bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Politics of Research: Local Consultation in a City Challenge Context
Authors: Ram Monder
Published: September 2003

`Local consultation', `community involvement', and `partnership' are terms that are assuming increasing prominence in the discourse on urban regeneration. The actual substance of such labels is unclear, but with the increasing diffusion of City Challenge and similar initiatives it is likely that `people-related' themes will be a particular concern for policy-makers in these contexts. Drawing on my experience as a consultant on a project that aimed to operationalise such notions through an exercise designed to elicit the needs of young people in a City Challenge area, this paper examines the ways in which political issues suffuse the research process in contexts like this.

Three key issues are examined: how the political priorities of policy-makers impinge upon the conduct of research from the pre-fieldwork stage to well beyond the conclusion of the project; the difficulties experienced in convincing gatekeepers of the efficacy of novel research methods (drama was used in the project); and the importance of the micro-political aspects of research. It is argued that political processes saturate all aspects of projects of this kind, but such processes can be actively negotiated and managed by researchers, and in a manner that tempers the `natural scientific' predilections of research sponsors.
Feminism, Epistemology and Postmodernism: Reflections on Current Ambivalence
Authors: McLennan Gregor
Published: September 2003

Feminism's eminent position in critical social science is now beyond question, and a range of substantial texts on feminism, epistemology and social theory have reworked the dominant male images of knowledge and society. However, within feminist discourses, some key epistemological questions - such as `is feminist standpoint epistemology viable?' - remain unresolved. Indeed, they have become compounded by the anti-epistemological impetus of postmodernism. In this paper I draw attention to some general problems in the area of feminism and epistemology, and conduct a close textual analysis of some key writings by feminist theorists to see whether a specifically postmodernist philosophical ambience suits feminism better than an enlightenment ambience.
Feminism and Epistemology: What Kind of Successor Science?
Authors: Holmwood John
Published: September 2003

In this paper, I address recent feminist epistemological claims - in particular, those associated with `standpoint theory' and `feminist postmodernism' - arguing that they share difficulties with other forms of anti-positivist social theory and contribute to an impasse in social inquiry which is becoming increasingly acute. This impasse is traced to the displacement of explanation from the centre of theoretical concerns. In arguing this, I am not, however, proposing a return to positivist social science. The view that explanation can be equated with positivism - that `empirical' equals `empiricism' - is a common misconception. It has led some advocates of a distinct feminist epistemology to describe much research on gender issues as `feminist empiricism'. Such research, they argue, involves a paradoxical or contradictory reliance upon the very `masculine' epistemological criteria which feminist theory has done so much to challenge. In this paper I shall criticise this argument, proposing instead a `post-positivist' position in which empirical research is at the heart of any feminist challenge to mainstream approaches and the reconstruction of social theory.
Incorporation without Integration: Palestinian Citizens in Israel's Labour Market
Authors: Sa'di Ahmad H.
Published: September 2003

The Palestinian citizens of Israel have been concentrating in blue-collar, less well paid, and insecure jobs. This is viewed as a result of two processes: their gradual incorporation into the state/Jewish labour market, and at the same time, the reproduction of an elaborate division of labour within a split labour market. Unlike the bulk of the existing research, which explains the disadvantaged position of these Palestinians by variables relating to the process of stratification, such as education, age, and residential area, it is argued that this subject is better explained by variables relating to the political position of the Palestinian minority in Israel, and the structural changes in the economy and the labour market. This analysis takes into account the dominant role that the state has assumed in managing the economy and regulating the labour market, and the subjugation of the economy to what is ideologically conceived as representing the `common good' of the Jewish majority. The implications of the existence of a split labour market for the Palestinian minority and the Jewish majority is also discussed.
Class Analysis and Class Theory
Authors: Breen Richard , Rottman David
Published: September 2003

Recent critiques of the usefulness of the concept of class (Pahl 1989; Clark and Lipset 1991) have developed into more specific criticisms of the lack of theory underlying `class analysis' as practised by Goldthorpe and his associates (Pahl 1993; Rose 1993). In this paper we argue that an adequate theory of class needs to show why classes, defined in the particular way they are, have some claim to be a basis of social power of sufficient importance to justify the emphasis placed on them by class analysis. To answer this question requires that two things be demonstrated: first, that there is an association between class and a range of outcomes; and, second, that the mechanisms giving rise to such associations be specified. Class analysis has little difficulty in answering the first requirement but very great difficulties in satisfactorily addressing the second. In discussing these problems we seek to suggest fruitful future directions for the project of class analysis.
Uncovering Gender Differences in the Use of Marital Violence: The Effect of Methodology
Authors: Nazroo James
Published: September 2003

