bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Religious Community, Individual Religiosity, and Health: A Tale of Two Kibbutzim
Authors: Anson Ofra , Levenson Arieh , Maoz Benyamin , Bonneh Dan Y.
Published: September 2003

This article presents an attempt to explore the religiosity-health association while differentiating between the collective, the belonging to a religious community, and the individual aspects of religiosity. The health behaviour, health status, and illness behaviour of a sample of members of a secular kibbutz (n = 125) and a religious kibbutz (n = 105), were studied. The religious kibbutz members reported more health behaviour, better mental and physical health status, and less illness behaviour. Private praying, however, was adversely related to health status and psychological well-being. Other measures of individual religiosity either overlapped community membership or were not related to health and health related behaviour. It seems that the regulative and integrative function of belonging to a religious community makes for a healthier life-style and promotes health status. At times of suffering people turn to religion, in private praying, seeking comfort and help.
Industrial Capitalism and the Welfare of the State: The Role of Employers in the Comparative Development of Welfare States. A Review of Recent Research
Authors: Melling Joseph
Published: September 2003

Recent debates on the future of social benefits in the market economy have focussed attention on the origins of state services and the conditions which encouraged the growth of public welfare in modern society. The emphasis in the recent writing has been upon the political conditions for the evolution of citizenship rather than on economic and industrialisation models of welfare expenditure. At the same time there have been various attempts to adapt and refine the rational choice analysis of public goods to explain individual support for collective services. Each of these approaches has been developed with a strong interest in the historical and comparative analysis of welfare provision. This essay reviews recent research and the definitions of economic and political power which are employed. Many writers stress the continuities of traditional institutions at the expense of recurring economic and political conflict which defined the practical boundaries of citizenship. An alternative view of capitalist prerogatives is outlined. Taking the particular example of industrial capitalism and social insurance in Britain, it is argued that the social policies of the state formed part of a wider political settlement at key moments of development. In this process we can trace the significance of discursive struggles as well as economic structures and state initiatives. Such an approach reveals the complexity of political processes and the limits of comparative studies which focus primarily on economic or state structures.
Women's Confidants Outside Marriage: Shared or Competing Sources of Intimacy?
Authors: O'Connor Pat
Published: September 2003

This paper is concerned with describing confidant relationships outside the marital relationship in a small sample of married women at the intensive stage of the family cycle. Such confidant relationships were by no means universal: only one third of the women in this study having at least one such relationship. In the context of an ideology which extols the couple as the locus of intimacy, such relationships can be seen as potentially threatening. In fact, such a view does not appear to be warranted. These relationships had very little to do with the level of intimacy in the marital relationship. Rather, they appeared to reflect the security of the respondents' base in the local community and their financial resources to create and maintain such relationships.
Genealogy and Sociology: A Preliminary Set of Statements and Speculations
Authors: Erben Michael
Published: September 2003

The intention of this paper is to establish the importance for sociology of genealogy. Genealogy has been a practice in many cultures and throws light upon the way in which families have conducted themselves in the past. It additionally demonstrates the cultural and ideological importance of the establishment of pedigrees and descents for particular families, subcultures and societies. Further, genealogy is becoming an increasingly popular and highly time consuming recreational activity and as such is a phenomenon worthy of sociological research. It is also to be noted that a number of important historical works utilising genealogical research have been much under-used by sociologists. They provide a useful source for sociologists seeking to explain the extent and consequences of family life and kin relations in periods of particularly marked social change.
Modern Death: Taboo or not Taboo?
Authors: Walter Tony
Published: September 2003

There has been a proliferation of literature on death - in the UK mainly journalistic and very recent, in the USA mainly scholarly and covering the past thirty years. This literature has created the conventional wisdom that death is the taboo of the twentieth century. The article asks: (a) is death taboo? if so, in what sense? (b) if it is not taboo, then why the frequent announcements that it is? It is this second question that scholars have not previously attempted to incorporate into their theory.

