bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Fast Girls, Foreigners and GIs: An Exploration of the Discursive Strategies through Which the Status of Pre-Marital (Hetero)sexual Ignorance and Restraint Was Upheld during the Second World War
Authors: Hockey Jenny , Meah Angela , Robinson Victoria
Published: March 2010

This paper explores contradictions within qualitative data gathered among women and men whose young adulthood coincided with the Second World War. These data were generated as part of an ESRC-funded project which investigated the making of heterosexual relationships cross-generationally. They suggest the co-existence of both a prevalent taboo or stigma associated with sexual knowledge and practice before and outside marriage, and personal experiences of precisely these engagements with embodied sexuality. Drawing on Charles Tilly's work, the paper argues that, when interrogated, these contradictions can reveal the strategies through which a creaky heterosexual consensus was shored up during a period of military upheaval that profoundly destabilised existing beliefs and practices. Tilly differentiated between academic historians who sought to reconcile ‘very large structural changes’ and ‘the changing experiences of ordinary people’ through either collectivist or individualist approaches to ‘history from below’. Neither of these methods could yield an adequate account, in his view. However, the ‘lay historians’ who participated in our study combined collectivist and individualist perspectives, thereby providing a unique insight into an era when collective values and individual practices were often in tension with one another. As our participants spoke about their young adulthood, their data revealed the potency of local gossip which mobilised wider discourses of alterity or ‘othering’, so shoring up a consensual view of sexual mores, despite the prevalence of attitudes and practices that contravened it. What we argue, therefore, is that rather than a half-remembered, contradictory account of heterosexuality during the 1920s and 1930s, the data we gathered in the early 21st century exemplifies precisely the discursive strategies of that period. In other words, these data shed light on the ways in which not only heterosexual norms, but also an entire, endangered system of distinctions based on class, gender and national identity was upheld.
Charles Tilly: Connecting Large Scale Social Change and Personal Narrative
Authors: Castañeda Ernesto
Published: March 2010

Charles Tilly's work as a historical sociologist and on states, social change and other topics has had powerful influence across the social sciences and social history, also having a large popular audience. Themes and issues in his work over time are explored, in particular his developing thinking about national states, macro and micro processes, stories and social change.
Pillars of Trust: An Experimental Study on Reputation and Its Effects
Authors: Boero Riccardo , Bravo Giangiacomo , Castellani Marco , Laganà Francesco , Squazzoni Flaminio
Published: March 2010

This paper presents the results of laboratory experiments on the relevance of reputation for trust and cooperation in social interaction. We have extended a repeated investment game by adding new treatments where reputation is taken more explicitly into account than before. We then compared treatments where the investor and the trustee rate each other and treatments where the investor and the trustee were rated by a third party. The results showed that: (i) third party reputation positively affects cooperation by encapsulating trust; (ii) certain differences in the reputation mechanism can generate different cooperation outcomes. These results have interesting implications for the recent sociological debate on the normative pillars of markets.
Trans-Generational Memory: Narratives of World Wars in Post-Conflict Northern Ireland
Authors: Sakai Tomoko
Published: March 2010

People situate their personal lives in a macro history through crafting trans-generational narratives. Trans-generational historical narrative is simultaneously about personal micro interactions and emotions, and about the large process of macro history. It lies between ‘small’ and ‘big’ narrative spheres and plays an important role in the formation of the ethnic, national and cultural identities of individuals. By examining carefully this type of autobiography, collective social experience and large cause-effect relationships in social processes that are beyond personal will and control can be explored. This is what Charles Tilly encourages narrative researchers to do. This paper analyses World War stories told by two persons living in post-conflict Northern Ireland who were born after the end of the Second World War. It shows that the World War experiences of the storytellers’ parents or ancestors, and the storytellers’ own experiences during and after the conflict, are interwoven to form a macro historical consciousness. In these narratives, the past is evoked to become a basis for the storyteller's life to be re-interpreted. These are narrative practices in which an individual becomes a historical subject by telling his or her own life: in one sense, becoming subject to the macro memory framework, and in another sense, becoming a subject of the practice of crafting history.
Parenting in Post-Divorce Estonian Families: A Qualitative Study
Authors: Hansson Leeni
Published: March 2010

Estonia is a society characterised by persistence of traditional gender role attitudes. Accordingly, taking care of children is considered to be mainly mother's task and children's living arrangements following divorce are usually solved in the most traditional way - children stay with their mother.

