bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Family Contexts of Gender Development in Childhood and Adolescence
Authors: McHale Susan M. , Crouter Ann C. , Whiteman Shawn D.
Published: March 2003

We review research on the family's role in gender development during childhood and adolescence. Our discussion highlights children's dyadic family relationship experiences with their parents and siblings; additionally, we describe ways in which the larger system of family relationships, including gendered dynamics in the marriage and the differential family experiences of sisters versus brothers may have implications for gender development. We also emphasize the significance of contextual factors—ranging from situational demands and affordances to forces emanating from the larger social ecology—in family gender socialization. We conclude that family experiences may have a more important impact on gender development than has previously been believed, and we highlight directions for future study. These include: (1) applying more complex models of parent socialization and family dynamics to the study of the family's role in gender development; (2) expanding on research directed at the socialization ofsex differencesto study how family dynamics are linked toindividual differencesin girls’ and boys’ gendered qualities and behaviors; and (3) further exploring how contextual factors exert an impact on gender socialization in the family.
Variations in the Administration of Disability Living Allowance
Authors: Hirst Michael
Published: March 2003

Disability living allowance (DLA), which aims to help meet some of the extra costs that disabled people have, raises questions of equity. One such question is whether DLA helps disabled people maintain similar living standards to those of non‐disabled people. A separate question, and the focus of this paper, is whether claimants in similar circumstances or with similar needs are treated equitably. Drawing on a large‐scale survey, the findings indicate that claimants with similar needs according to the rules on entitlement were, for the most part, treated alike. The adjudication of new criteria on periodic needs for personal care or for help preparing a cooked meal appears to be less consistent. Whether claimants with similar needs in respect of these criteria received an award depended in part on where their claim was administered. The use of medical evidence to determine claims and the treatment of those deemed to be non‐claimants also varied considerably. Efforts to improve consistency in decision‐making have now been introduced. Recent developments in information technology also offer the prospect of greater consistency and cost savings. Even if the allowance were administered consistently, however, disabled people with similar extra costs would not necessarily be treated equitably. It is argued that cash benefits for disabled people should be developed within a comprehensive system of local services and support to secure their social integration and personal autonomy. In the meantime, claimants and their advisers need to be prepared to follow up claims and challenge inappropriate decisions.
Creating a Safer Society
Authors: Donnison David
Published: March 2003

In some fields of policy Britain tends to follow the Americans. Will crime prove to be one of them? This chapter begins with an exploration of the sources of American influence, and an account of the disastrous course their penal policies have taken. Thereafter attention focuses on the United Kingdom. It is argued that public concern about crime must be taken seriously. Some have called for a “remoralization” of the debate—more “condemnation”, less “understanding”. But if our aim is to reduce crime, its economic and social context must first be understood; then changed. Delinquency is only one of several responses which people may make to prolonged hardship and frustration; and not necessarily the most destructive. Drawing on experience in many parts of the country, a programme of action to improve people’s safety is proposed. Starting with procedures for consulting and involving people—including those who appear to be the source of trouble—a local strategy is outlined to improve opportunities for making an honest living, to stabilize and strengthen communities, to provide better support for the victims of crime and for the most vulnerable families, and better opportunities for ex‐offenders. Police and penal services have an important job to do as mobilizers and managers of a society’s responses to crime. But, in a country where only 3 per cent of offences lead to a conviction in court, these services cannot do much to prevent it.
Which Champions, Which People? Public and User Involvement in Health Care as a Technology of Legitimation
Authors: Harrison Stephen , Mort Maggie
Published: March 2003

This paper concerns two practices, public consultation and user involvement, whose adoption has been urged upon the UK National Health Service in recent years. Public consultation is a local attempt to seek the views of a broad constituency of persons. User involvement is a local attempt to include organized groups of service users in the planning, and occasionally the management, of such services. The paper has four objectives. First, it locates the topic in the context of several related current debates. Second, it outlines the main findings of a recent empirical study of public consultation as they relate to the above debates. Third, it summarizes the relevant findings of an empirical study of user involvement. Finally, it examines these two practices as “technologies of legitimation” which can be seen as a means by which managerial legitimacy is maintained in the context of an increasingly pluralistic policy arena.
Inadequate Policy or Operational Failure? The Potential Crisis of the Korean National Pension Programme
Authors: Kwon Huck‐ju
Published: March 2003

