bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Conceptualising Intensive Caring Activities: The Changing Lives of Families with Young Disabled Children
Authors: McLaughlin Janice
Published: March 2010

Feminists have put care on the sociological agenda. At times they have defined it as an activity that imprisons women, at other times they have seen it as a value that is marginalised in society and should be celebrated. In contrast disability writers view care as a category that pathologises those who are defined as its recipients and seek to avoid both the language of care and analysis of those who ‘care for’ disabled people, for example parents of disabled children. This paper argues that it is important to work with the concept of care and to explore the activities of parents. The contexts within which individuals are involved in caring activities frame and influence what is seen as care, how care is performed and received, how different roles and identities are read and how changes occur within caring activities and within the lives of those involved. Therefore exploring the social, cultural and political contexts within which care occurs is important to understanding its significance. Through discussion of a research project involving the parents of very young disabled children this paper argues that cultural stereotypes around disability within the medical model and within society confine the care made available to families where impairment is present. However, it goes on to argue that families challenge that containment through patterns of care they adopt and receive from others in similar positions to themselves and through seeing value and worth in their new lives and family form. The social and political dimensions to this transformation are examined in order to situate care and transformation at the societal rather than individual level.
Marking the Moral Boundaries of Class
Authors: Kirk John
Published: March 2010

This article welcomes the recent renewed interest in the topic of class within sociology and cultural studies. This comes after a long period – from around the middle part of the 1980s and into the 1990s – during which social class was dismissed as a mode of understanding socio-economic and cultural conditions on the part of both academics and mainstream political organisations alike. Working-class formations in particular came under scrutiny, increasingly seen to be in terminal decline and fragmentation through the impact of post-industrialisation processes set in train in western economies from the turn of the 1980s onwards. The demise of heavy industry – steel, coal, textiles, for instance – profoundly altered working-class communities, transforming the material world and cultural life of the British working class, powerful developments reinforcing the ‘end of class’ debate. Allied to this, the emergence within the academy of new theoretical frameworks associated with postmodern thought claimed to undermine traditional understandings around class. This article insists on the continuing significance of class and does so by focussing on an important recent response to the class debate, Andrew Sayer's The Moral Significance of Class (2005). This book stakes a lucid claim for the importance of recognising class as a powerful determining factor of subjectivity. While drawing upon aspects of Sayer's theoretical framework and argument to examine class experience, it is also the intention of the article to supplement Sayer's work by developing related theoretical propositions derived from the writing of Raymond Williams and the Russian linguist and cultural critic Volosinov/Bakhtin.
Negotiating ‘Normal’: The Management of Feminine Identities in Rural Britain
Authors: Gill Fiona
Published: March 2010

This paper examines the management of feminine identities in a women's rugby team in a rural British community. In so doing, the issue of new, and potentially problematic, forms of femininity are explored, with their attendant social consequences. The team, known as the Jesters, is situated in a social context which is dominantly masculine and heterosexist, with rigidly enforced gender roles. Due to their participation in rugby, a ‘man's game’, the Jesters are threatened with marginalisation for their apparent failure to conform to, and potential disruption of, established gender norms. This threat is managed through the performance of certain ‘inauthentic’ feminine identities (hyper-femininity and heterosexuality) on the part of the entire team. It is this ‘team identity’ which lies at the heart of this paper.

This paper therefore examines the group dynamics of identity performance and negotiation. In negotiating ‘normal’ the Jesters are forced to confront changing gender norms and social contexts within the team itself. This paper also examines the difficulties faced by individuals when their own interests are opposed to the interests of the group of which they are a part. Although largely uncaring about the private lives of team members, the heterosexual members of the Jesters refuse to tolerate the performance of alternative versions of femininity when it may result in the exclusion of the team as a whole. This paper therefore examines the differing interests of heterosexual and lesbian femininities within a potentially marginalised group and some of the coping mechanisms adopted by both groups to develop a coherent team image.
Patterns in the Telling: Single Women's Intimate Relationships with Men
Authors: Reynolds Jill
Published: March 2010

