bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Constructing Grandparenthood: Anticipating Appropriate Action
Authors: Cunningham-Burley Sarah 
Published: September 2003

Drawing on data from a study of grandparenthood, this paper examines the nature of projected action, and the value of the concept of `rule' in both lay and sociological reasoning. The way in which people becoming grandparents for the first time defined grandparenthood is analysed through an examination of their formulations of appropriate grandparenting behaviour, as elicited in qualitative interviews. Although much was left ill-defined, grandparental involvement with the younger generations was accounted as being bounded by certain rules or guidelines which served to restrict grandparental action, and set limits to their intended behaviour. Three main restrictions on potential action were noted: `not-interfering', `sharing', and `not-spoiling'; the grandparents' elaborations of these will be examined. They seemed to express underlying `rules' which represented a way of speaking about or making sense of a future role. However, the failure of these `rules' to perform as clear cut prescriptions for behaviour enabled the grandparents to develop a role for themselves. Nations of appropriate grandparenting behaviour were found to be based on personal experience or commonsense knowledge. Drawing on their knowledge of family life, the grandparents were able to give themselves a positive but nonetheless non-interfering role. The personal characteristics and expectations of the grandparents, as people able and willing to spend time with their families, seemed to create an inherent contradiction in their projections of a grandparental role. Yet it was such different relevances which facilitated the production of a potentially satisfactory set of practices for `doing grandparenting'.
Social Closure and Occupational Registration
Authors: Macdonald Keith M. 
Published: September 2003

The concept of social closure has been employed by followers of Max Weber as part of an explanation of how members of a social stratum establish and maintain their status, and of how collective social mobility is achieved. Particular attention has been drawn to professional occupations and their registration under statute as an important part of the process of closure. This paper examines the case of the accountancy profession and shows how, after decades of attempting to achieve registration, this goal was abandoned, partly because the costs came to outweigh the rewards and partly because a very similar end was achieved by other means. A model of social closure is presented which allows this exceptional case to be explained without dispensing with existing formulations. The explanation hinges on the nature of occupational knowledge, the nature of the clientele, the historical/cultural antecedents and the interplay of these factors in the `professional arena'.
Class Structuration and Patterns of Social Closure in Australia and New Zealand
Authors: Jones F. L. , Davis Peter 
Published: September 2003

On the basis of patterns of intergenerational mobility and class endogamy in Australia and New Zealand, we develop models of exchange between the generations. Data on intergenerational change in terms of social mobility (father-to-son mobility) and class endogamy (the social origins of spouses) reveal considerable stability in patterns of exchange in each country and across age cohorts. The analysis shows that, while considerable social interchange occurs, it does so at different rates depending on social distance and class background. The barriers that inhibit exchange are grounded in institutions of structured inequality, and they operate selectively within the class structure.
The `Consumption' of Tourism
Authors: Urry John 
Published: September 2003

This paper provides an analysis of a relatively unusual topic, namely, the social divisions surrounding the consumption of tourist-related services. In the first section a number of points are made which suggest that the topic is both important and difficult to analyse. Some attention is paid to the features of the tourist gaze. In the second main section the problems brought up by various economists of congestion and positionality are analysed. It is suggested that there is an important distinction to be drawn between the romantic and the collective tourist gaze which makes the issue of congestion/positionality more complex than economists have suggested. Some sociological implications of this distinction are developed in the final concluding section. `Tourists are vulgar, vulgar, vulgar' (Henry James, quoted Pearce and Moscardo 1986:21)
The Consumption Sector Debate and Housing Mobility
Authors: Savage Mike , Watt Paul , Arber Sara 
Published: September 2003

