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 2:47 PM
Subject: Re: [MASSOBS] Re-use of MO Sex Survey material


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>
> I am unfamiliar with the British Library MO archive, but I have used the
> Sussex 'Little Kinsey' archive. And yes, the ancillary material was as
> informative as the survey itself (the final, cleaned-up chapter drafts 
> were
> reprinted in Liz Stanley's Sex Surveyed in 1995). This includes editorial
> notes, comments and deletion (particularly of what was seen as salacious);
> the pilot survey; field notes; respondents' attached letters; and some
> ethnographic material on 'a homosexual group' and on 'lesbians'. Peter
> Redman focusses on the limitations of the small, if illuminating, national
> panel responses to two directives about sexual attitudes and behaviour. 
> But
> taking these together with the national 'street sample', the accompanying
> postal surveys of 'opinion leaders' (clergymen, doctors and teachers),the
> ancillary material, and also Geoffrey Gorer's almost contemporary and
> parallel 1950 survey (published as Exploring English Character in 1955),
> there is a mass of rich material on personal life in 1949/ 50.
>
> Incidentally, while Peter helpfully highlights the problems of mediation,
> both contemporary and present day, I think he is wrong about the MO 
> editors'
> missing some women's accounts of their dissatisfaction with sex and
> marriage. If anything this seems overstressed, although I think Gorer does
> this more than MO (he has pages of quotes and commentary on this). 
> Possibly
> this reflects a sort of 'simplified Freudianism' of the time, where sexual
> satisfaction was seen as essential for personal happiness - particularly
> strong in some of the other investigations of the time like Slater and
> Woodsides' 1951 study of marital relationships.
>
> ----------
> Simon Duncan
> Professor in Comparative Social Policy
> Centre for Applied Social Research
> Ashfield Bldg.
> University of Bradford
>
>
> Bradford BD7 1DP, UK
> -----Original Message-----
> From: A discussion and announcement list for the Mass-Observation 
> community
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dorothy Sheridan
> Sent: 23 January 2013 10:52
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [MASSOBS] Re-use of MO Sex Survey material
>
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>
> Dear all,
>
> Just picked up a video from a session in December at the Open University's
> Centre for Citizenship, Identity and Governance (CCIG) on the re-use of
> data. It's Peter Redman talking about the hazards and benefits of
> re-examining the 1949 Mass Observation  "Little Kinsey" survey material.
> Much of what he says has been said before about MO and statistical
> representativeness and indeed, much of what he says, re-framed more
> historiographically, could be (and should be) said about all re-use of 
> data.
>
> Link:
> <http://www.open.ac.uk/ccig/media/peter-redman-on-mass-observation>
>
> I hope he won't mind me saying that there is a slight tinge of "they were 
> so
> biased then but we know better now" to his presentation. Not that I 
> disagree
> with him entirely, but I feel he is very normative about how so-called
> rigourous research should  be done whereas I'd want to argue that much of
> the pleasure and reward in reinterpreting social research data is grasping
> the cultural and historical frames that have been used - whether it was 
> done
> in 1949 or in 2013. The evidence comes not just from the replies to the
> survey questions themselves but from the whole contaxt of the survey - and
> on those questions he is rather vague,. He was working from the microform
> version in the British Library which must have been quite restrictive.
>
> Anyway if this is your field, take a look. Sociologists might find it
> helpful. It's just under half an hour long.
> Dorothy Sheridan
>
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