Since the publication of large, representative, structured questionnaire surveys suggesting that women were equally or more likely than men to hit their partners, there has been considerable debate over women's use of violence in marriage. This debate has focused on the methods used to study marital violence. On the one hand, it has been suggested that this female-perpetrated marital violence is a genuine problem which has been uncovered by the rigorous use of representative samples and quantitative methods of data collection. On the other hand, it has been suggested that the use of methods which simply measure acts of physical aggression and ignore the context and meaning of any violence results in the failure to demonstrate very obvious differences between male and female-perpetrated marital violence. This study uses a community sample of couples to show that, although women may hit their partners more often than men do, if context and meaning is included in the assessment of violence, male violence is considerably more likely than female violence to be dangerous and threatening. The data presented also demonstrate that male-perpetrated marital violence is likely to lead to serious injury and greatly increases women's risk of anxiety, whereas female-perpetrated marital violence has neither of these consequences for men.
Social Movements and Global Capitalism
Authors: Sklair Leslie
Published: September 2003

While capitalism is increasingly organised on a global basis, effective opposition to capitalist practices tends to be manifest locally. The traditional response of the labour movement to global capitalism has been to try to forge international links between workers' organisations in different countries. This strategy, despite some successes, has generally failed and the paper argues that the relationship between the labour movement and the New Social Movements requires further analysis in terms of the local and the global. The rationale and characteristics of such an analysis are discussed in the context of opposition to the practices of the transnational corporations, the transnational capitalist class and its local affiliates, and the culture-ideology of consumerism.
Dilemmas of Power in Post-Graduate Practice: A Comment on Research Training
Authors: Lyon E. Stina
Published: September 2003

Recent policy discussions on research methods training and the funding of post-graduate students in sociology have not paid adequate attention to the conflicts and contradictions experienced by students working on projects which are sponsored, or simply `housed', by external funders, employers and information `users'. This discussion note argues that lack of clarity in the use of concepts such as `practical research', `research practice' and `reflective practitioner', and the uneven power relations between students, supervisors, funders and employers, create situations where students have to become more adept at pragmatically handling evidence than at learning how to collect it in an independent and scholarly way. The changing nature of professional practice within organisations, increasingly characterised by growing managerialism and hostility towards open information, contributes to the dilemmas faced by students, as do structural pressures on the curriculum facing higher education institutions themselves. These are issues which should be of concern to the sociological profession as a whole.
Death in the News: The Public Invigilation of Private Emotion
Authors: Walter Tony , Littlewood Jane , Pickering Michael
Published: September 2003

Two sociological views of death in modernity are currently dominant. They are that death is not acknowledged in public, and that a public discourse does exist, the discourse of medicine. The article criticises both these views in the light of how news media portray the extraordinary deaths of otherwise ordinary UK citizens. The news media focus in particular on the emotions of survivors - of considerable interest to British people unsure of proper grieving behaviour. When it comes to death, journalists and photographers are in the forefront of psychological `instruction' - something students of both death and the media have failed to notice, let alone research.
Heroic Death
Authors: Seale Clive
Published: September 2003

This paper shows how individuals in late modern social conditions seek to imbue dying, and caring for the dying, with meaning. Accounts provided in a survey of 250 individuals who knew people who had died in the UK are examined. The analysis counters the view that the denial of death is widespread in conditions where religion no longer offers individuals a meaningful narrative for the dying self. Scripts for proclaiming heroic self-identity in the face of death are promoted by cultural experts and appropriated by many lay individuals. This involves a struggle against external and internal enemies to gain knowledge, the opportunity to demonstrate courage and a beatific state of emotional accompaniment in which `carers' and dying people participate. Unlike more traditional forms of heroism, this script deviates from celebrating solely masculine qualities and includes a female heroics of care, concern and emotional expression.

At the same time, some deaths cannot be written into this script, which is particularly well suited to deaths from cancer and AIDs. The deaths of the very old, the mentally confused and sudden unexpected deaths are often difficult to interpret in these heroic terms. Additionally, a rival script exists amongst some lay individuals that stands in opposition to the professional consensus on the desirability of open awareness. This emphasises the benefits of continuing the everyday project of the self oblivious of oncoming death, with others shouldering the burden of awareness in an attempt to protect the dying person against the strain of knowledge. This rival script, however, commands decreasing allegiance in a society where the project of the self is rarely given over to the care of others, and trust is commonly negotiated in confessional moments.
All Quiet on the Workplace Front? A Critique of Recent Trends in British Industrial Sociology
Authors: Thompson Paul , Ackroyd Stephen
Published: September 2003