Based on qualitative interviews with divorced mothers the study focused on the attitudes of mothers towards fathers’ involvement in parenting following divorce. It was possible to differentiate between three post-divorce parenting patterns: (1) cooperative parenting with nonresident father involved with his children, (2) distant parenting characterized by loose contacts between children and nonresident father, and (3) sole parenting without any paternal involvement or financial support. The interviewees basically agreed that shared parental responsibilities would be the ideal form of post-divorce parenting but in practice their expectations concerning father's involvement were rather modest. The interviewees mostly approved prevailing in Estonia normative gendered parental role obligations with mother as the primary parent who had to take main responsibility for children both in the marriage as well as in the post-divorce period.
Sociology of Education and Marxism in Brazil
Authors: Yamamoto Oswaldo H. , Neto Antonio Cabral
Published: March 2010

It is argued in this paper that the effect of the Marxist thought on Brazilian education was a process heavily determined by a peculiar set of historic circumstances. The main context was the struggle against the military dictatorship and in favour of the democratisation of society, conditioning both educational literature and educators’ organisation. The educational literature has a wide thematic range and is characterised by heterogeneity concerning the actual contributions to the explanation of Brazilian educational reality and the patterns of incorporation of Marxist sources. After this golden age of the Marxist paradigm the influence of Marxist studies has dramatically declined. Nowadays, this influence can be of two kinds: (i) a diffuse and non-exclusive one informing general reflections on a wide spectrum of educational studies; (ii) a specific set of educational studies on themes directly related to the core of the Marxist theory.
Embodying Black Madness, Embodying White Femininity: Populist (Re)Presentations and Public Policy - The Case of Christopher Clunis and Jayne Zito
Authors: Neal Sarah
Published: March 2010

This paper examines the representation of racialised and gendered bodies in relation to both the media and public policy responses to Christopher Clunis’ killing of Jonathan Zito in London in 1992. Analysing written and visual media text the first section of the paper argues that dichotomous constructions between the dangerous black masculine body of Christopher Clunis and the vulnerable idealised white feminine body of Jayne Zito were drawn on to help make sense of the tragedy in a period in which public anxieties around mental health care were increasingly evident. The effectiveness of these representations can be seen in the setting up of the NHS Enquiry whose remit was to investigate the care and treatment given to Clunis by psychiatric professionals. The second section of the paper focuses on the ways in which the issue of race and the racialised body played a complex and contradictory role in both the findings of the Report and in determining the (inadequate) service that Clunis received once within the mental health care system
‘Winners’ and ‘Losers’ in Social Transformations
Authors: Crow Graham , Rees Tony
Published: March 2010

The language of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ is frequently deployed in the discussion of social transformations, but such analyses are less straightforward than they seem. Disagreements exist about which groups might reasonably be designated as ‘winners’ and ‘losers’, what the criteria are for identifying a gain or a loss, what time frames are appropriate for the calculation of gains and losses, and what sort of relationship exists between ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. We argue that the language of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ carries with it the danger of oversimplification of lines of social cleavage, particularly because of the difficulties to which it gives rise concerning the position of intermediate groups. Secondly, we suggest that it is crucial to set out the criteria by which gains and losses are to be identified if the designation of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ is to be at all viable as an analytical framework. Thirdly, we argue that it is important to distinguish between short-term fluctuations and longer-term trends in the analysis of changing patterns of distribution. And fourthly we argue that judgements about the nature of the relation between ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ need to be made explicit. Monitoring the uneven effects of social transformations is a central task of contemporary sociology, and it is important that the analytical framework provided by the language of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ is employed carefully in order to be able to capture the full complexity of these processes.
Institutional Racism, Power and Accountability
Authors: Anthias Floya
Published: March 2010

In this article, I will focus on institutional racism and discuss the problems with the idea of ‘unwitting racism’ found in the report. I will argue that there are a number of conceptual confusions in the report. It is necessary to disassociate the unintentional effects of procedures, from procedures that relate to the exercise of judgements and agency. The pervasiveness of institutional power makes accountability one of the most vital issues raised by the report, which links to the issue of power. In addition, the article argues that it is important to look at the gendered nature of racims and particularly at the role of masculinity.
The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report, Racist Harassment and Racist Incidents: Changing Definitions, Clarifying Meaning?
Authors: Chahal Kusminder
Published: March 2010

The attempt by Macpherson to clarify the definintion of a racist incident has further highlighted how racism and racist harassment are misunderstood and not effectively debated. This paper highlights some of the issues which emerge from the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry's definition of of a racist incident and whether it will be a useful tool.
Beyond the Macpherson Report: Managing Murder Inquiries in Context
Authors: Innes Martin
Published: March 2010