The strengths and weakness of the taboo thesis are reviewed. Six possible modifications/critiques are offered in an attempt to resolve the difficulties: (1) that there was a taboo, but it is now disintegrating; (2) that death is hidden rather than forbidden; (3) that the taboo is limited largely to the (influential) occupational groups of the media and of medicine; (4) that the loss of a coherent language for discussing death leads to conversational unease; (5) that all societies must both accept and deny death, so pundits are able to pick whatever examples fit their thesis; (6) that it is the modern individual, not modern society, that denies death.
Meanderings around `Strategy': A Research Note on Strategic Discourse in the Lives of Women
Authors: Edwards Rosalind , Ribbens Jane
Published: September 2003

In response to the recent articles in Sociology on the concept of `strategy', this paper aims to make a contribution to the debate by drawing attention to some of its gendered aspects. We seek to raise some further questions without necessarily providing clear-cut answers. We argue that the concept is rooted within masculine spheres of activity, and yet has been widely applied to women's lives, particularly in considering some of the contextual constraints of domestic activities. We consider the reasons for the attractiveness of the concept, as well as the dangers in applying it to women's domestic lives, using illustrations from our own empirical work. While we have found an alternative language difficult to find, we are concerned that the sociological conceptualisation of women's lives in the private sphere needs to work outward from the domestic rather than inward from the public. Furthermore, such conceptual reconsideration may also assist our understandings of female and male lives in public settings.
Restructuring Finance Capital: Changes in the Canadian Corporate Network 1976-1986
Authors: Carroll William K. , Lewis Scott
Published: September 2003

On the basis of a network analysis of interlocks among the largest Canadian corporations, this paper examines the restructuring of finance capital between 1976 and 1986, a time of great flux in the structure of capital, both internationally and in Canada. Results indicate a shift away from the relatively depersonalized system of `polyarchic financial hegemony' - prevalent during the post-war boom era - towards a `holding system' of family-controlled enterprise groups, the largest of which are self-contained financial-industrial complexes whose members are linked by complicated patterns of intercorporate ownership and capital allocation. The increasingly internationalized - and particularly continental - character of Canadian-based finance capital points to the consolidation of a circuit of transnational finance capital that expresses Canada's specific location in the global economy.
American Foundations and the Development of the Social Sciences between the Wars: Comment on the Debate between Martin Bulmer and Donald Fisher
Authors: Ahmad Salma
Published: September 2003

This paper comments on the debate between Martin Bulmer and Donald Fisher, which appears in an earlier issue of this journal, concerning the influence of Rockefeller philanthropy on the social sciences between the wars. Three central issues of contention are distinguished and rival claims are evaluated. I argue that new empirical evidence drawn from the foundations' archives does not support some of their arguments although each interpretation has its merits.
Gender Relations, Technology and Employment Change in the Contemporary Textile Industry
Authors: Penn Roger , Martin Ann , Scattergood Hilda
Published: September 2003

This paper examines employment patterns in the British textile industry over the last twenty years. In particular it focuses on a dramatic structural shift in the balance of male and female employees within textiles. From the onset of the Industrial Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century until the 1960s, around two-thirds of textile employees were female. Over the last twenty years textile manufacture has become increasingly the domain of male employees. The research reported was located in Rochdale, one of the six localities which were researched as part of the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative. Rochdale has long been a major centre for textile production. The data are based upon a survey of textile plants undertaken in 1986 and 1987. The analysis revealed that employment in these textile plants had become increasingly male during the period between 1980 and 1986. These changes were more pronounced in larger establishments and within the minority of plants that had introduced advanced machinery. A further analysis of 987 work histories collected in 1986 revealed that women were far less likely to enter textiles in the 1980s than at any time since the advent of industrialization. A major reason for this lies in the increasing adoption of full-time shift work by plants in the town. Most part-time employment has been eliminated from textile mills as they seek to run advanced equipment continuously. The growth of flexible patterns of employment in the burgeoning service sector has interacted with these developments in textiles. Women still seek paid employment in Rochdale but no longer in the textile industry.
Occupational Change Over Childbirth: Evidence from a National Survey
Authors: McRae Susan
Published: September 2003

Data from a national survey of women who had recently given birth are used to examine women's employment experiences around the time of childbirth. The data provide further evidence of the trend towards an early return to work following childbirth. There has also been a narrowing in rates of return to work after childbirth between women previously employed part-time and full-time, and a reduction in occupational downward mobility for some women. The data provide support for the proposition that, as a result of an improvement in some women's labour market opportunities, the 1990s may see a narrowing in gender inequality in the labour market. It is suggested that one possible outcome of this may be an increase in equality between women as individuals and among families in general.
The Patriarchal Restructuring of Gender Segregation: A Case Study of the Hotel and Catering Industry
Authors: Bagguley Paul
Published: September 2003