Though perspectives underpinning research may have differed sharply, industrial sociology at its best has been able to uncover the variety of workplace resistance and misbehaviour that lies beneath the surface of the formal and consensual. The paper argues that this legacy is in danger of being lost as labour is taken out of the process and replaced by management as the active and successful agency. While there are a number of practical and theoretical forces shaping this trend, the paper identifies the growing influence of Foucauldian perspectives. It goes on to develop a critique of the way in which such theory and research overstates the extent and effectiveness of new management practices, while marginalising the potential for resistance.
Outline of a Practical Theory of Football Violence
Authors: King Anthony
Published: September 2003

This article applies a reworked version Waddington's flashpoints model to an incident of football violence which occurred at the Hotel Tamsa in Istanbul, the night before a European Cup game between Manchester United and Galatasaray on the night of 2nd and 3rd November 1993.
Partners: The Social Organisation of Rotating Savings and Credit Societies among Exilic Jamaicans
Authors: Sterling Louis
Published: September 2003

This paper describes the operation among exilic Jamaicans of the rotating savings and credit societies that are known as `partners' in modern Jamaica. The social context in which partnering was generated is examined. An analysis of the dynamics of partnering reveals that it rests on trust, which has advantages and disadvantages for participants. In conclusion, it is noted that as the social situation of West Indians in Britain has changed, so the importance of partnering has declined.
Actor Formation, Social Co-Ordination, and Political Strategy: Some Conceptual Problems in the Study of Social Movements
Authors: Munck Gerardo L.
Published: September 2003

A survey of the literature on social movements shows that the contributions by American and European scholars have shed considerable light on two problems: why social movements emerge with particular identities and how organisers give coherence to a movement and co-ordinate the actions of their followers. The challenge faced by movement organisers in seeking to bring about change - a challenge that forces a social movement to engage strategically as a social actor, with its political-institutional environment - has received, however, relatively little attention. Seeking to fill this gap in the literature I argue that the distinct analytical issues raised by the problem of political strategy which social movements face can only be addressed through a synthesis that builds upon, but goes beyond, the contributions made by American and European scholars. The challenge is to conceive of social movements as strategic actors, while acknowledging the implications that a movement's collective identity and social nature has for an analysis of strategic action.
Parents' Occupations and their Children's Occupational Attainment: A Contribution to the Debate on the Class Assignment of Families
Authors: Lampard Richard
Published: September 2003

This research note uses survey data from six British local labour markets collected as part of the ESRC Social Change and Economic Life Initiative to examine the effects of parents' occupational classes on the probability of their children attaining service class occupations. Both mother's occupational class and father's occupational class are found to have independent effects on this probability, regardless of the sex of the child. The implications of these findings in relation to the debate on the class assignment of families are considered, and it is concluded that one's interpretation of the findings is contingent on one's perception of the nature and scope of class analysis. If one takes a broad view of class analysis then the empirical importance of mother's occupation in relation to the occupational mobility of children of both sexes suggests that married women's occupations should be integrated into the process of determining the class of family units.
High Society in a Workers' Society: Work, Community and Kibbutz
Authors: Warhurst Christopher
Published: September 2003

The recent attention paid to corporate culture by managerial gurus has revived interest in the relationship between occupation and community, particularly the influence of social organisation upon work experience. Examination of kibbutz industry supplements these contemporary debates by extending the analysis into a form of work organisation formally devoid of managerial control, instead determined by those informal social relations identified by writers critical of corporate culture. Indeed, kibbutz industrial workers find relative compensations to unpleasant, tedious and demanding work through intense social interaction. Tightly cohesive work groups provide both a defence mechanism against the brutality of the work and, through the creation of group work norms, act as a spur to ensure productivity. Awareness of this dialectical relationship between occupation and community is not new. However, the qualitative analysis presented of the communal socialism of the kibbutz does provide a unique insight into the function of social relationships within the organisation of industrial work beyond that usually examined in either capitalist or state socialist economies.
`House Beautiful': Style and Consumption in the Home
Authors: Madigan Ruth , Munro Moira
Published: September 2003