This paper draws upon data collected as part of a three year project examining how the police investigate murder, to criticise and develop some of the conclusions of Sir William Macpherson's report into the Stephen Lawrence investigation. It is argued that the majority of attention in the aftermath of the report has been concerned with issues of police racism, but that this ignores a potentially significant theme connected to the management practices and procedures used by the police in relation to murder inquiries. It is argued that many of the problems identified within the Macpherson report may well be systemic problems that result from the situational context in which murder investigations are performed, rather than difficulties unique to the Lawrence investigation.
‘Gypsies to the Camps!’: Exclusion and Marginalisation of Roma in the Czech Republic
Authors: Bancroft Angus
Published: March 2010

Under Communism the Roma minority in the Czech Republic were subject to severe state directed assimilation policies. Since the end of the Cold War they have endured a combination of labour market exclusion and racially motivated violence. The apparent historical discontinuity between the Communists’ strategies of assimilation and the current forms of exclusion and marginalisation is often explained by pointing to the social and economic upheaval caused by the transition to capitalism, or the resurgence of ‘ancient ethnic hatreds’. When examining anti-Roma racism (or other examples of ethnic conflict) in the former Communist countries of Europe, commentators tend to regard it as signifying the backwardness of these nations. These perspectives ignore racism's modern aspect. In contrast this paper seeks to highlight some of the continuities between the situation of Roma today and their historical position. It uses Simmel's concept of ‘the Stranger’ as applied by Bauman to understand the ambivalent place of Roma in European modernity, at times subject to coercive assimilation, at other times on the receiving end of racial violence. It challenges narratives which attempt to Orientalise racism as the preserve of ‘uncivilised and backward’ nations or a white underclass. It seeks to put racism in its place as a part of European modernity and its deployment of assimilative or exclusionary strategies against ‘Stranger’ minorities.
Virtual Diaspora?: Imagining Croatia On-line
Authors: Stubbs Paul
Published: March 2010

This article, concentrating on contemporary Croatia, explores the role of computer-mediated communication in new relationships between the homeland at war and diaspora. Computer mediated diasporic public spheres are discussed as forms of creative imaginings of a national space from diverse global sites. The text is critical of any suggestion that diasporic identifications are able to be read off, simplistically, from dominant forms of homeland nationalism. Through an exploration of the socio-historical bases of Croatian diaspora communities, and the complexities of callings from the homeland in the 1990s, a more nuanced picture of contestation emerges. A ‘netnography’ of the Soc/Culture/Croatia newsgroup reveals a dominant habitus of processes, forms and content, in particular, the construction of Croatian identity in relation to a, more or less, monolithic ‘Other’ but, also, emerging innovative currents. More work on diasporic affinities as complex, contingent, and fluid is clearly needed, with political as well as theoretical importance.
Heritage Work: Re-Representing the Work Ethic in the Coalfields
Authors: Strangleman Tim , Hollywood Emma , Beynon Huw , Bennett Katy , Hudson Ray
Published: March 2010

This paper aims to discover how, with the decline and ending of the deep coal mining industry in many parts of the UK its legacy is being re-evaluated by those involved in various aspects of economic and social regeneration. It opens by exploring the way coal mine workers and their communities have been seen within popular and academic accounts, and in particular the way this group has been subject to ideal typification and stereo-typing. The main body of the paper examines the way this legacy is still subject to such interpretation, and that further, the specificity of the coal industry is commodified in a variety of ways. We point out the contradictory nature of this process and argue that it is inevitably damaging to a complex analysis of the deep problems facing former coalfield areas.
Structure, Strategy, Sustainability: What Future for New Social Movement Theory?
Authors: Lentin Alana
Published: March 2010

The theoretical domain developed for the study of New Social Movements (NSMs) in the early 1980s has recently been largely abandoned by its main advocates. Increasingly, the cross-class, ‘post-materialist’ movements of the 1970s and 1980s, typified by the issues of environment, peace and feminism, cease to pose a radical challenge to contemporary western politics. This paper revisits the theoretical work of three of the European voices central to understandings of the emergence and success of New Social Movements. Claus Offe, Alberto Melucci and Alain Touraine succeed in amalgamating an essential emphasis on structural transformation and an understanding of the importance of identity in bringing about ‘new’ collective action in the 1970s and 1980s. In response, to the significant decrease in European work on the NSM phenomenon today the paper proposes that the existing body of theory may be insufficient for describing collective action at the turn of the Millennium. The increasing predominance of ‘identity’ politics (e.g. in the realms of ethnicity and sexuality) in the arenas previously dominated by ‘universalist’, post-particularist themes; the institutionalisation of elements of NSM action and concerns; and the perceived appropriation by transnational agencies of the issues dominating original state-NSM struggles are cited as reasons for the need to develop a new language to describe contemporary collective action phenomena.
Fitness Gyms and the Local Organization of Experience
Authors: Sassatelli Roberta
Published: March 2010