The Korean National Pension Programme is one of the main pillars of the Korean welfare state. From its introduction in 1988, the Programme had come to include 26.8 per cent of the economically active population and had accumulated a pension fund equal to 24 per cent of government expenditure by 1994. Behind such a promising facade, the Korean National Pension Programme is likely to face financial crisis without a major reform. This paper seeks to answer the question as to whether the crisis will arise due to inadequate policy design or to operational failure. The latter cause may require privatizing the Pension Fund in order to operate more efficiently, while the former one would demand rectifying the defects of policy design. This study argues that the crisis is strongly related to inadequate policy design, which promises generous pensions and at the same time requires only a small amount in contributions; although there have also been operational inefficiencies in running the programme. It also argues that inadequacy in policy design stemmed from developmentalism embedded in the Korean welfare state, which regards the National Pension Programme mainly as a measure for mobilizing cheap capital. In conclusion, this paper argues that the Korean welfare state, created in the era of economic development, is transient in nature and that it needs a major reform not only to contain the cost but also to meet the growing demand for social welfare.
Looking Inwards, Looking Outwards: Dismantling the “Berlin Wall” Between Health and Social Services?
Authors: Hiscock Julia , Pearson Maggie
Published: March 2003

This paper argues that at a time when policy guidance urged closer collaboration and joint working between health and social services, the long‐established cultural and professional gaps were widening and deteriorating. Drawing on data from four research sites, the paper argues that the deterioration was rooted principally in practitioners' preoccupations with changes within their own organizations and daily work, resulting from a major period of change in both health and social services, which, ironically, was at the expense of the joint working which the “Caring for People” reforms required. As the policy environment changes again, under the Labour government, it is likely that health and social care practitioners will be working within further organizational turbulence and change. It will be crucial that those changes are managed in such a way that they avoid the very real danger of compounding the problems which our respondents identified.
Sheltered Housing and Community
Authors: Nocon Andrew , Pleace Nicholas
Published: March 2003

This paper considers the role of sheltered housing following the introduction of new community care arrangements in 1993 and examines the continuing uncertainty about its exact role as community care continues to develop. It reports on a study conducted in Shropshire, using a postal survey and interviews with older people and service professionals. The study highlights the importance of sheltered housing for older people, particularly in relieving them of concerns about maintenance and repairs, social isolation and security. These factors were crucial for their overall peace of mind and quality of life. While only a small proportion of tenants received help under social services' community care arrangements, the additional support, monitoring and service coordination provided by wardens helped some of them to remain in sheltered housing when residential or nursing home care might otherwise have been necessary. Sheltered housing was overwhelmingly popular with older people — but their satisfaction was closely associated with the availability and quality of the warden service. Although sheltered housing is not currently in vogue in housing policy, the paper argues that it plays a vital role in local provision for older people and needs to be more closely integrated into community care policy, while at the same time preserving the characteristics that make it popular with its residents.
Getting to the Top: Selection and Training for Senior Managers in the Police Service
Authors: Charman Sarah , Savage Stephen P. , Cope Stephen
Published: March 2003

This paper examines the processes by which the senior police officers in England and Wales are chosen and prepared for their role. Based upon research interviews with a sample of chief constables and assistant chief constables, it develops a critical assessment of the quality of each of the three key stages in this respect: the selection of those considered to have the potential to become senior officers, senior management training, and the appointments process at police authority level. In the light of the assessments made, the paper considers alternative schemes to those which currently operate at each stage of the process.
New Agendas for Social Policy and Criminology: Globalization, Urbanism and the EmergingPost‐Social Security State
Authors: Fitzpatrick Tony
Published: March 2003

The subjects of social policy and criminology have long been concerned with the criminalization and regulation of the poor. The premise of this paper is that in recent years new forms of criminalization and regulation have emerged that various authors, from both disciplines, have begun to theorize. The paper aims to contribute to this growing literature by bringing together diverse themes that deserve to be extensively discussed in conjunction with one another. These are: first, globalization; second, the changing nature of the state; third, the reorganization of space and time, especially at the urban level. It proceeds through examinations of some of the recent work of Jock Young, David Garland, Ramesh Mishra, Peter Taylor‐Gooby and Zygmunt Bauman. It concludes that theoretical and empirical research should analyse the reorganization of space and time which is being effected by the “post‐social security state” and it is this which constitutes the new agenda for social policy and criminology.
Food Security: Rights, Livelihoods and the World Food Summit–Five Years Later
Authors: Hussein Karim
Published: March 2003