This paper considers recent debates around patriarchy and gender segregation in paid employment. I argue that there are significant problems concerning a lack of attention to the forms of mobilization of patriarchal forces. Most analyses using the concept of patriarchy to explain gender segregation have used those empirical examples where men are organized in trade unions or professional associations. They have no way of explaining segregation in those cases where such organizations are absent. Using a case study of the hotel and catering industry between 1951 and 1981, I show that it is necessary to distinguish functional, hierarchical and industrial forms of segregation, rather than simply horizontal and vertical forms. I also develop concepts of the different organizational resources that patriarchal mobilization may draw upon in order to explain those cases where unions and professional organizations are absent.
Reinterpreting Speech-Exchange Systems: Communication Formats in AIDS Counselling
Authors: Peräkylä Anssi , Silverman David
Published: September 2003

Sociologists concerned with describing the organization of interaction have, until recently, been faced with two diverging options. Either they can focus on local cultures or on the sequential order of conversation. Ethnography's emphasis on context underpins the first option; conversation analysis' concern with a context-free structure of turn-taking provides the rationale for the second. Analysis of transcripts of AIDS Counselling suggests a middle way. Building on Goffman's account of `footings', the concept of `communication formats' allow us to describe the local management of the turn-taking machinery. By considering sequential explanations of the stability of each format and contextual explanations of their functionality, we are able to describe and analyze counselling interviews in ways which are sensitive to the local organization of communication but avoid reducing it to `culture' or to the structure of adjacent turns-at-talk. The method allows the precise description of the special characteristics of counselling as a structure of communication in ways which are relevant to both sociologists and practitioners.
Educating the Body: Physical Capital and the Production of Social Inequalities
Authors: Shilling Chris
Published: September 2003

This paper seeks to challenge the marginal status of the body in sociology by examining the place of `the physical' in the production of social inequalities. After reviewing briefly Bourdieu's concept of embodied capital, I seek to extend his analysis by examining some recent work which looks at gender and the body-society relationship. It will be argued that a social analysis of the body is central to understanding the production of gender inequalities, and that sociologists should take more seriously the multiple ways in which bodies enter into the construction of social inequalities.
Strategic Context Analysis: A New Research Strategy for Structuration Theory
Authors: Stones Rob
Published: September 2003

This article argues that a new form of methodological bracketing, strategic context analysis, is required by structuration theory if it is to meet the growing criticism best summed up by Nigel Thrift's complaint that it is all micro-situations and world-empires with nothing much in between. Analysis directed towards the strategic context of action can help to provide this `missing institutional link'. The parameters of strategic context analysis are outlined and distinguished from three other forms of analysis associated with structuration theory. The strategic context itself is broken down into its technicist and hermeneutic dimensions and it is suggested that an emphasis on the latter is essential if one is to avoid the reification of structures. A number of illustrative examples - the identities of Tory women, stances towards the French Revolution and Harold Wilson's `pound in your pocket' - are enlisted in order to illustrate the range of questions which could be addressed by a research strategy guided by strategic context analysis.

`Gregory smiled. His mother's tendency to the enigmatic was definitely increasing. Someone who didn't know her might have thought her mind was wandering; but Gregory knew there was always a sure point of reference, something which in her own terms made sense. Probably it just took too long to explain. Gregory wondered if this was what being old meant: everything you wanted to say required a context. If you gave the full context, people thought you a rambling old fool. If you didn't give the context, people thought you a laconic old fool. The very old needed interpreters just as the very young did. When the old lost their companions, their friends, they also lost their interpreters: they lost love, but they also lost the full power of speech.' - Julian Barnes, Staring at the Sun
Dimensions of Career: Avoiding Reification in the Analysis of Change
Authors: Evetts Julia
Published: September 2003

The paper considers the different ways in which sociologists have studied careers. It examines the various dimensions in careers research which constitute a developing research tradition. It highlights the problems associated with reification in analyses of career which are either implicit in particular models or are addressed in others but in ways which fail to resolve the difficulties. The paper suggests that the analysis of processes of change in career structures and career experiences can best enable researchers to avoid reification in their conceptualizations of career.
Discourse on Women in the Clerical Profession: The Diaconate and Language-Games in the Church of England
Authors: Aldridge Alan
Published: September 2003