One of the peculiarities of fitness gyms is the succession of people who try and follow a training programme and are not able to stick to it. Based on ethnographic research I try to account for this phenomenon. For regular participants, fitness training is not only important for the kind of body it will hopefully produce in the long run, but also for how it is lived in the present. I will try to show that the way gyms are locally organized - spatiality and interaction rules during training - is as important for exercise adherence as the culturally shaped ideals which sustain fitness culture. In particular, gyms need to provide not only for the substantial body objectives pursued by clients but also for their expressive demands. They need to offer not only competent trainers, but also training spaces where clients may feel secure enjoying a measure of discretion and sober informality. Still, the correct attitude towards fitness work-out is not a passive lack of desire. Fitness work-out asks for the demonstration of a particular kind of desire: each client can and must learn to concentrate only on him or herself in the attempt to improve his or her own exercise performance. Elaborating on my fieldwork, I propose that the more participants in fitness measure themselves against each other and a fantasized body ideal the less will be their capacity to continue attending the gym regularly. The more the desired objectives are perceived as vital, the more participants will feel inadequate, and the more difficult will be for them to concentrate on performing each and all movements and, consequently, to construct and continue a fitness programme. The possibility of filtering body ideals while pursuing an activity which is aimed at their achievement is decisive in protecting individuals from the dangerous exposure of their inadequacies. I conclude on the nature, importance and consequences of this paradoxical construction of experience.
‘Not Science but PR’: GM Food and the Makings of a Considered Sociology
Authors: Murcott Anne
Published: March 2010

This article sketches a sociology in the making that arises out of the case of GM food in Britain in 1999. It is presented with a view to moving, collaboratively, towards its further study. A ‘considered sociology’ is not original. It requires treating as an integral and enduring part of the field of investigation the historical and social characterisation of that same field. An evaluation of the sociology of food indicates that field's limitations for the examination of GM food, with one key exception. The article moves on to propose the need for (a) an as yet underinvestigated field of the industrialisation of food together with the role of science and technology within it, and (b) an examination of the industrialised (social) scientific production of ‘the consumer’. These may then serve as a basis for examining the manner in which public coverage of GM food could be characterised not as a matter of science but of a PR and is now publicly construed as a debate, ‘pro’ and ‘anti’.
Reflexivity and Sociological Practice
Authors: May Tim
Published: March 2010

Attention to reflexivity is often assumed to be the means through which the assumptions and values of social scientists may be uncovered. Researchers are thus called upon to position themselves explicitly in terms of their place within the research process in order that their interpretations may be assessed according to situated aspects of their social selves. Taking a reconstructive social science as one whose aim is to examine our pre-theoretical knowledge in the spirit of producing more adequate accounts of the social world, this article seeks to make sense of these ideas in relation to their consequences for producing an engaged practice and body of knowledge.
The Influence of Popular Cultural Imagery on Public Attitudes towards Cloning
Authors: Nerlich Brigitte , Clarke David D. , Dingwall Robert
Published: March 2010

This article shows how public attitudes towards cloning and geneticallymodified food and crops are influenced by dystopian science fictionliterature, films, images and metaphors. We analyse a body of textsproduced in the wake of the announcement of the successful cloning of Dollythe sheep by the Roslin Institute in February 1997, using methods fromdiscourse analysis and cognitive semantics. It is hoped that a betterunderstanding of the emergence and structure of lay imagery of issues suchas cloning will facilitate more effective communication between experts, policy makers and citizens.
Feminist Sociology and Sociological Feminism: Recovering the Social in Feminist Thought
Authors: Jackson Stevi
Published: March 2010

Whereas others have considered the interrelationship between feminism and sociology in terms of the impact of the former on the latter, this paper focuses on the influence of sociological thought on feminist theory. Sociological perspectives were much in evidence within feminist thought in the 1970s, but the shifting disciplinary hierarchies associated with the ‘cultural turn’ of the 1980s have since undermined sociology's influence within feminism - and especially in feminist theory. One consequence of this, I suggest, has been the erasure of some important sociological insights and perspectives from the map of feminist theory. In particular the origins of social constructionism have been forgotten, along with much that was distinctly social in this approach. In charting the course and assessing the effects of the ‘cultural turn’, I make it clear than not all feminists have followed that route. I argue for the recovery of the social from its eclipsing by the cultural and for the continued importance of a sociologically informed feminism into the 21st century. In making the case for a distinctly sociological approach to central feminist concerns, I will take sexuality as a case study. Here I seek to demonstrate that sociology has more to offer feminism than the cultural focus of queer theory.
(Posts-) Modernism and Structuralism: Affinities and Theoretical Innovations
Authors: Peters Michael
Published: March 2010