This article explores some ways in which women not living with an intimate partner talk about their relationships with men. Data are considered in relation to social theorising on the changing nature of intimate relationships. The analysis makes use of traditions in narrative analysis and critical discursive psychology to identify some patterns in the telling, including common cultural resources that are drawn on by speakers. Patterned ways of portraying relationships identified in the data discussed here include a self-blame approach in describing extreme behaviour from the man concerned, and a repudiation of any intention of commitment through talk of the positive features of relationships with unavailable men. A further way of talking introduces a ‘new realism’ in which relationships are depicted as right for a time but dispensable when their time is up. The analysis suggests that concepts of individualisation and impermanence in relationships provide new cultural resources that women can draw on in providing a self-narrative. The data demonstrate the detailed rhetorical work involved in producing a positive account of the self as a single woman.
‘The Basic Stuff of Our Memories’: Embodying and Embedding Discipline
Authors: Brownlie Julie
Published: March 2010

In recent political debates about physical chastisement, children have been positioned as ‘potential’ selves and have had their bodies mapped in specific ways. This article compares these discourses with findings from a study of parents’ views of proposed legislation on physical discipline. It is argued that parents’ talk about physical discipline is temporal not only because it is concerned with the nature of the child's body/self at the time of punishment but because parents engage with memories from their own childhood and, therefore, with how childhood selves have been disciplined across social and biographical time. Drawing on sociological work on the body, memory and childhood, the article explores two aspects of disciplinary practices - their embodied and embedded nature – which, to date, have been under researched and under theorised in debates about physical chastisement.
Transmuting Gender Binaries: The Theoretical Challenge
Authors: Monro Surya
Published: March 2010

This paper provides a cross-cultural account of gender diversity which explores the territory that is opened up when sex, gender, and sexual orientation, binaries are disrupted or displaced. Whilst many people who identify as trans or intersex see themselves as male or female, others identify in ways which destabilize sex/gender and sexual orientation binaries. The paper provides a typology of ways in which sex/gender diversity can be conceptualized, and draws out the implications for theorizing gender. It discusses the contributions made by the new wave of authors working in the field of transgender studies; authors who draw on and inform the sociology of sex and gender, feminisms, and poststructuralist theory. It based on empirical material from research carried out in India and the UK.
Sociological Engagements with Computing: The Advent of E-Science and Some Implications for the Qualitative Research Community
Authors: Hodgson Susan M. , Clark Tom
Published: March 2010

This paper explores some of the implications for qualitative researchers within sociology of developments in Grid technology and thereby aims to contribute to the debate on the future of sociological research in an increasingly digitised world. The well-established field of humanities computing provides an interesting counterpoint.

We use the methodological techniques of ‘secondary analysis’ and ‘visual research’, two currently marginal approaches within sociological research but with huge potential within e-environments, as lenses through which the potentials and pitfalls of Grid-supported qualitative work might be anticipated. Rather than a concern with the technical however, we argue for a concurrent attention to the methodological in relation to technological developments.

We find that current developments in the qualitative field are more in line with the interests of the humanities and this may shape and constrain the research that sociologists could do. Also, that the conditions to support innovative sociological developments for qualitative Grid computing are not currently well developed or supported. We conclude that in order for a more progressive e-social science agenda to emerge, a broader constituency of sociological researchers should engage with the technological debate, otherwise we risk missing out on opportunities to shape emerging technologies to our research needs.
Social Capital and Community Building through the Internet: A Swedish Case Study in a Disadvantaged Suburban Area
Authors: Ferlander Sara , Timms Duncan
Published: March 2010

The rapid diffusion of the Internet has considerable potential for enhancing the way people connect with each other, the root of social capital. However, the more the Internet is used for building social capital the greater will the impact be on those whose access and/or usage is curtailed. It is therefore important to investigate the impacts of Internet on groups at risk of digital and social exclusion. The aim of this article is to examine how the use of the Internet influences social capital and community building in a disadvantaged area. Quantitative and qualitative data from a case study in a suburban area of Stockholm are used to evaluate the social impacts of two community-based Internet projects: a Local Net and an IT-Café. Each of the projects was aimed at enhancing digital inclusion and social capital in a disadvantaged local community. The paper examines the extent to which use of the Internet is associated with an enhancement of social participation, social trust and local identity in the area. The Local Net appears to have had limited success in meeting its goals; the IT-Café was more successful. Visitors to the IT-Café had more local friends, expressed less social distrust, perceived less tension between different groups in the area and felt a much stronger sense of local identity than non-visitors. Visitors praised the IT-Café as providing a meeting-place both online and offline. The Internet was used for networking, exchange of support and information seeking. Although it is difficult to establish causal priorities, the evidence suggests that an IT-Café, combining physical with virtual and the local with the global, may be especially well suited to build social capital and a sense of local community in a disadvantaged area. The importance of social, rather than solely technological, factors in determining the impact of the Internet on social capital and community in marginal areas is stressed.
Collective Representations, Divided Memory and Patterns of Paradox: Mining and Shipbuilding
Authors: Roberts Ian
Published: March 2010

This paper seeks to examine the different relationship of two industries to their potential for representation and celebration in collective memory. Looking at case studies of mining and shipbuilding in the shared location of Wearside the paper compares and contrasts features of the two industries in relation to the divergent outcomes of the traces of their collective memory in this place. Using visual representations the paper makes the case that the mining industry has experienced a successful recovery of memory. This is contrasted to the paucity of visual representation in relation to shipbuilding.