An international Summit was called for June 2002 aiming to reaffirm the commitments of the 1996 World Food Summit and intensify efforts to halve the number of hungry people in the world to 400 million by 2015. However, progress on achieving this target is open to question. This paper analyses recent policy debates in two areas: first, the right to food and freedom from hunger; and second, the measurement of food insecurity at global and national levels. It agrees that the “World Food Summit–five years later” (WFS–fyl) should reaffirm commitment to the right of all people to food and freedom from hunger and the commitment to raise the resources required to achieve this. A rights–based approach to food security implies that policies be defined and actions taken to reduce hunger by a range of local, non–governmental, governmental and international actors. However, reliable information on who the hungry are and where they are situated is required in order to track progress to WFS targets and identify and implement appropriate actions at the global, national or subnational levels. The inter–agency Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping Systems (FIVIMS) plays a key role in generating information on trends of the numbers of food–insecure in the world, but the robustness of its “undernourishment” measure has been debated. The paper concludes by outlining practical ways to improve food security analysis, indicating the potential contribution of rights–based and livelihoods approaches.
Rethinking Politics for a Green Economy: A Political Approach to Radical Reform
Authors: Torgerson Douglas
Published: March 2003

Because the process of achieving a green economy is bound to be political, it is important how politics is understood. This essay employs a three‐dimensional model of politics (functional, constitutive, performative) in developing an approach to radical reform that accentuates political potentialities—understood in terms of debate, open exchanges of differing opinions. By exploring a central tension between the formal economy (associated with administrative and policy arenas in modern society) and the informal economy (associated with the enhancement of community), the argument concludes that achieving a green economy involves a key role not simply for the rational economic individual or the cooperative community member, but also for the citizen.
Spouse Liability for a Partner’s Long–term Care Costs: Local Variations in Policy and Practice in the UK
Authors: Wright Fay , Thompson Pauline
Published: March 2003

Under the 1948 National Assistance Act a husband and a wife are liable to maintain each other and so can be required to contribute towards a spouse’s care home costs. A national postal survey of social services finance officers showed that only a minority of local authorities pursue liable spouses. These authorities have often developed individual policies with widely different treatment of capital and income. Discretion is being exercised in the pursuit of liable spouses within these authorities. Social workers do not necessarily bring liable spouses to the attention of finance officers and articulate and knowledgeable spouses can either decline to pay or pay only token amounts. Only the unlucky and ill–informed spouses end up contributing. Such variation in the treatment of spouses is at odds with the development of fairer policies to meet the costs of long–term care.
Empowerment as a Strategy for Change for Farm Women in Western Industrialized Countries
Authors: Pettersen Liv Toril , Solbakken Hilde
Published: March 2003

This paper discusses how women’s position and opportunities in farming can be improved, and how women can gain (increased) influence in agriculture. It examines empowerment as a possible strategy for change. This approach is derived from feminist writings and grassroots experience of third‐world women. It focuses on transformation starting from the grassroots, or the ‘powerless.’ Is empowerment a strategy for change for farm women in western industrialized countries? Despite inherent contradictions and dilemmas, is argued that empowerment can contribute to improving women’s position and opportunities in farming and also give them increased influence in agriculture and rural communities.
The Detraditionalization of Occupational Identities in Farming in South Australia
Authors: Bryant Lia
Published: March 2003

This paper uses grounded theory to uncover the occupational identities of men and women who farm, and to build an empirically constructed typology of occupational identities in farming. The narratives of 22 men and 22 women from diverse farm types and two regions of South Australia are used to explore subjective meanings associated with work, the farm and self. The typology shows a shift in meanings associated with work, ‘the farm’ and gender characteristics across time and the typology. Globalizing influences are identified which have detraditionalized identities in farming and these are: changing relations between men and women and changing expectations about how producers should engage and orientate themselves toward the general market. A reflexivity about gender and a reflexivity about farming practice were identified as the two most important recurring features in the formation of identities that were non‐traditional. The paper therefore investigates why some individuals are more likely than others to be reflexive about gender and gender relations and/or farming practice. It explores the inter‐relationship between ‘self‐reflexivity’ and the structural environment in which the construction and reconstruction of identity occurs.
Methodological and Conceptual Issues in the Study of Multifunctionality and Rural Development
Authors: Knickel Karlheinz , Renting Henk
Published: March 2003