This paper argues that “poststructuralism” can be distinguished from “structuralism” in terms of an important set of theoretical and historical differences that can be most easily understood by recognizing the difference between their theoretical objects of study: poststructuralism takes as it theoretical object “structuralism”, whereas postmodernism takes as its theoretical object “modernism”. Each movement is an attempt to supersede in various ways that which went before. The two movements can be distinguished by a peculiar set of theoretical concerns most clearly seen in their respective historical genealogies. Poststructuralism ought to be seen as a specific philosophical response - strongly motivated by the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger - against the social scientific pretensions of structuralism.
Surviving through Substance Use: The Role of Substances in the Lives of Women who Appear before the Courts
Authors: Wincup Emma
Published: March 2010

Drawing upon qualitative data gathered through fieldwork in three bail hostels, this paper outlines the role of substance use (illegal drugs, alcohol, prescribed medication and food) in the lives of women awaiting trial. Their use of substance is explored within the context of the multiple and complex problems which shaped their lives. It is argued that womenís use of substances can be viewed as a active strategy to achieve personal and social satisfaction, to cope with stresses and problem experienced and to exert some degree of control over their lives. Whilst seemingly beneficial for the women in the short-term, ultimately substance use for this group of women can be seen as counter-productive and self-destructive; increasing the control of others (health care, social work and criminal justice professionals) over their lives, leading to social problems and damaging their emotional and physical well-being.
Strategic Minorities and the Global Network of Power: Western Thrace and Northern Ireland in Comparative Perspective
Authors: Marangudakis Manussos , Kelly William
Published: March 2010

The relationship between ethnic communities who share a common national space is often affected by factors above civil society, such as inter-state relations, political and economic alliances, and geopolitical interests. The relevance of ethnic minorities’ identity and behaviour to the international political environment becomes clear whenever an ethnic minority occupies territory of geopolitical and/or geo-economic importance to countries with conflicting interests in the area - we will call such a minority, ‘strategic minority’. Using a model of ‘network compatibility’ we could delineate the mechanisms and factors which affect the social outlook of a given minority.

To highlight the paramount importance of national and international relations in shaping ethnic minorities’ identity and behaviour the paper examines and compares two strategic minorities situated at the fringes of Europe: The Northern Irish Catholic minority and the Muslim minority in Western Thrace, North Eastern Greece. Using as our analytic tool the theory of ‘networks of social power’ we tentatively conclude that the formation as well as the current identity, status, and behaviour of the two minorities cannot be fully understood unless we examine the role of the two sets of neighboring countries (G. Britain - Ireland, and Greece - Turkey), as well as the two major Western political powers, i.e., the European Union, and the United States, in the two contested regions.
New Greek Nationalism
Authors: Triandafyllidou A. , Calloni M. , Mikrakis A.
Published: March 2010

The creation of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia after the dismantling of the Yugoslav federation has led to a revival of Greek nationalism. Greece has refused to recognize the new state as the ‘Republic of Macedonia’, sustaining that its name and national symbols form part of Greek culture and identity and are, therefore, unacceptable. The aim of this study is to highlight the Greek claims of ‘property’ over certain cultural traditions and, more specifically, the relationship between these claims and the ethno-cultural character of Greek national identity. Moreover, the paper examines the strategic manipulation of nationalist feelings by Greek politicians. The role of political and cultural myths in (re)defining national identity and in drawing the boundaries, symbolic and territorial, between ‘us’ and the ‘others’ is investigated. The problems that may arise from such an ethnic conception of the nation-state are discussed and a ‘constitutional model of patriotism’ is proposed as an alternative solution.
‘Sacking the New Jerusalem? - The New Right, Social Democracy and Professional Identities’
Authors: Hanlon Gerard
Published: March 2010

The New Right have had an important if somewhat imprecise impact upon Anglo-American capitalism over the past twenty years. Much has been written about them by a variety of disciplines over a wide subject terrain. This paper will further contribute to this analysis by discussing an area which has been somewhat neglected to date - namely, the way in which the New Rightís attempt to reconstruct society has affected professional work, the identities of professionals and, by implication, the service class. It will do so through an analysis of the New Right and towards the end it will use the University sector as an example of change for a variety of professional areas. Changes in the University and other sectors have led to new discourses and practices which have had real material effects and altered the nature of professional work. In turn, these effects have reshaped the welfare state and undermined key aspects of the pre-New Right foundations on which it was built. This alteration is ongoing and hence the future of the welfare state and the wider social structure is being fought out in these processes. To simplify this attempted reconstruction has pitted public sector professionals against private sector ones as the former have material interests bound up with a large allocative state whilst the latterís interests are tied up with a neo-liberal state. However, such a division creates a problem for the New Rightís long term success as it potentially encourages one section of the service class to support the left in an attempt to conserve their bit of the welfare state. What follows is based upon the experience of the UK.
‘“New Right” or “Backlash”? Section 28, Moral Panic and “Promoting Homosexuality”’
Authors: Wise Sue
Published: March 2010