In this article we explore alternative meanings and functions of home-directed consumption, in particular those aspects of consumption which have to do with presentation and appearance (fittings, furnishings and decor). Our focus is on popular taste, on those whose needs are met principally by mass marketing rather than the avant garde or the connoisseur. Recent debates have drawn attention to the possibility of pleasure and self-expression through consumption: contrasting the active shaping of cultures of consumption with the notion of consumer as mere passive recipient, manipulated by business interests. Our work suggests that neither view gives a satisfactory account of the complex meanings of consumption in the home. `Home' carries a heavy ideological weight and these meanings permeate interpretation of consumption for the home. Questions of style, design and tastefulness evidently cause anxiety, but they are largely subsumed by familial values (a relaxed, comfortable haven) and also by the desire to maintain `respectability' through maintaining high house-keeping standards. We argue that women are frequently caught in the crux of the tensions these conflicting goals create.
Contra-Foucault: Soldiers, Nurses and Power
Authors: Porter Sam
Published: September 2003

The primary purpose of this paper is to challenge the assumptions that lie behind the Foucauldian concepts of power and surveillance. The argument is made in two stages. The first stage, concentrating on Foucault's general theory of power, attempts to demonstrate that his nominalism, in combination with his contention that power is ubiquitous, leads to analytic confusion if applied to substantive instances. First, the structural determinates of power differentials are hidden from view. Second, it becomes impossible to differentiate between different degrees of power. Empirical support for this position comes from a comparative examination of the powers of surveillance enjoyed by Irish nurses and British soldiers. The second stage of the argument challenges the Foucauldian notion that the surveillance and `subjectification' of individuals is universally becoming more intense and ubiquitous. This is done by critically engaging with neo-Foucauldian commentaries on nursing, which have portrayed it as part of the ever-encroaching matrix of surveillance. Empirical support for this challenge is based upon ethnographic interviews with clinical nurses.
Time Co-Ordination, the Domestic Division of Labour and Affective Relations: Time Use and the Enjoyment of Activities within Couples
Authors: Sullivan Oriel
Published: September 2003

In this paper the time-use of diaries of a sample of couples are used to explore the relationship between partners' daily pattern of activities and their enjoyment of those activities. By analysing the diaries of couples together it is possible to assess which activities are undertaken simultaneously, which separately, and whether time spent in different activities is more enjoyable spent separately or together. So, in addition to the usual information obtainable from time diary analysis on the domestic division of labour, these data provide information on the quality of time, and the ways in which couples may manipulate it in order to increase the proportion of enjoyable time (which, it is shown, is more enjoyable when enjoyed together). The wider significance of this approach is that an empirical link is provided between `work-related' debates on the domestic division of labour, and those on the nature of affective relationships between couples found within the sociology of emotions.
Employee Job Performance in Britain and the United States
Authors: Cheng Yuan , Kalleberg Arne L.
Published: September 2003

This paper examines the determinants of employee job performance in the U.S. and Britain. We use two nationally representative data sets (the 1991 General Social Survey and the 1992 Employment in Britain survey) that contain comparable indicators of job performance and of motivation, ability and task characteristics. American employees were more likely to report higher levels of performance quantity and (especially) quality. Most of our explanatory variables affected the two dimensions of performance in similar ways in the two countries. Both quality and quantity performance were more strongly affected by income in the U.S. Quality of performance was more strongly related to the size of the workplace in Britain. Quantity of performance was more strongly related to the importançe placed on promotion and to task significance among American workers.
Resocialising the Subject? A Re-Reading of Grey's `Career as a Project of the Self...'
Authors: Newton Tim
Published: September 2003

This paper presents a re-reading of the Foucauldian analysis of professional accounting firms given by Grey in his `Career as a Project of the Self...' ( Sociology, 28,2). It argues that Grey's paper provides an exemplar of the `desocialising' tendencies observed in some Foucauldian analysis and attempts to illustrate this desocialisation through placing Grey's data in an Eliasian rather than a Foucauldian framework.
Putting Men and Women into Classes: An Assessment of the Cross-Sex Validity of the Gold Thorpe Class Schema
Authors: Evans Geoffrey
Published: September 2003

The Goldthorpe class schema has been criticised as being unsuitable for assessing women's class positions. This paper tests the cross-sex validity of the employee classes within the schema by examining their within-sex association with measures of theoretically relevant occupational characteristics relating to employment and payment conditions, and promotion prospects. Using data from the Social Class in Modern Britain survey, it is shown that class divisions are operationalised similarly among men and women. The only difference of note is a slightly weaker overall association between class position and certain job characteristics among women, which results from the allocation of large numbers of women to class IIIa. With this class excluded from the analysis these differences are removed. It is further shown that the clustering of women in the category of routine non-manual workers stems not from deficiencies in the logic of Goldthorpe's conceptualisation of class, or from limitations associated with its operationalisation using OPCS occupational codes, but from the reality of occupational sex segregation. The analysis thus provides evidence to support the use of the schema as a measure of class position for both women and men.
Wives and Husbands: Social Class, Gender, and Class Identification in the U.S.
Authors: Zipp John F. , Plutzer Eric
Published: September 2003