The aim of this paper is to try and outline the complexity of rural development processes that specifically relate to the phenomenon of multifunctionality. ‘Multifunctionality schemes’ are introduced as a means for visualizing the complex interrelationships in rural development processes and to ‘map’ the functional relationships and specific reconfigurations in the use of resources such as land, labour, knowledge and nature that underlie them. In the discussion, reference is made to case studies from the impact research programme. The Rhöngold case is used to illustrate how MF‐schemes can help to define micro‐macro relations and facilitate their quantification. Several conceptual issues are addressed in relation to the translation of farm data to the regional level, indirect multiplier effects, substitution effects and the importance of synergy. Methodological complications are seen in problems associated with the acceptance of a paradigm shift; the inadequacy of available regional, national and European data sets; the complex nature of micro‐macro relations; the difficulty of defining boundaries and reference systems; and the struggle with time,scale and space as critical modifiers of reality. The need to link the dimensions of agricultural and rural change demands a more multidisciplinary,holistic approach to analysis and conceptualization.
Naming Organics: Understanding Organic Standards in New Zealand as a Discursive Field
Authors: Campbell Hugh , Liepins Ruth
Published: March 2003

The New Zealand organic industry has grown rapidly over the last ten years. While New Zealand did have a small organic agriculture social movement from the 1970s, the size and scope of the industry increased rapidly during the 1990s as a result of large export companies establishing organic product lines. This transformation, and the eventual resistance to corporate styles of organic exporting, provides a useful case study of the way in which organic standards are constructed, reconstructed and circulated. By using discourse analysis the processes by which ideas of ‘organic’ were formed in the 1980s and then solidified (and contested) in the 1990s can be explored and various consequences identified. Rather than displaying a linear logic, by which organic agriculture movements are seemingly inevitably commoditized and corporatized, the New Zealand case provides evidence of the peculiar nature of organic agriculture as a part of the standardizing global food system.
Conservation of Biodiversity as a European Directive: The Challenge for France
Authors: Pinton Florence
Published: March 2003

The purpose of the Habitats directive, based explicitly on scientific knowledge, is to preserve biological diversity on a European scale through the conservation of natural habitats and wild fauna and flora. It differs from the standard nature protection policy approaches because of the principles which it espouses: maintaining biodiversity and sustainable development. The use of these notions is clearly not neutral nor without consequences. In exploring the content of the biodiversity concept, this text seeks to demonstrate how it redefined nature. An analysis of the text of the directive reveals its theoretically innovative aspects and the difficulties of applying this new nature policy. While it is clear that there are real difficulties of interpretation which can apply to all the countries involved, the room to manoeuvre and the risks of conflicts vary from country to country because they depend on the particular political culture. Our hypothesis is that biodiversity, as conceived in the directive and the action framework proposed, involves many contradictions which account for the outbursts in political and scientific circles which its application caused in France.
Eating ‘Green’: Motivations behind organic food consumption in Australia
Authors: Lockie Stewart , Lyons Kristen , Lawrence Geoffrey , Mummery Kerry
Published: March 2003

Central to the development of green lifestyles is the consumption of foods that by dint of their status as chemical–free, locally produced and/or free of genetically modified ingredients, reduce the environmental impact of food provision. Yet there are many other factors, such as health concerns, that may also encourage the consumption of ‘green’ foods. This paper explores the ways in which Australian consumers construct organic food — a sector of the food industry that is currently growing at between 20 and 50 percent per annum but is struggling to keep up with rising consumer demand. In order to examine the significance of ‘green’ signifiers in the consumption practices of Australian consumers a series of focus group interviews and a national consumer survey were conducted. These examined both those characteristics of food that were valued in general, and those meanings that were associated with organic food in particular. In very general terms, analysis reveals that while consumers believed organic foods to be healthy and environmentally sound — both of which were considered desirable — these characteristics were subsumed by an overarching concern with convenience. This does not mean that consumers did not hold genuinely positive environmental attitudes. Rather, it reflects a range of contradictory beliefs and practices that appeared to derive from the discursive conflict between conventional and organic food industries over environmental, health and safety claims. The paper concludes by identifying the barriers and opportunities for expanding the organic industry in Australia in the context of the ways organics is constructed by consumers.
4. Socioeconomic Indexes for Occupations: A Review, Update, and Critique
Authors: Hauser Robert M. , Warren John Robert
Published: March 2003