The lesbian and gay movement in the UK has been the least successful of the major ‘new social movements’ (NSMs) in achieving social policy and legislative change, and Section 28 of the Local Government Act (1988) remains in force as a major symbol both of Conservative opposition to such changes and also of wider and institutionalised discrimination. Around ‘New Labour’ proposals to repeal Section 28, a ‘moral panic’ has taken place, and sections of the popular press have been ‘players within’ the amplification processes involved. Reporting of ‘what has been happening’ has suggested apparently close ongoing links exist between disparate groups opposed to repeal and largely homogenous views about the moral wrongness of homosexuality as such tantamount to a ‘New Right’ hegemonic phenomenon. However, a closer look suggests there is actually important differences between the groupings involved and the ‘close links’ are actually artefacts of ‘creative reporting’; and that these events are better characterised in terms of a ‘backlash’ to the specificities involved rather than a ‘New Right’ blanket response.
Ethnicity and Academia: Closure Models, Racism Models and Market Models
Authors: Fenton Steve , Carter John , Modood Tariq
Published: March 2010

The paper addresses racism, discrimination, equal opportunities policies, institutional cultures, and the pressures of markets in influencing the position of minority ethnic groups in academia. The representation and position of minority ethnic groups among academic staff in UK higher education has previously been little studied. Data from the Higher Education Statistical Agency records and from new surveys are presented and analysed. Representation is low especially among some groups, but is growing among younger sections of academic staff, and is much higher in some academic subject areas than others. Analysis of terms of contract and of seniority by ethnic groups suggests that minorities are significantly less well placed within the profession. An important distinction is between British and non- British nationality in assessing ethnicity and academic posts; non- British staff may be seen as part of a global labour market, especially in fixed term contract research work. The evidence is evaluated alongside a re-exploration of principal models for explaining ethnic disadvantage in labour markets: closure, discrimination, equal opportunities, institutional racism and markets. The authors conclude that a combination of the last two models offers the best prospect of a full explanation.
Technological Innovations in Data Collection: Acceptance, Data Quality and Costs
Authors: de Leeuw Edith , Nicholls William
Published: March 2010

Whether computer assisted data collection methods should be used for survey data collection is no longer an issue. Most professional research organizations, commercial, government and academic, are adopting these new methods with enthusiasm. Computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) is most prevalent, and computer assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) is rapidly gaining in popularity. Also, new forms of electronic reporting of data using computers, telephones and voice recognition technology are emerging. This paper begins with a taxonomy of current computer assisted data collection methods. It then reviews conceptual and theoretical arguments and empirical evidence on such topics as: (1) respondents and interviewer acceptance of new techniques, (2) effect of computer assisted interviewing on data quality, (3) consequences for survey costs and (4) centralized vs. decentralized deployment of CATI.
Land Reform: A Foundation for Industrial Growth in Developing Countries?
Authors: Brigham Anne Margrethe
Published: March 2010

In this paper I examine whether or not land reform can contribute to growth in the agricultural surplus of developing countries. There are two possible channels where we might expect an effect: the first is agricultural productivity and the second is “on farm consumption”. I start with an introduction to the theories on the relationship between agrarian structure and farm productivity. The theoretical literature on the effects of land reform on productivity is inconclusive. Therefore, I perform an empirical test on the relationship. I find that land reform is at least not detrimental to productivity. Next I provide a short summary of the literature on the relationship between land reform and “on farm consumption”. This literature is more conclusive. My conclusion suggests that land reform can have a positive effect on agricultural surplus (and thereby on industrialization) through both growth and redistribution.
Changing Places: Privilege and Resistance in Contemporary Ireland
Authors: O'Connor Pat
Published: March 2010

This paper explores the reality of patriarchal privileging and resistance within a society which has undergone dramatic change over the past twenty-five years. Using Foucault's ideas of power and resistance (1980; 1988; 1989) and Connell's ideas of the patriarchal dividend (1995 a and b) it first explores these key concepts. It then draws together a wide range of empirical evidence to document the ongoing reality of patriarchal privileging in the world of paid work and the family in Ireland. It then however identifies and illustrates fourteen analytically different types of resistance including the creation of an alternative power base in the family; facilitating the emergence of new child rearing structures; naming the ‘enemy within’; naming aspects of culture which are not ‘woman friendly’; whistle blowing; targeting key structures; negative power etc. It concludes by suggesting (drawing on Acker, 1998) that although the institutional structures reflect the needs and wishes of powerful men, choices can still be made by individual men and women.
Making Connections: Children, Technology, and the National Grid for Learning
Authors: Moran-Ellis Jo , Cooper Geoff
Published: March 2010