The reasons for the contrast in the viability of collective memory are examined. Material, cultural and aesthetic issues are addressed. Contrasts are drawn between divisions of labour in the two industries and the ways in which these impact upon community and trade union organisation which further relate to the contrast between industrial and occupational identity. Differences in the legacy of the physical occupational communities of the two industries are illustrated. There is also an examination of the aesthetic forms of representation in which mining is seen as characterised by the aesthetics of labour, whereas shipbuilding is represented more through the aesthetics of product. The way in which the industries were closed also becomes important to understand the variation in the differences of the potential of collective memory. All of these strands are brought together to conclude that in relation to the potential for collective memory, mining can be seen to have gone through a process of ‘mourning’ whereas melancholia seems to more adequately represent the situation with respect to shipbuilding. In illustrating these cases the paper is arguing for a more sophisticated understanding of the process of deindustrialisation and the potential for the recovery of collective memory.
‘I've Always Managed, That's What We Do’: Social Capital and Women's Experiences of Social Exclusion
Authors: Gosling Victoria K
Published: March 2010

It is evident that the concept of ‘social capital’ has recently come to the forefront of many governmental strategies aimed at combating social exclusion. In particular the interpretation of social capital used by many authors and agencies is one that emphasises the importance of not only social networks and contacts, but also a social responsibility to one's local community and wider society. Most notably it is poor people and poorer neighbourhoods that are seen to be lacking in these forms of social capital, and therefore emphasis is placed upon individual and community responsibility for tackling their own (and other's) exclusion. Drawing on in-depth interviews with women living on a deprived inner-city housing estate in the north of England, this research considers existing practices, forms and gendered nature of social capital for these women. The paper concludes that contrary to popular beliefs, many of these women already possessed forms of social capital, and specifically, that this was beneficial in helping them cope and ‘get by’ within their everyday experiences of social exclusion. This research highlights the potential exclusionary nature of social capital for certain individuals and the limitations of social capital in helping excluded women to escape their poverty.
The Online Student: Lurking, Chatting, Flaming and Joking
Authors: Orton-Johnson Kate
Published: March 2010

This paper looks at the use of online conference interaction as a part of a web-based distance-learning course. There has been much debate surrounding the potential of educational technology, particularly online conference interaction, to support teaching and learning yet little attention has been paid to student experiences and understandings of the online learning environment.

Drawing on data from auto-ethnographic fieldwork the paper identifies 5 categories of participation in asynchronous online conferences: lurker participation, member participation, expert/experienced participation, flamer participation and joker participation. Through an exploration of these forms of participation the paper attempts to understand and illustrate the complexities and contradictions of situating conference interaction alongside the demands of study. The analysis highlights the role of online conferencing as a space for ‘interaction work’ distinct and separated from existing repertoires of formal study. The paper concludes by suggesting that pedagogically successful use of conferences as part of distance learning needs to understand the challenges and demands of remediating existing practices.
Patterns of Absolute and Relative Social Mobility: A Comparative Study of England, Wales and Scotland
Authors: Paterson Lindsay , Iannelli Cristina
Published: March 2010

We use the British Household Panel Study to analyse change over birth cohorts in patterns of social mobility in England, Scotland and Wales. In several respects, our conclusions are similar to those reached by other authors on the basis of wider comparisons. There has been a large growth in non-manual employment since the middle of the twentieth century. This led first to a rise in upward mobility, but, as parents of younger people have now themselves benefited from that, has more recently forced people downward from their middle-class origins. These changes have largely not been a growth in relative social mobility: it is change induced by the occupational structure. The conclusions apply both to current class and to the class which people entered when they first entered the labour market. The patterns of relative mobility could not be explained statistically by measures of the respondents’ educational attainment. The conclusions were broadly the same for the three countries, but there was some evidence that in the youngest cohort (people born between 1967 and 1976) experience of people from Wales was diverging from that of people from England and Scotland, with rather greater amounts of downward mobility. There were two methodological conclusions. Out-migration from country of birth within the UK did not seem to make any important difference to our results. That is encouraging for analysis of surveys confined to one of the three countries, because it suggests that losing track of out-migrants would not distort the results. The second methodological conclusion is that the comparative study of social mobility can find interesting topics to investigate at social levels lower than that of the state, here the comparison of the three countries which make up Britain.
Parental Help-Seeking and the Moral Order. Notes for Policy-Makers and Parenting Practitioners on ‘the First Port of Call’ and ‘No One to Turn To’
Authors: Broadhurst Karen
Published: March 2010