Following a review of the history and sources of socioeconomic indexes for occupations, we estimate a new set of indexes for 1990 Census occupation lines, based on relationships between the prestige ratings obtained by Nakao and Treas in the 1989 General Social Survey and characteristics of occupational incumbents in the 1990 Census. We also investigate theoretical and empirical relationships among socioeconomic and prestige indexes, using data from the 1994 General Social Survey. Many common occupations, especially those held by women, do not fit the typical relationships among prestige, education, and earnings. The fit between prestige and socioeconomic characteristics of occupations can be improved by statistical transformation of the variables. However, in rudimentary models of occupational stratification, prestige-validated socioeconomic indexes are of limited value. They give too much weight to occupational earnings, and they ignore intergenerational relationships between occupational education and occupational earnings. Levels of occupational education appear to define the main dimension of occupational persistence across and within generations. We conclude that composite indexes of occupational socioeconomic status are scientifically obsolete.
Viewpoint: Why Bother with Durkheim? Teaching Sociology in the 1990s
Authors: Parker David
Published: March 2003

Mark: That's the down side of setting up a grand narrative of sociology, people read the books when they're thirty, become professors of sociology and then do about one book every five years … ‘What should we mean by the “classics of sociology”? Does the term “classical social theory” have some real force, or is it just a vague label of convenience? And are “classics” the same as “founders”?’ (Giddens, 1995: 4).

Ashfaq: People are saying, some close friends of mine who I meet regularly, they say to me that the western disciplines, western education of social sciences, the whole framework which they follow is a non-starter for us and the whole thing has to change, change the rules of the game, goalposts … you name it.
The New Genetics: Professionals' Discursive Boundaries
Authors: Kerr Anne , Cunningham-Burley Sarah , Amos Amanda
Published: March 2003

In this paper we examine new genetics professionals' accounts of the social context of their work. We analyse accounts given in interview by an ‘elite’ group of scientists and clinicians. Drawing on the work of Gilbert and Mulkay (1984), we consider interviewees' discourse about knowledge, exploring the way in which they separate science from society through the use of what we have called the ‘micro/macro split’. We then go on to consider the reasons for such a discursive boundary, exploring the interviewees' wider discourse about expertise and responsibility for the social implications of the new genetics. We argue that interviewees' discursive boundaries allow them to appeal variously to their objectivity, to dismiss bad science and to characterize the public as ignorant. However, these discursive boundaries are permeable and flexible, and are employed to support the new genetics professionals' role in guiding education and government policy, whilst at the same time deflecting ultimate responsibility for the use of knowledge on to an abstract and amorphous society. Responsibility is flexibly embraced and abrogated. These flexible discursive boundaries thus promote rather than challenge the cognitive authority of new genetics professionals as they engage in debates about the social implications of their work. We end by challenging the replication of these discursive boundaries, noting some of the implications of such a critique for evaluation of the new genetics.
DIY Culture and Extended Milieux: LETS, Veggie Boxes and Festivals
Authors: Purdue Derrick , Dürrschmidt Jörg , Jowers Peter , O'Doherty Richard
Published: March 2003

The wave of DIY culture and environmental innovation sweeping through the UK is not restricted to isolated sites of high profile protest, such as the Newbury bypass. Based on fieldwork in the South West of England, consisting of in-depth interviews, participant observation, focus groups and a postal survey, we argue that networks such as those around festivals, LETS and organic food box schemes contribute to green milieux, which encourage ecological and cultural innovation of everyday life. We suggest that this creative social and ecological margin may be viewed as extended milieux combining global and local aspects. Local social relations and identities are reconfigured in new reflexive ways that utilize, criticise and even contribute to globalization, while developing new senses of locality and community.
‘For the Sake of the Deer’: Land, Local Government and the Hunt
Authors: Cooper Davina
Published: March 2003

Political activism by local government is a well known phenomenon in Britain. Less known are the interests affected. In this study, Somerset council's decision to ban hunting clashed with the long standing activities of the Quantock Staghounds. My discussion focuses on the conflict between hunt and council as a conflict of governance in which land rights provided both terrain and techniques of struggle. For the hunt, land rights functioned as a foundational basis for the hunt's authority and legitimacy. For Somerset, their decision to attack hunting through land ownership not only reveals the complex relationship between land and rural state governance, but also placed Somerset's own authority in jeopardy as the courts declared they could not ban hunting on moral grounds. Somerset's land rights were construed by the courts as dependent on pursuing management objectives. Similarly, the hunt's political credibility was also dependent on demonstrating their role in deer management. The paper concludes with the problems of discursively fusing management and governance.
Who are We? Problematising National Identity
Authors: McCrone David , Stewart Robert , Kiely Richard , Bechhofer Frank
Published: March 2003

