Showing papers in "British Journal of Sociology in 1997"

Environmental Sociology: Theory and Practice@@@Environmental Sociology: A Social Constructionist Perspective@@@Risk, Environment and Modernity: Towards a New Ecology

Abstract: This wide-ranging and accessible contribution to the study of risk, ecology and environment helps us to understand the politics of ecology and the place of social theory in making sense of environmental issues. The book provides insights into the complex dynamics of change in `risk societies'.

The risk society in an age of anxiety: situating fear of crime

Abstract: As many now recognize, fear of crime is an inadequately theorized concept. In particular, it is premissed on rational, calculating individuals who routinely miscalculate their 'true' risk of crime. Hence the repeatedly found paradox that the least at risk group (elderly females) are most fearful. The risk literature has adopted a cultural/anthropological rather than an individual perspective, but, in so doing has not succeeded in retheorizing the notion of the rationally calculating subject it critiques (Douglas), even if rational calculations are no longer possible in today's 'risk society' (Beck). We develop these cultural perspectives in a way which is founded on a post-structuralist theory of individuals wherein inter-subjective defending against anxiety replaces rational calculation as central to the understanding of fear. Not only does this re-link the concepts of fear and anxiety, currently divorced in the fear of crime debate, but it offers the prospect of understanding the paradoxical mismatch between risk and fear at both the level of the individual and of society.

Policing and the social: Questions of symbolic power

Abstract: Taking as its point of departure the tension that currently exists in Britain between official crime control discourse and popular sentiment towards policing, this paper has two aims. Drawing upon P. Bourdieu's concept of symbolic power the author argues, first, that sociological enquiry needs to devote more attention to understanding the social meanings of policing, and outline a framework within which the role and significance of policing as a cultural category might be investigated. He then illustrates the symbolic power of the police by means of a discussion of the contemporary cultural salience of policing in the 1950s. His argument is that the continuing mobilization and appeal of policing in this period says much about the relationship between the police and dominant forms of English national identity

Becoming a young parent : A longitudinal study of associated factors

Abstract: Teenage fertility rates in the UK are amongst the highest in Europe and have not altered significantly in the last 15 years, but the proportion of births outside marriage has risen rapidly. In this study we used longitudinal data from the National Child Development Study (NCDS) to investigate the social, economic and educational backgrounds of young parents. The analysis showed there to be striking variations in the probabilities of becoming young parents but not with respect to whether the child was born within or outside marriage. Young mothers and fathers were more likely to come from economically disadvantaged families and to have lower educational attainment. Teenage mothers were more likely to have mothers who had a child in her teens and were more likely to have exhibited higher levels of emotional problems particularly in adolescence. Young women whose educational attainment scores deteriorated between childhood and adolescence had particularly high probabilities of becoming young mothers. For some teenage motherhood was unintended and the result of unprotected intercourse whilst other men and women who subsequently become young parents had expressed a preference for early parenthood whilst still at school.

'Moral panic' and moral language in the media

Abstract: This article provides a comprehensive survey of the use of the term «moral panic» from its coinage in 1972 until the present day. It traces the evolution of the term in academic sociology and criminology, its adoption by the media in the mid-1980s and its subsequent employment in the national press. It shows how and why the term changed its meaning, and how far its use in academic discourse affected its use in the media. The article traces the development of «moral panic» in the media, where it was first used pejoratively, then rejected for being pejorative, and finally rehabilitated as a term of approval. It explains why the term developed as it did : how it enabled journalists to justify the moral and social role of the media, and also to support the reassertion of «family values» in the early 1990s. The article concludes by considering the relationship between «moral panic» and moral language in general. This is a more speculative analysis of the term, drawing on the work of moral philosophers and attempting to predict how «moral panic» may develop in the future. «Moral panic», he suggests, is an unsatisfactory form of moral language which may adversely affect the media's ability to handle moral issues seriously

Co-operation in Inter-firm Relations in Britain and Germany: the Role of Social Institutions