In 1986, the Church of England permitted women to enter the lowest rank of the clerical profession, the diaconate, while reserving to men the offices of priest and bishop. For male clergy, the period served as a deacon is normally a one-year probation before ordination to the priesthood, whereas for women it is a terminus. This limited incorporation of women into the clerical profession has been accompanied by a prolific discourse on the need for an enriched diaconate. Although the focus of debate is ostensibly the diaconate, the discourse is a power struggle over the ordination of women to the priesthood. For those who oppose women's entry into the priesthood, the discourse of enriched distinctive diaconate legitimizes women's subordinate and marginal position in the clerical profession. For women deacons, on the other hand, in so far as the metaphor of diakonia has salience it is typically mobilized in a critique of authoritarianism amongst the male clergy. Evidence gathered from women serving as deacons shows that the great majority find the diaconate frustrating, support the ordination of women priests and have themselves felt a calling to priesthood. Drawing on Wittgenstein's concept of language-games embedded in forms of life, an analysis is presented of the grounding of this gendered discourse in the occupational culture of the clerical profession.
Who Pays the Piper? Ownership and Control in Scottish Based Management Buyouts
Authors: Campbell Stuart , Bechhofer Frank , McCrone David
Published: September 2003

Management buyouts have been seen by some commentators as restoring the owner-manager to the commercial and industrial scene. If correct this presents a novel twist to the long-running sociological debate on ownership and control which sees ownership as separated from control at the individual level. This paper reports results from a study of Scottish-based buyouts which occurred between 1982 and 1989. Only a small proportion of the total buyout finance is raised in the form of voting shares, which does indeed enable the buy-out team, albeit at the personal risk of considerable sums of money, to obtain majority control of the voting equity. However, in firms formerly in private hands, it is often the case that, while the management team retain formal control, they hold a smaller proportion of the voting shares than the previous owners. Crucially, however, the financial institutions, in exchange for providing equity and debt finance, enforce conditions which potentially constrain the owner-managers severely. In the last analysis the overall strategy of the company is too often in the hands of its financiers to allow the conclusion that the management buyout represents the reversal of the separation of ownership and control.
Marriage and Political Partisanship in Australia: Do Wives' Characteristics Make a Difference?
Authors: Hayes Bernadette C. , Jones F. L.
Published: September 2003

One of the most contentious issues to emerge out of recent British political sociology is the problem of locating women in the political structure. Using recent Australian data, we examine the `conventional', `dominance', `joint', `cross-class', and `individualistic' approaches to this problem of determining women's political identification. The results suggest that not only are a person's own characteristics important in determining their political partisanship, but wives' characteristics also exert an independent influence on the political choices of their husbands.
Interviewing Child Victims: Police and Social Work Investigations of Child Sexual Abuse
Authors: Fielding Nigel G. , Conroy Sue
Published: September 2003

The article examines the conduct of videotaped interviews between suspected victims of child sexual abuse and police officers and social workers investigating the allegation. It assesses the present conduct of the interviews and the place of children's testimony in contemporary law, and is illustrated by several extracts from transcripts of interviews with suspected child victims. In a field dominated by psychological approaches to interview design and analysis, it is argued that sociology has a worthwhile contribution to make, with clear consequences for investigators' understandings of children's evidence.
On Feminist Methodology
Authors: Hammersley Martyn
Published: September 2003

There is now a considerable literature advocating a feminist methodology. This article summarises the features of such a methodology under four headings: the ubiquitous social significance of gender, the validity of experience as against method, the rejection of hierarchy in the research relationship, and the adoption of the emancipation of women as the goal of research and the criterion of validity. The arguments supporting each of these themes are assessed. The conclusion reached is that while some of these arguments are convincing the overall case for a feminist methodology is not.
Status Groups and Collective Action
Authors: Barnes Barry
Published: September 2003

Max Weber's description of how status groups monopolise goods and opportunities is now widely used by sociological theory to understand the economic and political relationships between groups. However, it is rarely recognised that a problem of collective action must be solved if a status group is to operate in this way, that it is individually irrational for members of the group to support its monopolistic activities even if they profit from them. Once the collective action problem is recognised, it is immediately apparent that Weber's own account of the definitive features of a status group identifies precisely the means by which the problem is solved. Weber on the operation of status groups and Weber on their nature may then be fused into a single coherent and comprehensive account, an account of profound and far-reaching theoretical interest.
`Someone to Watch Over Me': Surveillance, Discipline and the Just-in-Time Labour Process
Authors: Sewell Graham , Wilkinson Barry
Published: September 2003

Theory and observations are used to argue that JIT/TQC regimes both create and demand systems of surveillance which improve on those of previous factory regimes by instilling discipline and thereby enhancing central control.

For its theoretical inspiration this paper draws upon the work of Michel Foucault, especially his conception of Power/Knowledge as articulated in his book Discipline and Punish. This theoretical framework is extended to provide a means of analysis of the mechanisms of surveillance and control that operate in the contemporary work place.