While the concern with ‘identity politics’ has grown in recent years, there are few studies of the ways in which people order and negotiate their national identities. The study reported here focuses on the identities used by members of the arts and landed elites in Scotland in the assertion of perceived cultural differences between Scots and non-Scots. These two groups have good reason to be sensitive to the problematic and negotiated nature of national identity in a changing cultural and political context in Scotland. The raw materials of national identity, in particular, birth, residence and ancestry, are used by individuals in these groups to make claims which are sustained by and through social interaction in the course of which various ‘identity claims’ are made and received in various ways.
Housing Strategies in an Uncertain Market
Authors: Munro Moira , Madigan Ruth
Published: March 2003

The slump in house prices in the early 1990s created a degree of uncertainty in the housing market which contrasts markedly with the optimism of the 1980s. In particular, the market downturn made it sharply apparent that there could be losers as well as winners in the unstable housing market. This study looks at a sample of owner occupiers drawn from Glasgow and Bristol in 1995. While still endorsing home ownership as the major housing option and as potentially enabling in housing and neighbourhood terms, a note of caution is recognisable. Aspirations to climb the housing ‘ladder’ are tempered by fear of overextending financially and by the broader uncertainties that people perceive to be endemic in the labour market and the housing market. Strategies reflect both diverse personal histories and the adoption of defensive or risk reduction options. For many respondents maintaining current housing standards is more important than market advancement.
Consuming Work: Computers, Subjectivity and Appropriation in the University Workplace
Authors: Noble Greg , Lupton Deborah
Published: March 2003

The introduction of technologies has long been a central issue in the sociology of work. This has, however, largely been analysed in terms of worker displacement, deskilling and management control, while little empirical work has focused on questions concerning subjectivity. Current interest in Foucauldian approaches to questions of work and identity has remained primarily theoretical in nature and similarly lacks a sustained discussion of agency. Recent work on the relation between consumption and work has begun to provide a more nuanced framework for discussing the context-specific forms of appropriation in the workplace and their relation to workplace subjectivities. This article, based on a study of individuals' relationships with the personal computer in the university workplace, adopts a consumption-based approach to explore the complex interplay between subjectivity, technology and work. It examines how the introduction of the personal computer articulates with the interweaving of a ‘professional self’ and a sense of self drawn from the non-work realm. These different subjectivities relate to different tactics of appropriation: appropriation by mastery and by domestication of the work environment. Technologies themselves, however, also participate in the reconfiguration of work spaces and routines, involving questions of competence, knowledge and power, time and space, and the boundaries between home and work, in the new environments of computerised academia.
Parents Who Get What They Want: On the Empowerment of the Powerful
Authors: Birenbaum-Carmeli Daphna
Published: March 2003

This paper addresses the issue of parent involvement in school life in the newly emerging realm of commodified education. It explores the limits of empowerment and its context-dependent nature. The case under scrutiny is that of parent organising in an established Tel Aviv area, who demanded a share in the shaping of their children's education. These demands were couched in a hierarchy of moderate-status teachers and prestigious parents and backed by the parents' resources and their capability of effective organising. As the case unfolded, conflicts between the parents and the educational system turned into a paralysing factor, which further eroded the teachers' prestige and humiliated weaker parents within the community. Empowerment, commonly hailed as a desirable goal, may thus become an additional resource for the powerful, constituting less resourceful populations as passive and indifferent.
Towards a Sociology of Transgendered Bodies
Authors: Ekins Richard , King Dave
Published: March 2003

The articulation of a generic social process of ‘body femaling’ presented in Ekins (1993) and elaborated in Ekins (1997) is further developed in this article to provide a conceptual framework for a sociology of transgendered bodies. Transgendering refers both to the idea of moving across (transferring) from one pre-existing gender category to another (either temporarily or permanently), and to the idea of transcending or living ‘beyond gender’ altogether. Following Plummer's (1995) work on sexual stories, we distinguish a number of contemporary transgendering body stories which we consider in terms of four major modes or styles of body transgendering: those we identify as ‘migrating’, ‘oscillating’, ‘erasing’ and ‘transcending’. We give illustrative examples of each mode with reference to the binary male/female divide, the interrelations between sex, sexuality and gender, and the interrelations between the four main sub-processes of transgendering, which we identify as ‘substituting’, ‘concealing’, ‘implying’ and ‘redefining’.
Cultural Control within the Virtual Organization
Authors: Wilson Francis
Published: March 2003