The topic ‘help-seeking’ is of international interest. However, there is only a very limited literature concerning help-seeking in child welfare and a distinct dearth of studies that have examined the social organisation of parents’ decisions to seek help. Recent developments in child welfare services in England and Wales have seen the introduction of a raft of initiatives that aim to deliver parenting support to a broader range of parents; however, these initiatives are not well grounded in an evidence base concerning parental help-seeking. Focusing on the organisation of talk-in-interaction in interviews and focus groups, this study examined parents’ normative and inter-subjective understandings about help-seeking. The study found that when considering the welfare problems of parenting (variously described as ‘domestic’, ‘normal’ or ‘on the home front’), participants routinely made relevant the binary ‘inside/outside’ the family, indicating the central (normative) relevance of the category ‘family’ for this kind of support. Outside (professional) help was very much a residual option, only to be considered on the basis of ‘no-one to turn to’. The findings are discussed in relation to national strategies that seek to normalise support for parenting and issues of international relevance to do with professional identification and diagnosis of need.
Researching Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Christians and Muslims: Some Thematic Reflections
Authors: Yip Andrew K. T.
Published: March 2010

This paper highlights some thematic reflections primarily based on two empirical research projects on lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) Christians and Muslims. It begins by discussing reflexivity by way of contextualising the subsequent exploration of specific themes. This is followed by a discussion of the plight of LGB Christians and Muslims which renders research on this population highly sensitive. The paper then explores the theme of researching meanings and lived experiences sensitively, focusing on the importance of being theoretically and culturally sensitive; and the relevance of methodological pragmatism and pluralism. It then proceeds to a detailed discussion of accessing ‘hidden’ populations and trust building; and the dynamics of the insider/outsider status. The paper concludes with a call for LGB research to take seriously intersectionality of contemporary LGB identity (e.g. sexual, religious, cultural, ethnic), and the role of religion/spirituality in LGB lives and politics.
The Sociology of Lesbian and Gay Reflexivity or Reflexive Sociology?
Authors: Heaphy Brian
Published: March 2010

This article is concerned with sociological conceptualisations of lesbian and gay sexualities as reflexive forms of existence, and identifies core problems with these. Our sociological narratives about lesbian and gay reflexivity tend to be partial in two senses. First, they talk about and envision only very particular - and relatively exclusive – experience, and fail to adequately account for the significance of difference and power in shaping diverse lesbian and gay experiences. Second, they tend to be underpinned by overly affirmative and normative projects, and are often narratives about how lesbian and gay life should be. Our narratives about lesbian and gay reflexivity sometimes confuse analysis with prescription, and actualities with potentialities. Their partiality limits the analytical purchase they afford, and is an inadequate basis on which to analyse contemporary lesbian and gay identities and ways of living. The article proposes an approach to studying lesbian and gay living that is orientated more towards reflexive sociology than the sociology of reflexive sexualities.
Mixed Communities Require Mixed Theories: Using Mills to Broaden Goffman's Exploration of Identity within the GBLT Communities
Authors: Hoxsey Dann
Published: March 2010

The central objective of this paper is to attempt to counter an overly-rigid theoretical approach in data analysis. Implicit in the push to identify and follow one proper theoretical stream is the idea that one's particular theoretical approach will always be plausible and contains an inherent ‘value’ over any other approach. That being said, the purpose of this paper is two-fold. The first is to argue that a rigid theoretical approach to understanding people from non-homogenized communities leaves the analysis wanting. Instead, I refer to a more flexible nature of using a mixed-method approach to analysis, which will generate an appropriately pluralistic representation of someone from a pluralist community. Secondly, this paper suggests that a mixed-method approach should include both a micro and a macro analysis. In this vein, I put forward the benefits of combining the theoretical approaches of both Goffman and Mills. In doing so, I am not suggesting that Goffman and Mills are the only theorists to use. Rather, the combination of these two theories is useful for understanding an intersubjective approach to myself. A flexible epistemological approach would recognize that other situations might call for the use of other theorists.
Balancing Food Risks and Food Benefits: The Coverage of Probiotics in the UK National Press
Authors: Nerlich Brigitte , Koteyko Nelya
Published: March 2010