While there is a sense in which tactical responsibility is delegated in an organisation practising JIT/TQM, strategic control is simultaneously centralised - a form of devolutionism. Drawing on the work of Foucault we will argue that the JIT/TQM approach is both enabled and enhanced by the operation of two complementary disciplinary forces. The first of these is the discipline which derives from the scrutiny of one's peers in a manufacturing cell, quality circle, etc. - a horizontal process which is supported by the organisational structure associated with JIT/TQM.

The second and key disciplinary force is that which derives from the use of increasingly powerful management information systems which provide extensive shop floor surveillance - a vertical process which provides an over-arching controlling mechanism.

We demonstrate that the surveillance systems integral to JIT/TQM are deliberately designed such that discipline is established in a most efficient manner and the exercise of minute control is possible with a minimum of supervisors. The desired effect of harnessing these dual forces is to minimise negative divergences from expected behaviour and management defined norms whilst identifying positive divergencies and maximising their creative potential.
A Sea of Discontent: The Tides of Organised and `Unorganised' Conflict on the Docks
Authors: Turnbull Peter , Sapsford David
Published: September 2003

Although it has long been recognised that industrial conflict embraces both strikes and other `unorganised' forms of conflict, such as absenteeism, there has been remarkably little empirical analysis of unorganised conflict per se or the relationship between organised and unorganised conflict. This is a reflection, in part, of a dearth of readily available empirical data, but more importantly the problem of establishing that forms of unorganised conflict such as absenteeism are in fact an expression of conflict for particular occupational groups or a particular workplace. This is less of a problem for Britain's registered dockers who, in persistently organising (unofficial) strikes and absenting themselves from work, challenged the process of industrial rationalisation throughout the post-war period. But the purpose and meanings attached to absenteeism changed markedly over time, as did the relationship between strikes and absenteeism. The nature and administration of the employment relationship under casual and permanent work regimes had a profound effect on the absence culture of the docks, as did technological change in the late 1960s and 1970s. Detailed analysis of the post-war period illustrates that industrial conflict on the docks can only be understood in relation to the effect of casual and permanent work regimes on both organised and unorganised conflict.
Explaining Cross-National Variations of Two Anti-Nuclear Movements: A Political Process Perspective
Authors: Joppke Christian
Published: September 2003

A recurrent theme in social theory is the micro-macro linkage. In recent social movement research, too, the building of conceptual and empirical linkages between agency and structure has become a prominent concern. Based on empirical examples drawn from the nuclear energy debates in Germany and the United States, an attempt is made to develop a political process perspective that links structure and action in a four-component account. The components considered are: state structure, political culture, temporal opportunity, and movement organisation. This political process perspective helps to explain cross-national variations of the examined anti-nuclear movements.
Simulated Clients in `Natural' Settings: Constructing a Client to Study Professional Practice
Authors: Wasoff Fran , Dobash R. Emerson
Published: September 2003

In this paper, we outline the use of a data collection technique referred to as the `simulated client' which was developed in order to gather information about how solicitors negotiate the financial aspects of divorce with clients. The purpose of the study was to examine how a specific piece of law reform is incorporated into the usual practice of solicitors. The setting was the solicitor's first meeting with a client seeking divorce. The intention was to study the process of negotiation in a setting which was as natural as possible while at the same time covering a specific set of issues for study. This presents the seemingly incompatible needs of observing the natural process unstructured by the researcher and at the same time controlling the information presented, and thus the data gathered, in order to ensure coverage of specific issues for study. The extensive personal history of the `simulated client' was constructed in order to address specific principles in new legislation and then presented to solicitors as a usual client. Solicitors conducted the one hour meetings as usual, seeking details from the client and providing legal advice and information. Data were gathered from tape recorded sessions with fifty-eight solicitors.
Employment Histories and the Concept of the Underclass
Authors: Morris Lydia , Irwin Sarah
Published: September 2003

This paper reports on research carried out in Hartlepool, based on data from three groups of male respondents: (1) those employed for at least the last twelve months; (2) those recently recruited to employment, (i.e. within the last twelve months); (3) those currently employed and having held the same job for the last twelve months.

By comparing the work histories and characterising features of these three groupings the paper sets out to explore the theoretical and empirical validity of the notion of the underclass, focusing specifically on two competing definitions: nonparticipation in the labour market, and systematic disadvantage in the labour market.