Two decades after Joan Acker (1973) castigated mainstream stratification research for its `intellectual sexism', the debate over the impact that married women's paid employment has on class analysis is perhaps the most controversial issue in social stratification. Using two decades of survey data from the U.S., we assess the conditions under which wife's class affects the class identification of both spouses. Our principal findings include: (a) although the class positions of both spouses have an impact on class identification, husband's class is more important; (b) the explanatory power of wife's class does not appear to depend on gender inequality for men but does so for women; and (c) in certain situations, wife's class significantly modifies or reverses the class leanings expected on the basis of husband's position.
Narrating Crisis: The Discursive Construction of the `Winter of Discontent'
Authors: Hay Colin
Published: September 2003

The winter of discontent continues to exert a powerful hold over the British political imaginary. It acts as a discursive key to a collective mythology seemingly appealed to, and conjured, in each wave of industrial unrest, in each hint of political turmoil and, until recently, whenever the election of a Labour Government looked credible. In this paper I consider the rhetorical strategies and linguistic devices deployed by the tabloid media in the narration of the events of the winter of 1978-79. I argue for an interpretation of the winter of discontent as a moment of state crisis. By crisis however I do not refer to the mere accumulation of contradictions but rather to a moment of transition, a moment of decisive intervention. Within such a framework, the winter of discontent emerges as a strategic moment in the transformation of the British state, and perhaps the key moment in the pre-history of Thatcherism. For, as I hope to demonstrate, the initial appeal of the New Right was premised upon its ability to offer a convincing construction of the winter of discontent as symptomatic of a more fundamental crisis of the state. In such a moment of crisis, a particular type of decisive intervention was called for. In this discursive construction of crisis the New Right proved itself capable of changing, if not the hearts and minds of the electorate, then certainly the predominant perceptions of the political context. It recruited subjects to its vision of the necessary response to the crisis of a monolithic state besieged by the trade unions. This was perhaps the only truly hegemonic moment of Thatcherism. It occurred well before Mrs Thatcher entered Number 10. It is thus not surprising that one of the most enduring and distinctive legacies of Thatcherism has been the new political lexicon of crisis, siege and subterfuge born of the winter of discontent.
Culture, Community and Responsibilities: Abortion in Ireland
Authors: Porter Elisabeth
Published: September 2003

The defence of abortion from individualistic rights-based arguments understates social context and ostracises communities that draw on the language of collective responsibilities. In trying to understand restrictive abortion legislation in Ireland, I argue for a more constructive, less oppositional debate. As the basis for dialogue, I focus on the common ground of women's experiences, their changing social roles and general commitment to nurture others. The defence of abortion from responsibility-based arguments reconceptualises abortion from an individual woman's private dilemma, to a social conflict of care that requires culturally sensitive and morally responsible choices.
Reciprocity as a Principle of Exclusion: Gift giving in the Netherlands
Authors: Komter Aafke Elisabeth
Published: September 2003

In this paper the sociological significance of informal giving in the Netherlands is addressed. Does informal giving in any way compensate for the failing efficacy of official politics to counteract social inequality? Empirical results are presented from a study about informal giving in the Netherlands. Material as well as immaterial gifts were distinguished: presents, money gifts, food, shelter, care or help, and blood and organs. The data showed informal giving to be ruled by reciprocity: gifts are followed by return gifts in most cases. However, reciprocity appeared to have a positive as well as a negative side: those who give many gifts, receive many gifts in return, but those who do not give much - often because their social and material conditions do not allow them to do so - are also the poorest receivers: the unemployed and the elderly in our sample. It is concluded that informal giving does not compensate for existing social inequality. Informal giving mainly benefits those who already receive much; those who need it most, receive the least. Reciprocity, then, may be considered `a principle of exclusion'.
The Effect of Interviewer's Gender on the Interviewing Process: A Comparative Enquiry
Authors: Padfield Maureen , Procter Ian
Published: September 2003

This paper is drawn from a study of the work and family experiences and aspirations of young adult women who were interviewed by either one or the other of the authors in 1992. A comparison can thus be drawn between interviews conducted by a man and those by a woman. This is attempted in a systematic and empirical way. The initial intention was to learn from the literature on gender and the interview to minimise the impact of the interviewer's gender on the data generated. In the first section this is reviewed and we put a case that this intention was achieved. This was, however, only to an extent, as we indicate with material on the revelation of abortion experience to the two interviewers. Whilst there was a similar pattern of response to our direct questions, there was a marked difference in the voluntary addition of further personal experience. The final evidence we deploy comes from re-interviews done in 1994 in which the interviewees were asked about their perception of the significance of the original interviewer's gender. This indicates the importance of interviewees' concepts of gender as well as the intentions of researchers.
Halcion Nights: A Sociological Account of a Medical Controversy
Authors: Gabe Jonathan , Bury Michael
Published: September 2003

