The power of music to influence mood, create scenes, routines and occasions is widely recognised and this is reflected in a strand of social theory from Plato to Adorno that portrays music as an influence on character, social structure and action. There have, however, been few attempts to specify this power empirically and to provide theoretically grounded accounts of music's structuring properties in everyday experience. Music in Everyday Life uses a series of ethnographic studies - an aerobics class, karaoke evenings, music therapy sessions and the use of background music in the retail sector - as well as in-depth interviews to show how music is a constitutive feature of human agency. Drawing together concepts from psychology, sociology and socio-linguistics it develops a theory of music's active role in the construction of personal and social life and highlights the aesthetic dimension of social order and organisation in late modern societies.

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Music in Everyday Life

Age and cumulative advantage/disadvantage theory have obvious logical, theoretical, and empirical connections, because both are inherently and irreducibly related to the passage of time. Over the past 15 years, these connections have resulted in the elaboration and application of the cumulative advantage-disadvantage perspective in social gerontology, especially in relation to issues of heterogeneity and inequality. However, its theoretical origins, connections, and implications are not widely understood. This article reviews the genesis of the cumulative advantage/disadvantage perspective in studies of science, its initial articulation with structural-functionalism, and its expanding importance for gerontology. It discusses its intellectual relevance for several other established theoretical paradigms in sociology, psychology, and economics. On the basis of issues deriving from these perspectives and from the accumulating body of work on cumulative advantage and disadvantage, I identify several promising directions for further research in gerontology.

Cumulative Advantage/Disadvantage and the Life Course: Cross-Fertilizing Age and Social Science Theory

The Social Contexts of Research. Edited by Saad Z. Nagi and Ronald G. Corwin. Pp. xii + 409. (John Wiley: New York and London, August 1972.) £5.65.

Sociology of Science

The dramatic advances in DNA technology over the last few years are the stuff of science fiction. It is now not only possible to clone human beings it is happening. For the first time since the creation of the earth four billion years ago, or the emergence of mankind 10 million years ago, people will be able to choose their children's' sex, height, colour, personality traits and intelligence. It will even be possible to create 'superhumans' by mixing human genes with those of other animals for extra strength or longevity. But is this desirable? What are the moral and political consequences? Will it mean anything to talk about 'human nature' any more? Is this the end of human beings? Post Human Society is a passionate analysis of the greatest political and moral problem ever to face the human race.

The Problem with NatureOur Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution

The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction by Emily Martin Beacon Press, 1987 Paperback, 276 pp $1195 Winner of the 1988 Eileen Basker Memorial Prize As anthropology at its best can do, this book exposes hidden cultural assumptions about the nature of reality Martin has produced a powerful study of the dialectic between medical metaphors for women's reproductive processes and women's own views of those processes She and her associates interviewed 165 white and black women, seeking a balance between the three life stages of puberty, childbearing, and menopause 43% of her interviewees were working-class; 57% middleclass Early on Martin came up against one of the greatest dangers of studying one's own society Hearing women discuss uterine contractions as separate from the self and labor as something one "went through," and reading the same in medical texts, she at first thought that her interviews had turned up views of the body that simply reflected actual scientific fact It took her some time to realize that such scientific views are not "fact" but culturally grounded statements of an underlying ideology To get at this ideology Martin studied medical texts for the "grammar" that scientific medicine uses to describe female bodies In this medical grammar, she finds industrial society writ small The female reproductive tract is a machine designed to produce a baby; accordingly, menstruation represents failed production, connoting both a productive system that has failed to produce and one that produces only useless waste Such metaphors, disturbing to a society whose existence depends upon continued production, lead to menstruation's description in medical texts in highly negative terms: The fall in blood progesterone and estrogen, which results from regression of the corpus luteum, deprives the highly developed endometrial lining of its hormonal support    Disintegration starts    The endometrial arteries dilate, resulting in hemorrhage through the weakened capillary walls; the menstrual flow consists of this blood mixed with endometrial debris    (quoted on p 48) (Martin contrasts this with a description of male reproductive physiology which speaks of the "remarkable" cellular transformation from spermatid to mature sperm, its "amazing" nature and "sheer magnitude") Confronting the argument that the above is not value-laden but simply a factual description of menstruation, Martin examines medical descriptions of the analogous regular shedding and replacement of the lining of the stomach, finding in a number of texts no references to degeneration, but instead a stress on the periodic "renewal" of the stomach lining Concluding that writers can choose to depict what happens to the lining of stomachs and uteruses either negatively as breakdown and decay or positively as continual production and replenishment, Martin suggests an alternative medical description of menstruation: A drop in the formerly high levels of progesterone and estrogen creates the appropriate environment for reducing the excess layers of endometrial tissue Constriction of capillary blood vessels causes a lower level of oxygen and nutrients and paves the way for a vigorous production of menstrual fluids    Such a description would far more accurately reflect women's own more positive assessments of the menstrual fluid as the desired product Viewing pregnancy as the sole purpose of female reproductive organs and despising menstruation as a "waste" ignores the reality that most women do not intend to get pregnant most of the time (and so are often joyful when menstruation begins), and conceals "the true unity women have    [Menstruation is] the one thing we all share" (p 112) In spite of ambivalence about the "disgusting mess," most interviewees felt that menstruation defines them as women and insisted that they wouldn't want to give it up Teens spoke of the joy of getting their periods so they could be part of the in-group that shared the women's "special secret," of mothers and sisters greeting their first menstruation with "You're a woman now! …