The data reveal a distinctive pattern of broken employment for the second of the three groups identified above. Those affected are thus located between the two contrasting positions of long-term unemployment, and relatively secure employment. The existence of such a grouping is argued to undermine a definition of an underclass purely in terms of unemployment. However, the characteristics of the `underemployed', despite indicating a clear pattern of disadvantage, are too heterogeneous to constitute a distinctive class position.
Connecting `Race' and Ethnic Phenomena
Authors: Anthias Floya
Published: September 2003

This paper seeks to connect `race' and ethnic phenomena and locates this discussion within a multiculturist context that seeks to redress racial disadvantage by providing for ethnic difference. It is argued that the connection between race and ethnic categories is more fundamental, and yet the connection between fighting racism and ethnic pluralism is more problematic than this position implies. Ethnicity and racism are different but connected discourses for articulating collectivity and belongingness, and serve diverse political projects which include those of class and nation building. The paper rejects the view that they can be explained with reference to a generic race or ethnic process. Their understanding as concrete social relations however, requires attending to gender and class processes and the state.
Soldiers not Peasants: The Moral Basis of the February Revolution of 1917
Authors: Ashworth Tony
Published: September 2003

This case study is concerned with discussing the dual nature of military power, the material and the moral; and it shows how moral power in fact played a decisive role in the February revolution in Russia in 1917. There are four parts to the argument. Firstly, the introduction, where the problems addressed in the paper as well as its theoretical framework are outlined. The second part is a brief account of events during the first four days of the February revolution, and an extended treatment of the soldiers' mutiny on the fifth day; in addition the strength of the soldiers' solidarity is compared with that of the workers' solidarity. In the third part existing explanations for the mutiny are examined and critically assessed, and an alternative explanation is developed. Finally the relevance of the study for some wider theoretical issues is briefly discussed.
The Mismanagement of Innovation
Authors: Webb Janette
Published: September 2003

The paper argues the need for a sociology of management which relates the micro-sociology of management activities to the economic performance of the firm and to debates about power relations and the distribution of wealth. The substance of the paper is a study of a medium-sized British company in the computer components industry. The research focuses on the relationships between development engineers and managers, and analyses the structural reasons for the failure to innovate. In particular it shows that management, in attempting to pursue an instrumental rationality, undermined the achievement of their own objectives. The contradiction between the logic of short-term instrumental controls and the espoused organic, human resources model of management produced a damaging pattern of workplace relations characterised by distrust and defensiveness. The result was a motivational crisis over the management of innovation, which contributed to the eventual failure of the business.
About and Beyond the `Underclass': Some Notes on Influences of Social Climate on British Sociology Today
Authors: Westergaard John
Published: September 2003

The concern of this article is with the influence of fashion and social climate on social speculation. The `underclass' notion is a nice example of fashion. Its various versions are influential less because they fit facts than because they are tuned well with tempers of the times. It seems then a sign of sound sense that, while sociologists have taken the notion on board for assessment, most have not gone overboard with it. This point prompts some wider reflections about the interplay between social science and the societal climate within which it exists. The balance between alertness to new agendas and purblind pursuit of them is a fine one. If sociology can now strike that balance tolerably well, it is in part a result of renewed disciplinary coherence: not least because theoretical and empirical analysis now mesh more closely than they once did. British sociology's general resilience to the pressures of the 1980s also reflects extended cross-disciplinary connections. Some of those pressures were unfriendly to academic free-thinking, but charges of ideological subversion or practical futility were never aimed solely at sociology. They seem anyway more muted, now that we and many partner-disciplines offer practical utility as prime targets for new growth in higher education. Welcome as this is, it sets challenges for the 1990s onward that may prove tougher than any pressures for intellectual conformity.
`But for Freedom, You See, not to be a Babyminder': Women's Attitudes towards Grandmother Care
Authors: Cotterill Pamela
Published: September 2003

This paper draws on empirical data from research on maternal relationships between affinal women. It examines concepts of obligation and altruism in relation to short- and long-term childcare services provided by paternal grandmothers. Whilst grandmotherhood is welcomed as a positive and enjoyable experience by middle-aged women, it is not seen as an opportunity to resume mothering or to repeat the more demanding aspects of childcare. This paper offers some evidence that paternal grandmothers, at least, do not wish to provide long-term support for working mothers, other than in exceptional circumstances and only then with reluctance. The views expressed here question assumptions that all family women are `naturally' altruistic and prepared to subordinate their own interests in support of each other.
Class and Caring: A Forgotten Dimension
Authors: Arber Sara , Ginn Jay
Published: September 2003

