A special lecture session by Professor Paul Dowling of University of London, with whom we have an academic exchange agreement, was held on Tuesday, October 5, at the Kashiwara Campus. This session was co-hosted by the International Center, the English Education course, and European/American language and culture courses, and attended by approximately 65 members of the faculty staff and students.
Mr. Dowling is a renowned sociologist, and currently a faculty member of Institute of Education at University of London. He is involved with the research and development of "SAM: Social Activity Method," which is the organizational language for sociological depiction in all kinds of contexts, including actual classroom settings and texts.
The lecture was themed as "Sociology as a method: departure from culture,
print and knowledge analysis," and various debates took place regarding sociological reorganization. After mentioning about Japanese culture, from the Grand Sumo Makuuchi wrestler Kitazakura's salt throw, to "natto", the topic of women in India came up. It was taught that the women wearing beautiful saris while working in the farm should not be simply viewed as a beautiful scenery, but it should remind the viewers of the existence of social gender discriminatory relationship between men and women. Also, regarding a classroom research that was successful in a Japanese school but not so when implemented in Indonesia, he pointed out that, between the countries, there is a discrepancy in the social status of teachers, since the Indonesian educators were not regarded as specialists but as bureaucrats.
Mr. Dowling also indicated many other examples and spoke humorously about a theoretically difficult topic that "by restructuring the context of social relationships and social scenes, sociologists try to reveal the depth of social structure that could not have been seen before." The participants listened with enthusiasm for one and half hours, and an active Q & A session followed. After the wrap-up, a reception was held at the Co-op dining hall, where friendly exchange took place.