We can analyse different aspects of our lives and careers in terms of the ’risks’ described by Ulrich Beck.
Working in pairs:
- Carry out a content analysis of some newspapers. What ‘risks’ do they identify? Classify them into different sorts of risk (e.g. health risks, crime risks)
- Can you think of examples of how you have changed your own behaviour as a result of risks that you perceive?
- Assess the potential risks that might result from a decision one way or the other:
a) The decision whether or not to marry at age 22.
b) The decision whether to take a year out in a job rather than go to university directly from school.
c) The decision whether or not to resign from a job in order to spend a year travelling round the world.
d) The decision whether or not to move on retirement to a bungalow by the sea. - Explain why a person living in 1900 might be less likely to have faced such risks.