Class differences in the provision of informal care have received little research attention. Since class gradients in ill-health and life expectancy are strong, differences in need for informal care are to be expected between classes. We use data from the 1985 General Household Survey to examine the prevalence and location of informal care-giving among women and men by class and by stage in the life course. Although informal carers as a whole are drawn equally from all classes, if the two locations of care - whether within the same household or for someone in a different household - are examined separately, class differences emerge. Co-resident care, which places greater constraints on the carer's life, is more frequently provided by working class men and women than the middle class. Thus the working class bear the greatest burden of providing care, while at the same time possessing fewer material resources to aid them in the task.
Recruitment Practice and Women Lawyers' Employment: An Examination of In-House Legal Departments in the United States
Authors: Anleu Sharyn L. Roach
Published: September 2003

Despite women's entry into the legal profession differences remain in men's and women's employment opportunities. This paper examines the way organizational practices affect the recruitment of men and women lawyers by comparing twelve in-house legal departments in manufacturing and financial services corporations. On the whole, women lawyers are less likely to be employed in the former. This pattern can be explained by the different requirements of each sector for specific legal skills and their recruitment of lawyers from various segments of the labour market in which women and men are differentially distributed.
The Pursuit of Controversy: Routine Skepticism in Talk on `Talk Radio'
Authors: Hutchby Ian
Published: September 2003

Resources for arguing are examined in talk on `talk radio', a cultural setting for which disputation is a routine activity. A contrastive device built to the format you say X, but what about Y is shown to be an important, recursively deployed linguistic resource for the accomplishment of such routine disputation. Aspects of the interactional work achieved with this device are discussed in relation to the setting-specific activity of `arguing for arguing's sake', which is referred to as the pursuit of controversy. The device facilitates the construction by a contentious party of an argument out of the minor details of an opponent's account. It is seen that both hosts and callers in this setting orient to the efficaciousness of the format as a resource for doing argument. Episodes are also examined in which callers try to restrict the damage which hosts routinely seek to inflict on their claims through the use of the device.
Love and Intimacy: The Gender Division of Emotion and `Emotion Work'
Authors: Duncombe Jean , Marsden Dennis
Published: September 2003

This paper discusses the role of ideologies of love and intimacy in heterosexual coupledom, and examines the applicability of theories of the gender division of `emotion work' to the field of intimate personal relationships. Research on the private sphere of the family has recently focused on quantifying instrumental aspects of relationships, such as financial management, the domestic division of labour and informal care. However, although fruitful, such approaches neglect the expressive or emotional; particularly the experiences of love and intimacy, which many people say they regard as a key element in their personal relationships. We suggest reasons for British sociology's neglect of what is almost a cliche in everyday discourse. And we present evidence (including preliminary findings from our own research on heterosexual couples) that - despite dissatisfaction with gender inequalities in domestic tasks and finance - many women express unhappiness primarily with what they perceive as men's unwillingness or incapacity to `do' the emotional intimacy which appears to them necessary to sustain close heterosexual couple relationships. We illustrate how similar discussions of gender differences in emotional behaviour have emerged elsewhere (including in the new masculinity literature), raising questions about how far men's and women's emotional behaviour can and should change.

The exploration of socially-regulated or `managed' gender divisions in intimate emotional behaviour entails two related but distinct questions: are men and women equally `susceptible' to the emotions or discourses of love and intimacy; and, do they handle such emotions in similar ways in the context of close personal relationships. We suggest how research findings on heterosexual couple relationships can be linked to work on the social regulation of emotion, which argues that there is a `gender division of emotion work' where it is assumed that women will take responsibility for the management of emotion in the private sphere.
`I'll be Watching You': Comment on Sewell and Wilkinson
Authors: Webster Frank , Robins Kevin
Published: September 2003

Sewell and Wilkinson (1992) argue that Just-in-Time and Total Quality Control systems are being established in the labour process so that employees can be controlled in the most efficient manner with a minimum of supervisors. Here it is argued that this is but one part of much wider processes which may appear to bring decentralisation while in fact increasingly centralising power. The broader political and cultural contexts and the historical roots of surveillance are reviewed and conceptualised as a movement from Taylorism to Social Taylorism. The development of corporate capitalism and the nation state introduces routine and systematic surveillance, increasingly of an electronic kind, the better to plan and control relationships. The concept of an `electronic panopticon' is an appropriate way of understanding recent manifestations of this long term trend.
Youth Transitions, Gender and Social Change
Authors: Chisholm Lynne , Bois-Reymond Manuela du
Published: September 2003