The 1980s and 1990s were marked by a series of food crisis, environmental disasters and the emergence of so-called ‘superbugs’. At the same time, social scientists, such as Ulrich Beck, began to study the rise of a modern ‘risk society’. The late 1990s and early years of this new millennium have been marked by increasing consumer interest in organic and natural foods but also in novel food products, such as probiotics or friendly bacteria which, as supplements or added to yoghurts, promise to help fight various effects of ‘modernity’, from stress to superbugs. Using thematic analysis and corpus linguistic tools, this article charts the rise of probiotics from 1985 to 2006 and asks: How did this rise in popularity come about? How did science and the media contribute to it? And: How were these bacteria enlisted as agents of attitudinal change? Analysing the construction of certain food benefits in the context of a heightened state of anxiety about food risk might shed light on aspects of ‘risk society’ that have so far been overlooked.
How has Educational Expansion Changed the Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Achieving Professional, Managerial and Technical Class Positions in Britain? A Configurational Analysis
Authors: Cooper Barry , Glaesser Judith
Published: March 2010

This paper, whose purpose is both substantive and methodological, focuses on changes over a nine year period, drawing on data from two British birth cohorts (individuals born in 1958 and 1970), and, substantively, employs set theoretic methods to explore the extent to which an upward shift in qualifications achieved led to any reduction in the roles class and gender played in the achievement of professional, managerial and technical (PMT) social class destinations in early adulthood. Our methodological purpose is to illustrate how a counterfactual modelling approach can be used together with Ragin's set theoretic methods to provide an alternative way of analysing relationships in this area. We draw on earlier work exploring the extent to which educational achievement was ‘meritocratic’ with respect to ability for these cohorts (Cooper 2005, 2006). Our configurational account of the causal pathways to various class destinations is set against the background of a simple model of ‘meritocracy’ (allocation to available class positions by qualifications alone taking account of the empirical marginal distributions). This model allows us to specify, counterfactually, what qualifications would have represented necessary and sufficient conditions in our modelled meritocracy for reaching the PMT class. By comparison of these conditions with the empirically derived necessary and sufficient conditions for achieving these outcomes (using Ragin et al's fs/QCA software) we show that while allocation processes were far from meritocratic in both cohorts, there were some changes in the way both class and gender combined with qualifications as conditions for destinations. We also show that Ragin's configurational methods, focussing on holistically-conceived cases and conjunctural causation rather than on the net effects of independent variables, provide a useful analytic technique for capturing relationships in this field.
Method in a Photographic Enquiry of being Deaf
Authors: Thoutenhoofd E.
Published: March 2010

What follows is based on the hypothesis that aspects of a particular, socially and culturally distinct, visuality [1] are manifest in visual data such as photographs. I will explore this hypothesis with reference to Deaf people, people who use sign language and who are members of the Deaf community, using data from earlier research (Thoutenhoofd, 1996).

To this end, I have opted for two parallel texts, a photographic one as well as a written one, cross-referenced by hyperlinks. The photographs form the core, or the ‘evidence’ of the method outlined in the text. The photographs portray a number of pertinent visual characteristics and strategies found where Deaf people congregate into clearly defined communities, for example Deaf clubs, d/Deaf colleges, and in the pages of magazines aimed at d/Deaf audiences; yet the photographs bear witness to the commonplace, portraying regular Deaf club and Deaf college activities.

In the process of discussing the reasons for taking the photographs and having photographs taken, I set out to describe what is meant by a ‘Deaf visuality’, and to suggest its relevance to research into deafness and being d/Deaf.
Conflict and Co-Operation in the Virtual Community: eMail and the Wars of the Yugoslav Succession
Authors: Stubbs Paul
Published: March 2010

This article focuses on the use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) during the wars of the Yugoslav succession, through three case studies of particular eMail networks, discussion groups and bulletin boards: zamir; APC/Yugo/Antiwar; and the Soc/Culture/Croatia and Soc/Culture/Yugoslavia newsgroups. The text addresses the relationship between ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ communities and looks, in particular, at the role of eMail as a tool for social, political and cultural change. Despite the rhetoric of CMC as an inherently liberating and democratising medium, the suggestion is that power relations remain crucial in understanding all of the case studies. eMail may be most effective when part of a local discourse and practice of social change. The article concludes with a consideration of the link between different kinds of trust, or social capital, within the eMail world.
Rethinking ‘Current Crisis’ Arguments: Gouldner and the Legacy of Critical Sociology
Authors: Hollands Robert , Stanley Liz
Published: March 2010