Abstract: The first part of the paper will theoretically examine the social function of trust, the preconditions of the production of trust and the possibility of reconstructing power as a mechanism functionally similar to trust. The second part of the paper is based on empirical research and will elaborate from a comparative perspective (Britain and Germany) how industry associations and legal regulations influence the quality of inter-firm relations. The authors' central argument is that trust is more reliably produced when these institutions are strong and consistent and business relations are deeply embedded into their institutional environment. They will argue that power is more likely to function as an alternative mode of coordinating social expectations and interaction when the institutional framework and the embeddedness of social interaction is weak. But power produced by a comprehensive and stable institutional environment - what the authors call system power - appears to be fostering the production of trust rather than being detrimental to it

Changing forms of employment : organisations, skills and gender

Abstract: During the last two decades there has been widespread evidence of change in specific aspects of employing organizations, employment and employment related institutions. Changing Forms of Employment looks at the underlying trends which generate pressures towards a fundamental reshaping of social institutions in three ways: changes in the organization of production, particularly those associated with the growth of service dominated economics; the effects of technological change, particularly those associated with Information Technology; the erosion of the 'male breadwinner' (or single earner) model of employment and household. These trends have resulted in strains and ruptures in the organization and regulation of employment, and related institutions including trade unions, employers, and households. The task of the next decade is to both reconstruct relationships, and to renew institutions.

Attacking the attacker: gay Christians talk back.

Abstract: This paper analyses the accounts constructed by 60 gay male Christians in partnership as stigma management strategies at the level of cognition and rhetoric. Four strategies are identified : (i) attacking the stigma ; (ii) attacking the stigmatizer ; (iii) use of positive personal experience ; and (iv) use of the ontogeneric argument. These strategies are interchangeably and collectively used to dismiss the credibility of the institutionalized Church and the validity of its unfavourable official position on the issue of homosexuality. The effective use of these strategies demonstrates the positive personal identity these gay Christians have developed in this advanced stage of their moral career

Actively Seeking Work? The Politics of Unemployment and Welfare Policy in the United States and Great Britain

Abstract: Why have both Great Britain and the United States been unable to create effective training and work programmes for the unemployed? The author contends that the answer lies in the liberal political origins of these programmes. Integrating documentary materials with an analysis of the sources of political support for work-welfare programs, King shows that policy-makers in both Great Britain and the United States have tried to achieve conflicting goals through these programmes. The goal of work-welfare policy in both countries has been to provide financial aid, training and placement services for the unemployed. In order to muster support for these programmes, however, work-welfare programmes had to incorporate liberal requirements that they not interfere with private market forces, and that they prevent the \"undeserving\" from obtaining benefits. The attempt to integrate these incompatible functions is arguably the defining feature of British and American policies as well as the cause of their failure.

Mealtime rituals: power and resistance in the construction of mealtime rules.

Abstract: This paper discusses how child resistance is lived on a daily basis through the construction and operation of mealtime rules in four Australian families with young children. It focuses on the sociologically neglected situation of everyday parent-child conflict and resistance and posits young children as actively engaged in contestation and negotiation of power relationships within the family. Analysis of domestic dialogue and conflict episodes demonstrates how mealtime rituals function as techniques of discipline through which young children are normalized. Although resistance and contestation occurred in all families, the construction and operation of mealtime rules were also a regulatory mechanism for constituting boys and girls in different ways. Girls were constructed as helping to prepare, serve and clean after meals, which boys were the recipients of this service from their mothers and sisters.

Television and the reflexive project of the self: soaps, teenage talk and hybrid identities

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to report on qualitative research into the role of television soap opera as a resource employed by teenagers in identity work. The central methodological strategy has been to enable young people to do the research themselves. Twenty groups of young people (aged 14-15) were recruited to talk about soap opera without an adult presence. The stress in the paper is on the formative nature of language in lending form to ourselves from the disorderly flow of everyday talk and practice. I argue that the girls construct reflexive identities in two grammatical forms. Identities are instanciated in the flow of language as well as in the self-narrative of 'I'. I am centrally concerned with the production of multiple, hybrid identities amongst British Asian girls. They see themselves as Asian yet distance themselves from aspects of tradition by virtue of their participation in other domains of British culture. They are both in and out of British society and Asian culture. These identities are complicated by gender relations so that ethnic and gender identities 'cross-cut or dislocate each other'.