This paper argues that in order to assess whether consumption sectors form meaningful social collectivities it is essential to consider patterns of housing mobility. Just as Goldthorpe has argued that a process of `class formation' occurs when individuals tend to belong to the same class as their parents, so we argue that it is important to examine whether there is a process of `tenure formation' where individuals have the same tenure as their parents. Only in this case is it likely that tenure forms a basis for social identity and collective action. We argue that existing studies on housing mobility fail to systematically address this issue. We draw on survey research on council tenants in Guildford, Surrey to describe patterns of housing mobility. We show that there are high rates of housing mobility which suggests that housing tenure is not an axis of social closure. We therefore conclude that, at least in this area of the South East, a consideration of housing mobility casts considerable doubts on the view that consumption sector cleavages are becoming more significant in social and political life.
The Revised Cambridge Scale of Occupations
Authors: Prandy Ken 
Published: September 2003

The article describes the revision of the original Cambridge scale, a measure of similarity of life-style and therefore of generalised advantage/disadvantage, and compares this new version in a number of areas with other occupation-based measures of social stratification. The revision has been carried out using a much larger dataset, with respondents from a wide range of occupations. Female occupations have been specifically incorporated. Data from several previous studies are reanalysed using the Cambridge score and other measures or class categorisations. Areas considered include income and education, friendship, the occupations of husbands and wives and of fathers and children, and voting. In all cases it is shown that the Cambridge scale gives relationships at least as strong as, and in the great majority of cases stronger than, those found with the alternatives. The significance of this for the issue of the existence of discrete class categories and for the distinction between class and status is briefly raised.
Modern Death: Taboo or not Taboo?
Authors: Walter Tony 
Published: September 2003

There has been a proliferation of literature on death - in the UK mainly journalistic and very recent, in the USA mainly scholarly and covering the past thirty years. This literature has created the conventional wisdom that death is the taboo of the twentieth century. The article asks: (a) is death taboo? if so, in what sense? (b) if it is not taboo, then why the frequent announcements that it is? It is this second question that scholars have not previously attempted to incorporate into their theory. The strengths and weakness of the taboo thesis are reviewed. Six possible modifications/critiques are offered in an attempt to resolve the difficulties: (1) that there was a taboo, but it is now disintegrating; (2) that death is hidden rather than forbidden; (3) that the taboo is limited largely to the (influential) occupational groups of the media and of medicine; (4) that the loss of a coherent language for discussing death leads to conversational unease; (5) that all societies must both accept and deny death, so pundits are able to pick whatever examples fit their thesis; (6) that it is the modern individual, not modern society, that denies death.
Strategic Context Analysis: A New Research Strategy for Structuration Theory
Authors: Stones Rob 
Published: September 2003

This article argues that a new form of methodological bracketing, strategic context analysis, is required by structuration theory if it is to meet the growing criticism best summed up by Nigel Thrift's complaint that it is all micro-situations and world-empires with nothing much in between. Analysis directed towards the strategic context of action can help to provide this `missing institutional link'. The parameters of strategic context analysis are outlined and distinguished from three other forms of analysis associated with structuration theory. The strategic context itself is broken down into its technicist and hermeneutic dimensions and it is suggested that an emphasis on the latter is essential if one is to avoid the reification of structures. A number of illustrative examples - the identities of Tory women, stances towards the French Revolution and Harold Wilson's `pound in your pocket' - are enlisted in order to illustrate the range of questions which could be addressed by a research strategy guided by strategic context analysis. `Gregory smiled. His mother's tendency to the enigmatic was definitely increasing. Someone who didn't know her might have thought her mind was wandering; but Gregory knew there was always a sure point of reference, something which in her own terms made sense. Probably it just took too long to explain. Gregory wondered if this was what being old meant: everything you wanted to say required a context. If you gave the full context, people thought you a rambling old fool. If you didn't give the context, people thought you a laconic old fool. The very old needed interpreters just as the very young did. When the old lost their companions, their friends, they also lost their interpreters: they lost love, but they also lost the full power of speech.' - Julian Barnes, Staring at the Sun
`Someone to Watch Over Me': Surveillance, Discipline and the Just-in-Time Labour Process
Authors: Sewell Graham , Wilkinson Barry 
Published: September 2003