Proclamations of ‘current crisis’ in sociology are long-standing and have recently resurfaced in Britian and North America. This article explores the response of Alvin Gouldner to an earlier 1970s perceived ‘current crisis’. It then discusses some of the key dimensions ascribed to the current ‘current crisis’ – fragmentation, the decline of the intellectual, the need for a higher profile for public and professional sociology - to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of Gouldner's ideas for analysing the situation of contemporary sociology. It concludes that Gouldner's critical sociology provides a useful basis for understanding current debates about fragmentation and public sociology, but less so in explaining the decline of intellectuals. In addition, neither Gouldner nor contemporary thinking about sociology's present-day ‘current crisis’ give much attention to the vastly increased regulation and bureaucratisation of the university system accompanying the expended remit of regulatory government, something we think underlies the discipline's successive perceptions of crisis. The contemporary version of critical sociology, with which this article aligns itself, provides a more structural and less voluntaristic rethinking of ‘current crisis’ arguments.
Revisiting a Moral Panic: Ascetic Protestantism, Attitudes to Alcohol and the Implementation of the Licensing Act 2003
Authors: Yeomans Henry
Published: March 2010

This paper examines the popular reaction to the implementation of licensing reforms in England and Wales in 2005. It characterises these events as an episode of moral panic and seeks an ideological explanation for this alarmist response. Utilising historical perspectives, the paper draws particular attention to the formative importance of the Nineteenth Century in terms of constructing contemporary public attitudes towards alcohol. This paper draws on existing sociology and social history to highlight an international and chronological pattern which suggests a connection between Victorian temperance movements and ascetic brands of Protestantism. Through a consideration of Max Weber, E.P. Thompson and a variety of primary sources, an interpretive explanation for this pattern is provided. Legal evidence, showing the growth of alcohol regulation and the partial enforcement of temperance codes of behaviour, is then used to illustrate the survival and secularisation of temperance views from the Nineteenth Century onwards. An interpretive analysis of public discourse surrounding licensing reform in 2005 provides empirical support for this argument. Attitudes to alcohol exhibited during this episode were found to bear qualitative similarities to Calvinist-inspired temperance beliefs. The paper argues that ascetic Protestant attitudes to alcohol have achieved a wide currency and now occupy a hegemonic position within secular British society. The public reaction to the implementation of the Licensing Act 2003 is thus reinterpreted as a moral panic largely constructed by ascetic Protestant beliefs.
Sport in a Credit Crunched Consumer Culture
Authors: Horne John D.
Published: March 2010

This brief rapid response article suggests a few ways in which modern competitive sport and large-scale sport events have developed in line with the logic of (late) capitalist modernity. It considers the impact of the credit crunch for recent trends in sport and suggests that the sociological study of sport faces the same concerns as other sociological domains of interest during the current economic conditions whilst having its own specific public issues and private troubles to consider.
The Challenge of Global Social Inquiry
Authors: Holmwood John
Published: March 2010

Calls to provincialise sociology have been criticised as relativistic and self-contradictory. Utilising the arguments of Boaventura de Sousa Santos and Peter Winch, the present paper defends a provincialised sociology against these criticisms and argues that only a provincialised sociology can meet the challenge of global social inquiry.
A Membership Categorization Analysis of the Waco Siege: Perpetrator-Victim Identity as a Moral Discrepancy Device for ‘Doing’ Subversion
Authors: Clifton Jonathan
Published: March 2010