Late in 1997 the UK Government launched ‘Connecting the Learning Society’ (CtLS) as the first concrete step in instituting a ‘National Grid for Learning’ which will connect schools (and other sites and institutions) to an ‘information superhighway’. This paper presents a textual analysis of CtLS which examines the ways in which technology and the child are presented. We find that CtLS relies on conventional constructions of children as learners and future adults and that, in parallel with this, its treatment of technology is schematic and articulated with and in terms of ‘the future’. The transformation of society, and the arrival of a new socio?technical future, are taken as certain. We argue, on the one hand, that a vision is propounded in which the Grid is seen as transcendent, in that it will have a major impact regardless of the social relations in the context of use; but on the other, that a careful reading of the text reveals a concern with generating alliances, enrollments and trajectories which act as a kind of infrastructure for this vision. We conclude with some thoughts on the wider set of cultural assumptions that frame the document and which help to buttress its plausibility.
Border Crossings: Narratives of Movement, ‘Home’ and Risk
Authors: Lupton Deborah , Tulloch John
Published: March 2010

Despite the extensive sociological literature commenting on the ‘risk society’, surprisingly little empirical research has explored the ways in which notions, narratives and knowledges concerning risks are developed, understood and embedded in personal risk biographies. In particular, this is true of some of the most vulnerable people in the risk society: those who have migrated for reasons of personal, religious, economic, material or ideological persecution. This article addresses risk perceptions of immigrants to Australia, using data from a larger project on Australians’ perceptions and negotiation of risk. The emphasis of the research is on dimensions of risk biography that highlight matters of multiple identity and subjectivities. Drawing on three such risk biographies, we pose and begin to answer a number of specific questions: How have people come to construct their knowledges on risks? Which risks do people find most threatening or important? Whom do people see as causing or having responsibility over risk? How do people posit solutions for dealing with risk? In doing so we critique Beck's notion of the ‘cataclysmic’ and ‘democratised’ notion of risk within ‘risk modernity’.
The Neglected Art of Hitch-Hiking: Risk, Trust and Sustainability
Authors: Chesters Graeme , Smith David
Published: March 2010

This article explores the sociologically neglected practice of hitch-hiking. It demonstrates the paucity of research on what is potentially a fascinating instance of social interaction and it argues that hitch-hiking provides an interesting test case for the applicability of recent social theories of risk and trust. The reasons for the relative decline in hitch-hiking in Britain are discussed and comparisons are made with continental Europe and the U.S.. The article suggests that despite the increasingly risk-averse nature of public bodies, attention to this subject could provide interesting possibilities for policy makers concerned with the development of sustainable modes of transport, as well as for those concerned with the re-vitalisation of civil society.
Moral Tensions Between Western and Islamic Cultures: The Need for Additional Sociological Studies of Dissonance in the Wake of September 11
Authors: Davetian Benet
Published: March 2010

This article suggests that, in the wake of the events of September 11th, it would be an error for sociologists and political analysts to concentrate on revisions of economic and political theory while not paying equal attention to the moral tensions between Islamic and Western cultures. It proposes that economic and geopolitical research be expanded to include bilateral studies of Western and Islamic conceptions of morality and standards of right and wrong. The argument is based on the proposition that certain Western liberal attitudes threaten Islamic peoples’ commitment to the traditional family, thereby delaying conflict resolution and providing terrorists with additional venues for “justifying” their acts.
Control Creep
Authors: Innes Martin
Published: March 2010

Reacting to the attacks on September 11th and subsequently, governments in both the USA and UK have identified a need to enhance the social control apparatus in order to protect citizens from forms of ‘asymmetric warfare’ conducted by terrorist groups. These attempts to reform the provision of security and control cannot be understood in isolation. They are connected to a deeply entrenched process of ‘control creep’, whereby the social control apparatus progressively expands and penetrates (or ‘creeps’) into different social arenas, in response to a set of inchoate fears about a sense of security in late-modernity.
The Myth of Medical Pluralism: A Critical Realist Perspective
Authors: Han Gil-Soo
Published: March 2010