European youth studies increasingly use critical modernisation theory to understand the changing social circumstances and cultural context of contemporary youth in advanced western societies. It is generally argued that the social biography of youth is taking a new form and meaning in the light of individualisation and destandardisation/destructuring processes. On the basis of data drawn from two recent studies of British and Dutch teenage girls, this paper argues that the relationships between youth and social change are more complex and fragmented than has been frequently implied. In particular, youth transitions continue to be marked by the effects of systematic social inequalities, such as gender relations, and these imply that gender-specific adult Normalbiographien remain of sociological and personal significance.
The Formation of Public Professional Radical Consciousness: The Example of Anti-Racism
Authors: Bonnett Alastair
Published: September 2003

This paper presents a theory and case study of the formation of public professional radicalism. Theories of `new class' and `middle class' radicalism are criticise for neglecting the experiential context in which political consciousness is formed. A similar critique is made of Offe's analysis of the political contradictions of the welfare state. It is suggested that public professionals resolve their contradictory experiences of welfare capitalism into forms of rhetoric and action that combine `non-market' and `pro-market' values. This process is identified as the formation of ideology. Interviews with anti-racist educationalists in London and Tyneside are introduced to exemplify this argument. Five ideologies are discussed. Three (the notions of anti-racism as `good education', as an exercise in `consciousness raising', and as part of `the Black struggle') were articulated in both study sites. Two others (the notions of `local sensitivity', and `the gentle approach') were distinct to Tyneside. The paper concludes by noting the salience of a geographically sensitive approach to the analysis of public professional radical consciousness
Public Health Spaces and the Fabrication of Identity
Authors: Armstrong David
Published: September 2003

Following from the work of Mary Douglas on the importance of hygienic rules in separating the spaces of a classification system, this paper reviews the assumptions underlying four regimes of public health over the last two centuries. A number of shifts in the form and object of hygienic rules are identified, moving from the strict `cordon sanitaire' of quarantine regulations to the constantly monitored spaces of the new public health. The changes in hygienic rules are shown to have delineated a series of spaces in which individual identity has been successively located. These historical shifts are discussed in the context of a political geometry through which social reality has been established.
Modernity, Self-Identity and the Sequestration of Death
Authors: Mellor Philip A. , Shilling Chris
Published: September 2003

Throughout its establishment and development sociology has been concerned almost exclusively with problems of life, rather than with the subject of death. However, if we take seriously Peter Berger's (1967) point that death is an essential feature of the human condition that requires people to develop means of coping with it, then to neglect death is to ignore one of the few universal parameters in which social and individual life are constructed. In this paper we examine the relationship between self-identity, the sequestration of death, and the period Anthony Giddens terms `late' or `high modernity', and argue that the organisation and experience of death have become increasingly privatised. This has acquired particular significance as a result of three central characteristics of high modernity: the growing role played by the reflexive re-ordering of biographical narratives in the construction of self-identity (Giddens 1991); the increased identification of the self with the body; and the shrinkage of the scope of the sacred. This is not to argue that people lack survival strategies when dealing with death, but that these strategies become increasingly precarious and problematic in the conditions of high modernity.
Understanding Political Change in Eastern Europe: A Sociological Perspective
Authors: Misztal Barbara A.
Published: September 2003

Change in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union presents a whole new set of sociological problems, requiring a revision of old theories of large-scale institutional change. My aim in this paper is to delineate patterns and gaps to be found in sociological theories dealing with change in Soviet-type societies. After a short review of the explanatory claims of totalitarian, modernisation, civil society and institutional perspectives, I propose an analysis of such change in terms of the strategic conduct of the main agents (the state-party and society) within its institutional context. The collapse of communism is seen as a result of the evolution of the system caused by the lack of institutional arrangements which could set limits to the party-state's arbitrary rule, and - by the same token - could create conditions for economic efficiency and encourage the emergence of interests other than those directly serving the centre. This can be seen as a spiral process of change in which the system was long losing its internal consistency and gradually exhausting itself. This process consisted of two mutually reinforcing trends: first, changes in the relationship between political centre and society, resulting in the declining ability of the party-state to act effectively as the agent of society; secondly, the growing heterogeneity and internationalisation of society, leading to the growing incompatibility of central planning with the informational and motivational requirements of a modern economy.