This paper seeks to build on previous work on the doing of politics as a members’ practice. More specifically, it seeks to add to the growing work on perpetrator-victim identities by explicating how perpetrator identity is projected from individuals to the morally self-organized group ‘the government’, and so, in this way, subversion is achieved. Using membership categorization analysis (MCA) as a research methodology and data of naturally-occurring talk-in-interaction taken from recordings of the negotiations between the FBI and David Koresh during the Waco siege, this paper explicates how Koresh invokes perpetrator-victim identities to ‘do’ subversion. Findings indicate that this is achieved through his self-avowal of victim identity and consequent ascription of perpetrator identity to the FBI agents. Through this category work, Koresh is able to set up a moral discrepancy between the de jure rights and responsibilities of law enforcement officers and de facto actions of the FBI agents. This identity work is then transferred to the government which becomes an integral, rather than incidental, part of the interaction. In this way, Koresh does subversion and is able to turn the world upside down by proposing a revolutionary theocratic, rather than democratic, moral order.
Explaining the Health Gap Experienced by Girls and Women in Canada: A Social Determinants of Health Perspective
Authors: Benoit Cecilia , Shumka Leah , Vallance Kate , Hallgrímsdóttir Helga , Phillips Rachel , Kobayashi Karen , Hankivsky Olena , Reid Colleen , Brief Elana
Published: March 2010

In the last few decades there has been a resurgence of interest in the social causes of health inequities among and between individuals and populations. This ‘social determinants’ perspective focuses on the myriad demographic and societal factors that shape health and well-being. Heeding calls for the mainstreaming of two very specific health determinants - sex and gender - we incorporate both into our analysis of the health gap experienced by girls and women in Canada. However, we take an intersectional approach in that we argue that a comprehensive picture of health inequities must, in addition to considering sex and gender, include a context sensitive analysis of all the major dimensions of social stratification. In the case of the current worldwide economic downturn, and the uniquely diverse Canadian population spread over a vast territory, this means thinking carefully about how socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, immigrant status, employment status and geography uniquely shape the health of all Canadians, but especially girls and women. We argue that while a social determinants of health perspective is important in its own right, it needs to be understood against the backdrop of broader structural processes that shape Canadian health policy and practice. By doing so we can observe how the social safety net of all Canadians has been eroding, especially for those occupying vulnerable social locations.
Can We Re-Use Qualitative Data via Secondary Analysis? Notes on Some Terminological and Substantive Issues
Authors: Hammersley Martyn
Published: March 2010

The potential gains and practical problems associated with secondary analysis of qualitative data have received increasing attention in recent years. The discussions display conflicting attitudes, some commentators emphasising the difficulties while others emphasise the benefits. In a few recent contributions the distinctiveness of re-using data has come to be questioned, on the grounds that the problems identified with it - of data not fitting the research questions, and of relevant contextual knowledge being absent - are by no means limited to secondary analysis. There has also been a more fundamental claim: to the effect that these problems are much less severe once we recognise that, all data are constituted and re-constituted within the research process. In this article I examine these arguments, concluding that while they have much to commend them, they do not dissolve the problems of ‘fit’ and ‘context’.
Criminology and Criminal Justice: Differences in Programs at the Master's Level
Authors: Triplett Ruth , Monk-Turner Elizabeth
Published: March 2010

Our aim in this work is to: (1) determine how distinct the program structure and curriculum content for graduate education in Criminology was compared to Criminal Justice; and (2) evaluate whether the diversity or consistency of the curriculum in either field varied depending of what type of department was offering the degree. Differences in department titles, hours required for the M.A. degree, program descriptions, curriculum content and curriculum content by department type between M.A. programs in Criminology and Criminal Justice were examined. The results suggested there is both consistency and difference in program structure and in curriculum content across the two fields of study.
Social Work, Risk, Power
Authors: Smith Roger
Published: March 2010

Contemporary ideas and strategies of both ‘risk’ and ‘power’ are significant and dynamic influences in social theory and social action, and they can therefore be expected to have a substantial impact on the ways in which social work is constituted, practiced and evaluated. In this article, I shall articulate distinct conceptualisations and debates about each of these, before considering their inter-relationships and the implications of these for our thinking about what social work is, and what it should be.

Firstly, I will consider social work's contested and problematic place within the broader welfare domain. It is recognised as being a form of activity which inhabits an ambiguous and uncertain position at the interface between the individual and the social, and between the marginalised and the mainstream. Building on this, ‘power’ will be shown to infuse social work ideas and practices in a number of distinct dimensions, linking and bridging ‘personal’, ‘positional’ and ‘relational’ domains.

This discussion will be juxtaposed with a discussion of ‘risk’ and the part it has come to play in shaping and infusing social work practices, especially but not exclusively with children. The deconstruction of contemporary understandings and uses of risk as a central and ‘authoritative’ feature of assessment and decision-making will inform the argument that it can be viewed as a vehicle for the maintenance and legitimation of power relations which disenfranchise and oppress those who are most vulnerable.