Theory and observations are used to argue that JIT/TQC regimes both create and demand systems of surveillance which improve on those of previous factory regimes by instilling discipline and thereby enhancing central control. For its theoretical inspiration this paper draws upon the work of Michel Foucault, especially his conception of Power/Knowledge as articulated in his book Discipline and Punish. This theoretical framework is extended to provide a means of analysis of the mechanisms of surveillance and control that operate in the contemporary work place. While there is a sense in which tactical responsibility is delegated in an organisation practising JIT/TQM, strategic control is simultaneously centralised - a form of devolutionism. Drawing on the work of Foucault we will argue that the JIT/TQM approach is both enabled and enhanced by the operation of two complementary disciplinary forces. The first of these is the discipline which derives from the scrutiny of one's peers in a manufacturing cell, quality circle, etc. - a horizontal process which is supported by the organisational structure associated with JIT/TQM. The second and key disciplinary force is that which derives from the use of increasingly powerful management information systems which provide extensive shop floor surveillance - a vertical process which provides an over-arching controlling mechanism. We demonstrate that the surveillance systems integral to JIT/TQM are deliberately designed such that discipline is established in a most efficient manner and the exercise of minute control is possible with a minimum of supervisors. The desired effect of harnessing these dual forces is to minimise negative divergences from expected behaviour and management defined norms whilst identifying positive divergencies and maximising their creative potential.
Employment Histories and the Concept of the Underclass
Authors: Morris Lydia , Irwin Sarah 
Published: September 2003

This paper reports on research carried out in Hartlepool, based on data from three groups of male respondents: (1) those employed for at least the last twelve months; (2) those recently recruited to employment, (i.e. within the last twelve months); (3) those currently employed and having held the same job for the last twelve months. By comparing the work histories and characterising features of these three groupings the paper sets out to explore the theoretical and empirical validity of the notion of the underclass, focusing specifically on two competing definitions: nonparticipation in the labour market, and systematic disadvantage in the labour market. The data reveal a distinctive pattern of broken employment for the second of the three groups identified above. Those affected are thus located between the two contrasting positions of long-term unemployment, and relatively secure employment. The existence of such a grouping is argued to undermine a definition of an underclass purely in terms of unemployment. However, the characteristics of the `underemployed', despite indicating a clear pattern of disadvantage, are too heterogeneous to constitute a distinctive class position.
Love and Intimacy: The Gender Division of Emotion and `Emotion Work'
Authors: Duncombe Jean , Marsden Dennis 
Published: September 2003

This paper discusses the role of ideologies of love and intimacy in heterosexual coupledom, and examines the applicability of theories of the gender division of `emotion work' to the field of intimate personal relationships. Research on the private sphere of the family has recently focused on quantifying instrumental aspects of relationships, such as financial management, the domestic division of labour and informal care. However, although fruitful, such approaches neglect the expressive or emotional; particularly the experiences of love and intimacy, which many people say they regard as a key element in their personal relationships. We suggest reasons for British sociology's neglect of what is almost a cliche in everyday discourse. And we present evidence (including preliminary findings from our own research on heterosexual couples) that - despite dissatisfaction with gender inequalities in domestic tasks and finance - many women express unhappiness primarily with what they perceive as men's unwillingness or incapacity to `do' the emotional intimacy which appears to them necessary to sustain close heterosexual couple relationships. We illustrate how similar discussions of gender differences in emotional behaviour have emerged elsewhere (including in the new masculinity literature), raising questions about how far men's and women's emotional behaviour can and should change. The exploration of socially-regulated or `managed' gender divisions in intimate emotional behaviour entails two related but distinct questions: are men and women equally `susceptible' to the emotions or discourses of love and intimacy; and, do they handle such emotions in similar ways in the context of close personal relationships. We suggest how research findings on heterosexual couple relationships can be linked to work on the social regulation of emotion, which argues that there is a `gender division of emotion work' where it is assumed that women will take responsibility for the management of emotion in the private sphere.
Towards a Strategic Approach to Housing Behaviour: A Study of Young People's Housing Strategies in South-East England
Authors: Pickvance Chris , Pickvance Katy 
Published: September 2003