The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction

Recent developments in the fundamental science of biological ageing have raised the possibility of extending the human lifespan. This article examines contests within bio-gerontology as to the nature of ageing, identifies the methods through which old age is constructed by reference to particular kinds of knowledge and thus considers the impact of the culture of science on the contemporary meaning of old age. Definitions of ageing and death that focus on biological failure lead to a cultural construction of old age whereby diversity across the life course is devalued.

Ageing Contested: Anti-ageing Science and the Cultural Construction of Old Age:

An analysis of ageing in relation to identity formation, inequality and stratification. The book outlines a theory of social inequality which encompasses those inequalities associated with old age - in addition to class, gender, race and ethnicity.; This book is intended for undergraduate and postgraduate sociology courses in social stratification and social theory, as well as students and researchers in social policy, social welfare and health with an interest in the study of ageing.

Inequality and old age

Sociological understanding of generations can be enhanced by avoiding defining them rigidly as chronological cohorts but rather linking people's accounts of their generational experience with an historically informed political economy. It then becomes possible, for example, to understand the complexity of generational politics. This paper uses data on the ‘War Generation’ taken from the Exeter Politics of Old Age project to link an empirically based political economy of generational inequality with a cultural sociology of generations. The ‘War Generation’ recognizes itself and is referred to by others in terms of a common identity. It is also an historical generation; its values, attitudes and, above all, sense of national solidarity and mutual obligation were forged in the direct experience of war. But it is also divided by divergent economic interests in property and pension rights based on the historical experience of the life course by successive groups and this segmentation can be observed in political action. The political culture of the War Generation manifests both continuity and change. Understanding these dynamics requires listening to people constructing their worlds, understanding their full range of historical experiences, and analysing the conditions for their conflicts and their cohesion.

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Understanding generations: political economy and culture in an ageing society

The anti-ageing enterprise: science, knowledge, expertise, rhetoric and values

Introduction PART ONE: THE FUTURE OF THE LIFE COURSE Visions of Later Life - Andrew Blaikie Golden Cohort to Generation Z Future `Conflicts' across Generations and Cohorts? - Vern L Bengtson and Norella M Putney Developments in the Life Course - Dale Dannefer and Casey Miklowski PART TWO: THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION Ageing and Social Class - Alan Walker and Liam Foster An Enduring Relationship Gender and Later Life - Sara Arber Change, Choice and Constraints Ethnicity and Old Age - James Nazroo PART THREE: THE FUTURE OF RETIREMENT AND PENSIONS The Future of Inequalities in Retirement Income - Debora Price and Jay Ginn Will the Baby-Boomers be Better off than Their Parents in Retirement? - Maria Evandrou and Jane Falkingham The Future of Stock Market Pensions - Richard Minns PART FOUR: THE FUTURE FOR `SELF' IN OLD AGE Ageing Selves and Others - Simon Biggs Distinctiveness and Uniformity in the Struggle for Intergenerational Solidarity Biographical Work and the Future of the Ageing Self - Jaber F Gubrium and James A Holstein Ageing and Belief - Between Tradition and Change - Peter G Coleman, Marie A Mills and Peter Speck PART FIVE: THE FUTURE FOR HEALTH AND WELL-BEING IN OLD AGE Will Our Old Age be Healthier? - Christina Victor Is there a Better Future for People with Dementia and their Families? - Murna Downs and Errollyn Bruce The Future of Well-Being - John Bond and Lynne Corner Quality of Life of Older People in the 21st Century PART SIX: THE FUTURE OF FAMILY AND LIVING ARRANGEMENTS FOR OLDER PEOPLE The Ageing of Family Life Transitions - Sarah Harper Flying Solo in Old Age - Kate Davidson Widowed and Divorced Men and Women in Later Life Housing and Future Living Arrangements - Sheila Peace PART SEVEN: GLOBALIZATION AND THE FUTURE OF OLD AGE Anti-Ageing Science and the Future of Old Age - John Vincent Ageing and Globalization - Chris Phillipson The Future Life Course, Migration and Old Age - Tony Warnes

John A. Vincent

Papers

Ageing Contested: Anti-ageing Science and the Cultural Construction of Old Age:

Inequality and old age

Understanding generations: political economy and culture in an ageing society

The anti-ageing enterprise: science, knowledge, expertise, rhetoric and values

The Futures of Old Age