In conclusion, I will summarise the ways in which conventional understandings and inter-related material realities of power and risk are often hierarchical, uni-directional and oppressive; and on this basis, how they can be laid open to challenge. The reconceptualisation and remaking of power relations will be shown to have direct consequences for the ways in which risk is defined and addressed as a social work ‘problem’.
Modelling Tabular Data with an Ordered Outcome
Authors: Gayle Vernon
Published: March 2010

A large amount of data that is considered within sociological studies consists of categorical variables that lend themselves to tabular analysis. In the sociological analysis of data regarding social class and educational attainment, for example, the variables of interest can often plausibly be considered as having a substantively interesting order. Standard log-linear models do not take ordinality into account, thereby potentially they may disregard useful information.

Analyzing tables where the response variable has ordered categories through model building has been problematic in software packages such as GLIM (Aitken et al., 1989). Recent developments in statistical modelling have offered new possibilities and this paper explores one option, namely the continuation ratio model which was initially reported by Fienberg and Mason (1979). The fitting of this model to data in tabular form is possible in GLIM although not especially trivial and by and large this approach has not been employed in sociological research. In this paper I outline the continuation ratio model and comment upon how it can be fitted to data by sociologists using the GLIM software. In addition I present a short description of the relative merits of such an approach.

Presenting this paper in an electronic format facilitates the possibility of replicating the analysis. The data is appended to the paper in the appropriate format along with a copy of the GLIM transcript. A dumped GLIM4 file is also attached.
Networked Worlds: Social Aspects of Multi-User Virtual Reality Technology
Authors: Schroeder R.
Published: March 2010

This paper examines two aspects of multi-user virtual reality (VR) systems; the socio-technical shaping of these systems and the social relations inside multi-user virtual worlds. The paper begins with an overview of the history of networked interactive computer graphics and examines the main factors which are currently shaping networked VR systems. The second part explores the social relations between users inside virtual worlds and makes comparisons with other forms of computer-mediated-communication. In the conclusion, these two parts are linked: how is the development of multi-user virtual reality technology influencing how users interact within virtual worlds - and vice versa?
Agricultural Biotechnology: Its Recent Evolution and Implications for Agrofood Political Economy
Authors: Buttel Fred
Published: March 2010

This paper provides an overview of the recent development of the agricultural biotechnology sector and suggests what are likely to be some of the major issues in agrofood biotechnology in the future. I argue that while biotechnology has become increasingly entrenched as an approach to agrofood research and development, there are enormous public and especially corporate resources committed to biotechnology, and the growth of GMO market share in U.S. soybean, corn, and cotton production has been impressive, there has recently been growth of social resistance to biotechnology that casts the technology's and industry's future in some doubt. In addition to discussing the extent and limits of social resistance to biotechnology, I explore several other facets of agrofood biotechnology–global consolidation of the biotechnology industry, trade in GMO-produced food products, and the new corporate focus on “value-enhanced crops”–that will have a critical bearing on its future. I conclude by suggesting that while social resistance to agrofood biotechnology is very unlikely to derail the industry, public opposition will shape corporate strategy and could possibly shape research priorities in public biotechnology research.
The Health Analysis and Action Cycle an Empowering Approach to Women's Health
Authors: Gibbon Marion
Published: March 2010

This paper analyses the health analysis cycle as an empowering approach to development. It discusses what the terms power and empowerment within the development discourse mean. It considers the factors that contribute to empowerment and those that hinder it. The study involved the use of a participatory action research approach in a community setting. The relationships between women's socio-economic circumstances, their ethnicity or caste and the process of empowerment are introduced through the use of case studies. The health analysis cycle is described in an annexe to this paper.
‘Reproductive Regimes: Changing Relations of Inter-dependence and Fertility Change’
Authors: Irwin Sarah
Published: March 2010

Within sociological and demographic research many argue that recent demographic transformations can be explained, at least in part, by a growth in individualism. Such approaches, with their emphasis on growing individual autonomy, offer a model of human action in which the social recedes from analysis. This paper offers an alternative framework for analysing processes shaping demographic change, taking as a particular focus aspects of changing patterns of fertility in the UK. Interpretations of the fertility decline at the turn of the twentieth century emphasise the importance of changing patterns of inter-dependence across generations and between women and men. It is argued that in parallel, although to a lesser degree, recent decades have manifest a change in the social positioning of these groups. Change in the reproductive regime is offered as a concept for denoting this restructuring of inter-dependencies. We are witnessing a reconfiguration of social ties and not their displacement. It is as an integral part of such changes that developments in fertility are best interrogated.