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My name's Dr Chrissie Rogers, I'm in the School of Languages and Social Sciences and I teach Sociology.
And I particularly teach sociology of politics and education,
social theory and research methods. One of the things that my research is actually looking into
is the areas around inclusive education and special education needs.
So, mothering and fathering children who have learning disabilities
and finding out how they experience inclusion or indeed exclusion
in the classroom and it's about finding the discrimination and the prejudices that go on
for children with learning disabilities and then understanding the
social context and the political context for those young people.
I love teaching. I'm very passionate about sociology. I'm slightly evangelical about delivering it.
I was inspired by one of my first year lecturers
who used to prance up and down the stage, talking about these differences, these social differences -
prejudices, inequalities, social justice - around things like
education, class, race and ethnicity,
and social differences more generally, and I was really inspired by
his particular style, which was very inclusive and very interactive.
My style of lecturing and seminar leading would be very much based upon my research.
Now my research... my PhD research and my subsequent publications
have been largely around the sociology of education, and disability, and mothering,
and my own mothering experiences of having a disabled child
also come in to that, and that plays a part of the process.
Now, how my style would be? I would suggest it's actually quite informal.
There is an awful lot of theoretical or philosophical work that goes on
into delivering a lecture and getting
students to understand these difficult concepts but I like them also to understand
that some of the difficulties and experiences that they're having in engaging with this highly conceptual part of
sociology, is actually accessible and so even though they might go to read something that they find
really quite dense and obtuse,
actually when they talk to me and I get them say something about my own biography,
or get them to reflect on their's, then we can actually understand what's going on here
and so - for sure - I'm a qualitative researcher who does draw on personal experience
as a way to engage the student.
I find Aston students particularly aware of culture diversity and ethnic diversity,
obviously - not least of all - because we're in a hub, we're in a busy city and
we have some local students as well as those that come from outside of Birmingham
and so there is a real mixture of students that come here.
Also, part of what they understand is they of course think that
they want to maybe do a placement and we have a great history of doing placements
and so they come thinking about 'what are they going to get out of sociology'?
They're culturally, politically and socially aware but they also think
"well, how am I gonna take this forward in my career" and Aston gives them the opportunity to do that.
I'm a sociologist who teaches sociology and politics of education and social theory,
and research methods, and I'm a qualitative social research methods person.
And that means that I actually teach and I speak to people,
interact with people and understand meanings and social processes
about their life, and that comes across to the student, so that they can then interact with me
and we understand the broader nature of social phenomenon, inequalities and social justice.