This paper offers an analysis of the events surrounding the suspension of the licence for the widely used sleeping tablet Halcion (triazolam) by the British Licensing Authority in October 1991. It is argued that these events highlight a growing crisis in modern medical treatments and in the social relations of health care. This is illustrated by focusing on four elements which have contributed to Halcion becoming a public issue and to its suspension and subsequent banning, namely the claims-making activities of medical experts, the development of legal challenges to medicine, the role of the media and the response of the state.
Generational Changes in Gender-Role Attitudes: Britain in a Cross-National Perspective
Authors: Scott Jacqueline , Alwin Duane F. , Braun Michael
Published: September 2003

This paper compares the nature and extent of change in gender-role attitudes in Britain with other nations. We hypothesise that while many of the changes would be similar across nations reflecting, in part, the increased importance of women's labour-force participation, the pace and sources of attitudinal change would be different in the different nations. Comparisons are made over the last decade between Britain, the United States and Germany. Using data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) additional comparisons over a shorter time period are made with Ireland, the Netherlands and Italy. Data from the General Social Surveys of America (GSS) and Germany (ALLBUS) reveal that there has been a marked liberal shift in attitudes, with more of the change occurring within cohorts than through the process of cohort succession. In Britain, data from the British Social Attitudes surveys (BSA) reveal a slower and less consistent pace of change, with evidence of a growing gender difference in beliefs that maternal employment may be harmful to children.
The Dialectic of the Familiar and the Unfamiliar: `The Jungle' in Early Slum Travel Writing
Authors: Valverde Mariana
Published: September 2003

This paper examines the widely used two-way metaphor of the `jungle' in its back-and-forth movement between imperial travel writing of the late Victorian period and early urban sociology and social reform. The analysis has two aspects: first, technologies of knowledge production such as mapping are shown to provide a common epistemological base for imperial and urban knowledges, secondly, the imagery of `the jungle' is analysed. It is shown that the images produced in the writings of explorers such as Henry Stanley relied at least to some extent on analogies to everyday problems of urban poverty and overcrowding, as well as, more implicitly, on European masculine sexual fears about reproduction, growth and decay. This particular image of `the African jungle' was then re-imported into the discourse of urban social poverty and vice, most memorably in the Salvation Army's In Darkest England and the Way Out. The process analysed in this paper is not a unique discursive dynamic, it is argued, but is rather an instance of a common manoeuvre of cultural hegemony that can be called `the dialectic of the familiar and the unfamiliar'.
Social Stratification and Housing Mobility
Authors: Watt Paul
Published: September 2003

This paper examines the extent to which housing tenure constitutes an enduring aspect of social inequality in relation to theories of re-stratification and the supposed decline of social class divisions. It uses an analysis of housing mobility based upon a survey of council tenants carried out in the inner London Borough of Camden and it looks at the housing tenure destinations of the tenants' adult `children' who have left the parental home. The largest tenure of destination was owner occupation, whilst just over a third of the `children' were local authority or housing association tenants. This indicates that an inter-generational, social renting `underclass' has not so far developed, contrary to the re-stratification theories. However, a higher proportion of the younger than the older `children' were tenants of social rented housing. The relative impact of class and household employment patterns on housing mobility is considered. The paper concludes by arguing that social class is of continued importance in terms of understanding patterns of housing mobility.
Neighbourhoods, Opportunity Structures and Occupational Aspirations
Authors: Furlong Andy , Biggart Andy , Cartmel Fred
Published: September 2003

In this paper we use evidence from the Scottish Young People's Surveys to explore some of the ways in which local contexts help to shape young people's subjective orientations towards the labour market. We attempt to move beyond the concept of `opportunity structures' introduced by Roberts by considering the salience of a number of possible components of these structures of opportunity. We argue that young people's occupational aspirations are shaped as part of an interplay between individual inequalities and opportunity contexts and we provide evidence to challenge earlier research which cast doubt on the importance of local contexts. Our research suggests that neighbourhoods have an important impact on male occupational aspirations but that contextual effects have a weaker effect on females.
Quantitative Research in British Sociology: Has it Changed Since 1981?
Authors: Bechhofer Frank
Published: September 2003