It is widely assumed that there is a high level of medical pluralism in contemporary society. For example, both orthodox and non-orthodox medicines are simultaneously available to the public. What forms the boundaries that demarcate orthodox medicines from non- orthodox ones? These issues arise when examining medical pluralism from a critical realist viewpoint. The aim of the paper is to argue that: firstly, orthodox and non-orthodox medicines reflect political economic aspects of the social context in which they are located. They do not exist in a social vacuum ensuring their ontological distinctiveness. Secondly, there are more similarities between orthodox and non- orthodox medicines than distinctly different features. In contemporary capitalist societies the key structuring/generative mechanism affecting the form and content of medical systems derives from the commodification of health care. This pervades both orthodox medicine and its various alternatives. Thus the reality of medical pluralism is illusory.
Comprehensive Community Initiatives: Addressing a ‘Problem’ in Local Governance or Creating One?
Authors: Crawshaw Paul , Simpson Donald
Published: March 2010

Pervaded by ‘third way’ values and identified as archetypal Comprehensive Community Initiatives (CCIs), programmes such as Education Action Zones (EAZs) and Health Action Zones (HAZs) follow a procedural rationale based on heterarchy and partnership. They are a response to an alleged prior fragmentation of service provision in welfare across sectors. Employing evidence from an evaluation of an EAZ and HAZ in one location, this article makes two claims. First, it is claimed that the extent of the alleged ?problem? of fragmentation across the governance of local social and welfare services prior to the introduction of these CCIs is contestable and was exaggerated for political purposes. Second, despite the application of CCIs in the form of EAZs and HAZs, it is claimed that a continuing problem of fragmentation across local governance of social and welfare services is evident. Several insights from the emerging theory of governance failure are employed to offer an explanation for why this situation has occurred.
Step-Fathering: Comparing Policy and Everyday Experience in Britain and Sweden
Authors: Edwards Rosalind , Bäck-Wiklund Margareta , Bak Maren , McCarthy Jane Ribben
Published: March 2010

Step-fathering is becoming increasingly common in contemporary western societies, yet it has received little research attention from either social policy or sociological perspectives. In this article, we draw on our empirical studies of step-families in Britain and Sweden to argue that social context is important in shaping step-fathers’ understandings of their position. Policy and legislation in these countries emphasise the importance of ascribed, biological parenthood, marginalising step-parents. There are, however, notable class differences in both our British and Swedish samples concerning whether step-fathers see their relationship to their step-children as the same as biological fathering, supplementary to it, or as disengaged from fathering. The analysis also reveals that policies simultaneously emphasise achieved contemporary involved fathering alongside promoting ascribed biological fatherhood. Such policies contain a contradiction for step-fathers’ understandings of their everyday relationships with their step- children.
Concept Development in Sociology: A Comment on Steve Fuller's, ‘Will Sociology find some New Concepts before the US finds Osama bin Laden?’
Authors: Vertigans Stephen , Sutton Philip
Published: March 2010

An interesting issue is raised by Steve Fuller's ‘Will Sociology Find Some New Concepts’ in the previous issue of this journal. This is the extent to which the research programmes of sociologists are or should be influenced by particular, significant events. If this is a call for scientific open-mindedness in the interpretation of violent forms of terrorism and their causes, then it is good advice for us all. However, there is a danger that the interpretation of ‘significance’ will be shaped by the specific reception of events in the relatively rich nations, thus paradoxically tying sociological work to the vagaries of contemporary politics in similar ways to some of those contributions that Fuller rightly criticises. The main issue here we suggest, is not that of failing to see that real world events can confound our expectations, but of understanding and explaining events of many different kinds within ongoing research programmes, as this is what constitutes the real value of the sociological contribution to knowledge.
The Political Economy of Diversity: Diversity Programs in Fortune 500 Companies
Authors: Ryan John , Hawdon James , Branick Allison
Published: March 2010

Using data from a 1998 SHRM survey, this study examines the prevalence and nature of diversity initiatives in Fortune 500 companies. The rhetoric of diversity in industry suggests that a diverse workforce is good for business. Diversity is typically defined in terms of such demographic factors as race, age, gender, ethnic background, and, to a lessor extent, sexual orientation. Our analysis shows that most Fortune 500 companies have some diversity initiatives, but that these initiatives are disproportionately aimed at certain minority groups. Thus, there appears to be a political economy of diversity in which some categories of diversity are valued over others. We place this analysis within the larger context of a changing economic, occupational and political factors affecting the diversity movement.
Modern Monarchy: A Comparative View from Denmark
Authors: Jenkins Richard
Published: March 2010

Using as its centre piece a Royal Visit, this article draws upon ethnography from a small town in Jutland, Denmark, to examine the role of the monarchy in Danish society. By focussing upon performance, and upon the management of the local cultural contradictions of equality and hierarchy, and modernity and tradition, the delicate balance between the sacred and the profane in the legitimation of monarchy in social democratic Denmark is explored. Comparisons are drawn with the United Kingdom monarchy, arguing that there are no transferrable lessons for the House of Windsor from the relatively successful adaptation to modernity of the House of Glucksborg.