New forms of information technology, together with recent developments in management theory and practice, have resulted in considerable debate concerning the social and technical implications of the emergent form of computer-dependent virtual organization. This paper identifies and reviews some theoretical developments central to the critical analysis of the use of combined computer-based systems and quality management applications. While the advocates of these trends propose that the emergent organizational configurations provide employees with the opportunity for participation in decision-making, resulting in ‘empowerment’ and the possibility of personal fulfilment, here it is argued that the virtual organization may result in a progressive formalisation of social relationships which will erode the meaning of true employee participation. It is suggested that the combination of networked computer-based systems and the psychological techniques which underpin the quality management methodologies, do not replace the technologies of control identifiable in the principles of scientific management and Fordism. Instead they provide an enhanced, more insidious form of technical and cultural control designed to engage the acquiescence of employees in order to maintain the efficiency of the organization.
Older People's Experiences of Community Life: Patterns of Neighbouring in Three Urban Areas
Authors: Phillipson Chris , Bernard Miriam , Phillips Judith , Ogg Jim
Published: March 2003

This paper examines changes to the community life of older people living in three urban areas of England: Bethnal Green, Wolverhampton and Woodford. All three were the subject of classic community studies in the 1940s and 1950s, these providing rich material about the lives of groups such as elderly people. Using this earlier research as a baseline, the paper presents data on how the experience of living in urban neighbourhoods has changed for older people in the intervening years. The article reviews the relationship between elderly people and their neighbours, drawing on quantitative as well as qualitative data. In conclusion, the paper identifies a number of general arguments pointing to the value of a community and locality perspective for understanding the impact of social changes on later life.
Gender Equality in ‘The Most Equal Country in the World’? Money and Marriage in Sweden
Authors: Nyman Charlott
Published: March 2003

This article analyses how Swedish couples perceive the sharing of money and consumption between themselves and their partner. Interviews were conducted with ten Swedish married couples. Each spouse was interviewed separately about their incomes, financial organization, patterns of consumption, views about money and decision-making. Regardless of whether they pooled their incomes or kept money separately, all were in agreement about the importance of equal sharing and access to money and consumption. Despite stated goals of gender equality, however, consumption was not perceived as being shared equally. Two factors central to understanding this were the ways that daily finances were managed and the fact that women had responsibility for the daily finances of the family. Another important aspect was the ways that items of consumption were defined. Food and children's clothes were areas that were in a ‘grey zone’ regarding which money was used to pay for them, and they often fell to the woman. This practical responsibility and associated awareness of the family economy serve as obstacles to women's sense of entitlement and access to money for personal discretionary spending, a problem not experienced by men.
Men are Real, Women are ‘Made up’: Beauty Therapy and the Construction of Femininity
Authors: Black Paula , Sharma Ursula
Published: March 2003

Beauty therapy as an industry is multi-faceted; as a set of practices it is complex. The beauty industry has been the subject of much critique but comparatively little empirical study. Based upon research with beauty therapists themselves, this article investigates the complex relationship between femininity and beauty. The beauty industry is located within debates about the body and leisure. The growth in the beauty industry is also linked to the commodification of body practices. Despite remaining critical of the role of beauty in the lives of women, we also emphasise the fact that women are not ‘cultural dopes’ (Davis, 1991). The actual experiences of beauty treatments and the testimonies of women involved in the industry paint a picture of competing discourses and contradictory outcomes. This is not least because both clients and therapists deny being concerned with beauty, but rather aim to provide ‘pampering’, ‘treatment’ or ‘grooming’. The beauty salon may be seen as the site of both compliance with, and escape from, a feminine ideal. The role of class, ethnicity and age in breaking down the monolithical concept of beauty and in fragmenting the experiences of beauty practices are also discussed.
Living in the ‘Empire of the Gaze’: Time, Enclosure and Surveillance in a Theological College
Authors: Welland Trevor
Published: March 2003

Interest in ‘the body’ as a focus of sociological research and theory has, in part, drawn on Foucault's concept of ‘biopower’ in order to investigate and interpret the often complex intersections of control and resistance. This type of analysis has significance for occupational socialization research that explores and interrogates the institutional settings and processes of professional preparation. In this paper, aspects of Foucault's analytic frame will be used to describe and interpret how full-time, residential training for ordained ministry functions to inscribe and regulate the ‘docile bodies’ of the trainees. It further explores the means by which students conform to and contest this ‘curriculum of the body’.
Management Identities in Transition: A Case Study from Further Education
Authors: Alexiadou Nafsika
Published: March 2003