A model is advanced of young people's housing behaviour as resulting from strategies regarding household type, child-bearing, work, expenditure and family help, which in turn are partly a response to housing constraints. The model is applied to a sample of 724 young people in South-East England and it is shown that between 3 per cent and 34 per cent of young people had adopted particular strategies in the previous year in response to housing constraints. Strategic behaviour was not limited to any single social category, but the first four types of strategy were more likely among households with manual or part-time workers; younger, unmarried people were more likely to put up with awkward household arrangements; and older, married people and owner-occupiers were more likely to adopt expenditure-related strategies and to defer having children. This approach rejects the view that housing decisions are made by pre-existing households with given characteristics. Rather, household structure and resource levels result from strategies, and housing decisions involve trade-offs between aspirations and the acceptance of sacrifice and dependency - features which are ignored by measures of `ability to pay' such as affordability.
Processes of Housing Access: A Dynamic Approach to Housing Consumption
Authors: Sullivan Oriel 
Published: September 2003

This paper outlines an analytic framework for the comparative study of housing access, based upon the concept of the `processes of housing access'. The aim is to devise a framework which is generalised enough to permit systematic cross-national comparison, but sufficiently grounded to take on board the wealth of empirical detail on a country by country basis. Defining the processes of housing access in any specific context involves the identification of: a) the sets of social relations that consumers enter into in gaining access to particular forms of housing; and b) the formal and informal conditions of negotiation surrounding access, defined in terms of the characteristics of both consumers and housing. The identification of the dynamic constituents of the negotiation of housing access (during which the underlying relations of power are concretised and reproduced in housing outcomes) involves an explicit focus on the interface of macro- and micro-level analyses. It is hoped that a more widely applicable model for the analysis of access may be developed from the attempt to model housing access in this way.
Consumption, Identity-Formation and Uncertainty
Authors: Warde Alan 
Published: September 2003

This paper addresses some general issues concerning consumption that arise from the work of Bauman, Beck and Giddens. All maintain that biography is a reflexive project and that life-styles and consumption are critical to identity-formation and re-formation. Bauman, especially, maintains that this is a source of anxiety, the freedom implied by consumer choice entailing a commensurate degree of personal responsibility. He observes, for instance, that a function of advertising is to assuage the self-doubt that accompanies choice. I seek to argue that these accounts of the impact of reflexive modernisation on self-identity are misjudged. Consumption would be a much less pleasurable practice if it was both subject to ever-expanding free choice and the decisions made were fundamental components of a reflexive process of identity-formation. Indeed, the consequence might well be high and visible levels of distress among those individuals most deeply involved. That this is not apparent suggests that the relationships specified between the process of identity-formation and consumption is tendentious. Consumption may be anxiety-provoking for some groups; there is a real element of risk involved in choosing inappropriately. But there are many mechanisms that serve to compensate. I explore those mechanisms, suggesting that anxiety is avoided through certain processes of group identification and social regulation which the reflexive modernisation thesis claims have atrophied. I conclude that such considerations require that these theories about the relationship between consumption and self-identity be modified.
Global Environmental Values and Local Contexts of Action
Authors: Burningham Kate , O'Brien Martin 
Published: September 2003

The effects of environmental change on individuals and societies are receiving increasing attention. Local, national and international organisations are all undertaking research and developing policy on environmental management and regulation. This level of concern appears, initially, to indicate a positive and growing awareness of human-environment interactions. However, it is not clear that in developing agenda for action the different parties are in fact referring to the same `environment', nor that the meanings of environmental concepts are understood in the same ways by `experts' and `non-experts'. The paper examines this issue in two ways. First, the authors consider the diversity of referents which accompany the concept of the environment in academic, policy, business and lay discourses. Second, they discuss some of the ways in which individuals who encounter environmental change at the local level employ the concept of `the environment' differently in order to achieve political ends. The discussion and the data upon which it is based are used to indicate the ways that `global' environmental concepts are localised in specific contexts of action. Finally, the authors argue that the complexity of the discursive frameworks, together with the absence of enduring, coherent environmental value systems within which to situate perspectives on environmental change, implies that frameworks for environmental understanding and action cannot be imposed from outside of the contexts in which goals, values and motives are embedded.
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.