Hi All!
Just stumbled on this site and it looks like there is a good core of sociologists from all over!
I'm about to go into my final year of my undergraduate and I'm looking to be doing something very special and a bit challenging for my dissertation that will give me a good strong ground for getting further research funding and getting onto an MSc/PHd course in the future.
Currently my focus is very towards young people in Scotland from a looked after background and how they are supported by local governance to progress onto their own independent living with anything close to a decent chance in their future. There are some quantitative sources that are around giving a general overview of some stats related to young people in education, employment, health, and housing, but there doesn't seem to be anything anywhere that is even close to a useful qualitative account of young peoples experiences of the care system other than that which has been undertaken by a few small Scottish charities.
so basically is my whole point of this is has anyone came across a useful/interesting qualitative piece of research relating to young people in care (in Scotland or worldwide) as a starting point for me to discover at least a couple of failed angles that haven't really been followed up on before. My massive worry is that i am about to start a research proposal for my dissertation and lose total focus and end up challenging the whole social work system in Scotland utterly by mistake and lack of prior research in the field.
any help/advice/links/references would be really appreciated!
(and yes public sociology is a full degree in Scotland)
Steve