Since the mid-1980s, Further Education has experienced deep transformations as the result of market driven reforms and the emergence of ‘new managerialism’ in the sector. The changes affected its governance, purpose, organisation and culture, and had deep influence on the relations and identities in the workplace. This paper explores the response of managers in selected Colleges of FE in England, and their discursive construction of new work identities. It is argued that in mediating the reforms, managers adopt a range of responses and position themselves differentially to the discourses of ‘managerialism’ and the ‘market'. From enthusiastically adopting entrepreneurial management, to resisting, or quietly re-constructing vocabularies and practices to fit traditional models of professional practice, the managers in this study illustrate the contested nature of implementing reforms in the public sector, and the complex interplay between agency and institutional practice.
Trust in Complementary Medicine: The Case of Cranial Osteopathy
Authors: Lee-Treweek Geraldine
Published: March 2003

Trust has been seen as operating within situations in which an individual's ability to assess risk or probability is absent and yet they still choose to believe in something. The development of new sets of knowledge in modern societies raises interesting questions about how the public come to trust the ‘experts’ who practice them and there is a paucity of work which addresses how trust ‘happens’ in these new relationships. This paper uses the accounts of patients who use cranial osteopathy to discuss the bases of trust in complementary medicine. It is argued that the practitioner and their therapy is not the basis of patient trust. For the initial attendance the patient relies upon the accounts and credibility of other people (network trust). After this it is the phenomenological work of the patient, who strives to find meaning in the treatments they experience, which is essential to the development of trust relationships. The paper demonstrated that patients mobilise ideas and understandings which they are familiar with to understand the unfamiliar and that it is this process of seeking meaning which is central to the creation of trust.
Social Capital, Networks and Leisure Consumption
Authors: Warde Alan , Tampubolon Gindo
Published: March 2003

This article reflects on the way in which personal ties affect the nature and content of consumption. While it is banal to observe that friends, kin, colleagues and neighbours influence anyone's pattern of consumption, comparatively little work exists on how this process operates. The article will be illustrated by some secondary analysis of the British Household Panel Survey which has a panel of approximately 10,000 people who have been interviewed annually since 1991. It analyses aspects of individual consumption in relation to people's associational involvement and friendship ties. The data is explored in the context of debates about social capital, attempting to apply the concept in order to analyse recreational practices. It is suggested that social capital is a flawed concept and that greater appreciation of the complexity and diversity of network ties is required to understand how personal connections influence consumption.
Microbusiness, Household and Class Dynamics: The Embedding of Minority Ethnic Petty Commerce
Authors: Sanghera Balihar
Published: March 2003

Microbusinesses are embedded in wider social processes, and it is the nature of this social embeddedness that is the principal focus of the article. In particular, ‘domestic embedding’ of petty commerce is crucial, and involves a mixture of competition, domination, negotiation, and custom (Wheelock and Mariussen, 1997). Furthermore, as a socio-economic group, petty traders and producers occupy an ambivalent position in the class structure, as they are vulnerable both to upward and downward social mobility. While the petty capital class has the advantage of possessing property assets, many members lack significant symbolic and cultural assets. Nonetheless, property assets offer the most robust bases for class formation (Savage et al., 1992). In addition, the embedding of petty commerce can be both ‘identity-sensitive’ and ‘identity-neutral’ (Sayer, 1995; 2000; Fraser, 1995). Extra-ethnic factors are significant in this process.

The research uses formal interviews and ‘quasi-ethnographic’ methodology to explore the different contexts in which restaurateurs and market traders operated in Birmingham, UK. The article draws critically on several literatures on industrial organisation, economic sociology, family businesses and minority ethnic businesses. One aim is to give the rather indifferent concept of ‘embedding’ substantive content, and in this way to make an empirically informed contribution to ‘new economic sociology’.
Can Social Systems Be Autopoietic? Assessing Luhmann's Social Theory
Authors: Mingers John
Published: March 2003

The theory of autopoiesis, that is systems that are self-producing or self-constructing, was originally developed to explain the particular nature of living as opposed to non-living entities. It was subsequently enlarged to encompass cognition and language leading to what is known as second-order cybernetics. However, as with earlier biological theories, many authors have tried to extend the domain of the theory to encompass social systems, the most notable being Luhmann. The purpose of this article is to consider critically the extent to which the theory of autopoiesis, as originally defined, can be applied to social systems – that is, whether social systems are autopoietic. And, if it cannot, whether some weaker version might be appropriate.