Globalization, migration and the nation-state: the path to a post-national Europe?

Abstract: This paper begins by noting a number of recent trends which challenge the self-contained autonomy of the nation-state and the recent conceptualization of such trends in terms of `globalization....[It is] a preliminary exploration of the issues raised by international population flows and policy responses in the context of the European Union (EU). Minimally it proffers an account of the global/national tension noted in much of the globalization literature and apparent in the policy and politics of migration. More critically this account attempts an assessment of quite how `post-national Europe really is and whether `globalization offers any help in unravelling the complexity of empirical evidence. (EXCERPT)

Women in black: challenging Israel's gender and socio-political orders.

Abstract: The Israeli protest movement 'Women in Black' is studied by focusing on the movement's mode of protest, which is used as a prism through which to analyse the manner in which the structure, contents and goals of protest challenge the socio-political and gender orders. The article analyses the protest vigil of 'Women in Black' in Jerusalem, and characterizes it, following Handelman (1990), as a minimalist public event. After examining and analysing the sources of minimalism it was concluded that minimalism was the result of two social processes attendant at the formation of 'Women in Black' as a social movement: personal interpretation of the political field, and avoidance of ideological deliberation amongst the participants. The minimalism of the public event preserved the movement for six years and created a collective identity that emphasized the symbolic difference between those within the demonstration and those outside it. This difference was symbolized by a juxtaposition of opposites. The essence of opposites is analysed by means of 'thick description', i.e., by deciphering them in the context of Israeli society. The study concluded that the mode of protest of 'Women in Black' has created a symbolic space in which a new type of political woman is enacted. This identity challenges established socio-cultural categories Israel.

Towards a Theory of Social Processes: A Translation

Abstract: A theory of social processes must diagnose and explain those long-term and unplanned, yet structured and directional trends in the development of social and personality structures that constitute the infrastructure of what is commonly called «history». The reception of such a theoretical approach is hampered by the self-image of contemporary sociology as a discipline primarily concerned with the present and devoted to research on short-term changes and causal relationships within given social systems. This self-image results from a problematic division of intellectual labour between history and sociology, but also from sociology's increasing involvement in social practive, i.e. bureaucratically controlled social planning. While contributing to such planning, sociologists ignore the long-term, unplanned developments which produce the conditions for the present-day practice of planning and in which all planned social development is entangled. Complementary processes of functional differentiation, social integration and civilization are strands of this complex long-term development. Its dynamics require further exploration

The late-modern city as a bazaar : drug markets, illegal enterprise and the 'barricades'

Abstract: The authors describe drug use and drug-related crime in the contemporary city. In this description, they adopt a notion of the city as a market-place, and more precisely as a 'bazaar', for its multiplicity, incessant bargaining, trade and manoeuvre. In this 'bazaar' legality and illegality intermingle, and moral boundaries are constantly negotiated. They also examine the metaphor of the 'barricades', an important feature of the city in both literary and sociological accounts. Their view of the bazaar and the barricades is discussed in relation to some key features of the drugs economy. Finally, they demystify the image of the drugs economy as somehow being a unique challenge to urban life. This demystification is in large part based on noting similarities between illegal economies and characteristics of official, legal economies

New rules of sociological method : rethinking technology studies

Abstract: Social constructivism is strong in the deconstruction of technological or economic determinism and in the reconstruction of practice, talk and translation between actors. However, it fails to account for institutionalized selective structures and to consider path dependencies and other conditions of global stabilization. On the basis of the author's theoretical reading and empirical research in the field of technology studies twelve rules are extracted to summarize the state-of-the-art. These rules will enable to overcome the deficiencies of action-oriented approaches on the one side and of structuralist approaches on the other side. Inspired by A. Giddens's new rules of sociological method, a constructivist explanation of technology generation on the local level is combined with a social evolutionary approach of structural selection on the global level