To provoke debate, the paper, after fifteen years, repeats and expands on an analysis of the use of empirical data and the role of quantification in articles published in some major British journals of sociology. The earlier paper argued that the training of undergraduates, and the influence and example of their teachers, tends to orient them, well before graduate education begins, towards particular kinds of research topic and, where empirical data are used, approaches employing no quantification or very simple techniques. It suggested this would be a selfreinforcing process unless there were far-reaching changes in undergraduate curricula which were unlikely to come about. It predicted that the divide between these aspects of British sociology and that practised in North America and many parts of Europe would widen further. British sociology has become somewhat more empirical over the past fifteen years, with the bulk of this expansion in the qualitative area. The more sophisticated quantitative approaches are not much more in evidence than before. This raises a number of questions which should be a matter of debate. It is worrying that the debate does not seem to be taking place.
Gender and Class Revisited; or, the Poverty of `Patriarchy'
Authors: Pollert Anna
Published: September 2003

This paper examines the concept of `patriarchy' as a tool for analysing gender inequality, while signalling the problems which arise from a common confusion between its use as short-hand description and as explanation. It first enters a substantive critique of a theory of `patriarchy', highlighting its reductionism and circularity. It then broadens to the form of abstract structuralist theorisation used, and its flattening and mechanistic effect on analysis. As an alternative to a dualist approach to `structures of' capitalism as `patriarchy', it argues that gendering needs to be understood as integral to all social relations at the start. To unravel the mediations of this intermeshing, theory, rather than being abstract, needs to be embedded in the substantive empirical analysis of social process which might be called feminist historical materialism. The discussion finally considers why it is that a `grand narrative' of `patriarchy' survives amid the fashion of post-structuralist fragmentation, pointing to theoretical continuities of self-enclosed theorisation in abstract structuralism and in post-modernist sociology, as one dimension of explanation.
The Sociology of Professions and the Profession of Gender
Authors: Davies Celia
Published: September 2003

Notwithstanding the growing numbers of women entering the professions and considerable public debate concerned with equal opportunity and barriers to women's advancement, attempts to theorise the relation between gender and profession within the discipline of sociology remain relatively rare. This paper draws on recent work on the gendering of organisation and bureaucracy to suggest that a key issue for consideration is not so much the exclusion of women from work defined as professional, but rather their routine inclusion in ill-defined support roles. This adjunct work of women, it is argued, facilitates the `fleeting encounter' of professional practice, thereby resting on, and celebrating, a specific historical and cultural construction of masculinity and a masculinist vision of professional work. In an era where professions are under unprecedented public scrutiny, sociological attention to their renewal needs to recognise that a key feature of profession, as presently defined, is that it professes gender.
`Homeless in Chinatown': Deviance and Social Control in Cardboard City
Authors: Wardhaugh Julia
Published: September 2003

Street homelessness (and associated activities such as begging) has become a prominent issue in recent years. This article provides a critical commentary on this phenomenon, informed both by theoretical debates concerning social space, and the author's own fieldwork with street homeless people in Manchester (England). An analysis is provided of temporal and spatial ordering of the homelessness circuit; of survival strategies such as shadow work and sleeping rough engaged in by people living in Cardboard City; and of policing responses to street homelessness and begging.
Agency and Discourse: Recruiting Consultants in a Life Insurance Company
Authors: Newton Tim
Published: September 2003

This paper applies the work of Callon in attempting to explore the relation between discourse and agency in an analysis of the hiring of management consultants by a large life insurance organisation, `Lifeco'. The data focus on the recruitment and deployment of management consultants within Lifeco, and explore the actor network relevant to this process. As well as examining the `moments' of translation within the network, attention is paid to the degree of longer term `convergence' (Callon 1991) around the consultant's work within Lifeco. Whilst acknowledging the advantage of Callon's work to exploring agency and discourse, the paper remains critical of certain aspects of his theorising, especially the question of access to particular locations in an actor network.
Sociology and the Logic of Theoretical Research
Authors: Domingues José Maurício
Published: September 2003

This article deals with problems of the philosophy of science in terms of its concrete development in sociological theory. Parsons' theses on theory building and Alexander's redirectioning of some of its fundamental tenets are discussed. It is shown that Alexander's ideas are consistent with the so-called post-positivist philosophy of science that is linked to Popper and Kuhn, but that he is oblivious to other strands that are much more in tune with Parsons' first approach to the issue. Bachelard, Piaget and Bhaskar furnish elements that account better, both factually and normatively, for the coupling of empirical data and theory in the sciences in general and in sociology in particular, than Alexander's, Popper's and Kuhn's perspectives. They offer the underpinnings for a dialectical epistemology, which can relinquish the principle of uniformity or determinism, dealing with creativity and the fluidity of social life, without giving up general theories, concepts and causal correlations. Concrete controversies are also discussed in order to illustrate this epistemological strategy.
Social Constructionism as a Social Psychosis
Authors: Craib Ian
Published: September 2003

The paper is written with a degree of irony: it treats a sociological approach as if it were a client presenting itself for psychoanalysis, and argues that using Melanie Klein's developmental theory the approach can be seen as a manic psychosis - a defence against entering the depressive position. It is suggested that sociologists find it difficult to recognise the limitations of their discipline - the depressive position - one reason being that we do not actually exercise power over anybody; social constructionism enables us to convince ourselves that the opposite is true, that we know everything about how people become what they are, that we do not have to take account of other disciplines or sciences, but we can explain everything. The paper ends by suggesting that its own argument can be treated as a psychoanalytic version of a manic psychosis and that a non-psychotic theory is one which knows its own limitations.
Social Relationships and Emotions
Authors: Burkitt Ian
Published: September 2003

In this article I propose a relational understanding of emotions which I believe overcomes many of the dualisms in previous sociological attempts to understand this realm of social life. I also suggest that it is rare in such studies for the object under scrutiny to be defined, and attempt to answer the question of what it is we are exploring when we approach emotions. The view is put forward of emotions as complexes rather than things, ones that are multi-dimensional in their composition: they only arise within relationships, but they have a corporeal, embodied aspect as well as a socio-cultural one. They are constituted by techniques of the body learned within a social habitus, which produces emotional dispositions that may manifest themselves in particular situations. Furthermore, these techniques of the body are part of the power relations that play an important part in the production and regulation of emotion. Using examples of emotions like love and aggression, I argue my central thesis - that emotions are not expressions of inner processes, but are modes of communication within relationships and interdependencies.
A Marxist Critique of Weberian Class Analyses
Authors: Gubbay Jon
Published: September 2003

Almost without exception, defenders and critics of the (Weberian) project of class analysis have denied the validity and utility of what they take to be Marxist conceptions of class. It is argued here that: first, the aims and structure of Marxist class analysis are quite different from those of Weberian class analysis; second, sociological contributions to the current debate have failed to address the most significant insights of Marxist class analysis, namely the labour theory of value; and third, Wright's supposedly exemplary Marxist research programme, being also deficient in this respect, shares common ground with its Weberian critics. Thus the case for Marxist class analysis has gone by default, a situation which this paper attempts to redress.
Social and System Integration: Lockwood, Habermas, Giddens
Authors: Mouzelis Nicos
Published: September 2003

The different ways in which Lockwood, Habermas, and Giddens conceptualise the social-/system-integration distinction are examined. It is argued that (with some modification) Lockwood's conceptualisation is logically more congruent and heuristically more useful than that of the other two theorists.
The Structure of Ph.D. Research
Authors: Parry Odette , Atkinson Paul , Delamont Sara
Published: September 2003

This paper presents some of the findings from two national research projects which focussed on Ph.D. research in Britain. Through interviews with graduate students, supervisors and department heads, it explores the characteristic structures which index natural science and social science doctoral study in both single and multi/inter-disciplinary fields. By comparing and contrasting a `research group approach' to Ph.D. research with the `one-to-one' model, the research findings highlight ways in which doctoral study can be organised to minimise some of the problems routinely faced by graduate students.
Qualitative Data Archiving: Some Reflections on its Prospects and Problems
Authors: Hammersley Martyn
Published: September 2003

The archiving of qualitative data seems likely to become much more common in the future. It promises to make an important contribution to the development of sociological research. This contribution relates to at least two main areas. It should facilitate assessment of the validity of particular studies; and it ought to increase the scope for secondary analysis. At the same time, the archiving of qualitative data and its use are not without problems. This paper examines both the possibilities it opens up and the limits to the contribution it can make.
Experiments with Parenthood?
Authors: Neale Bren , Smart Carol
Published: September 2003

Recent policy changes in the area of family law have promoted changes in the organisation of the post-divorce family. These shifts place emphasis on consensual joint parenting after divorce and emphasise agreement rather than conflict between parents. In addition, these policy changes have given a new status to fatherhood and seek to maintain relationships between men and children. These policy shifts, as well as the social changes that underlie them, have been the focus of work by Beck (1992). Here we consider (1) how parents are actually negotiating parenthood in the light of this policy experiment; and (2) how pertinent Beck's thesis appears to be by drawing on the results of a qualitative research project which has interviewed sixty parents who have divorced or separated since the new legislation came into effect.