Showing papers in "Sociology in 1991"
TL;DR: In this paper, the marginal status of the body in sociology is challenged by examining the place of the physical in the production of social inequalities, and it is argued that a social analysis of body is central to understanding the reproduction of gender inequalities and that sociologists should take more seriously the multiple ways in which bodies enter into the construction of these inequalities.
Abstract: This paper seeks to challenge the marginal status of the body in sociology by examining the place of `the physical' in the production of social inequalities. After reviewing briefly Bourdieu's concept of embodied capital, I seek to extend his analysis by examining some recent work which looks at gender and the body-society relationship. It will be argued that a social analysis of the body is central to understanding the production of gender inequalities, and that sociologists should take more seriously the multiple ways in which bodies enter into the construction of social inequalities.
249 citations
TL;DR: The strengths and weakness of the taboo thesis are reviewed in this paper, where six possible modifications/critiques are offered in an attempt to resolve the difficulties: (1) there was a taboo, but it is now disintegrating; (2) death is hidden rather than forbidden; (3) the taboo is limited largely to the occupational groups of the media and of medicine; (4) the loss of a coherent language for discussing death leads to conversational unease; (5) that all societies must both accept and deny deat...
Abstract: 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 deat...
243 citations
TL;DR: A significant body of feminist research has developed which has home-based reproduction as its focus as mentioned in this paper, which has been strategically placed at the interface of sociology and social policy, and has been called "home-based feminism".
Abstract: Over the last decade, a significant body of feminist research has developed which has home-based reproduction as its focus. Strategically placed at the interface of sociology and social policy, thi...
189 citations
TL;DR: The authors place on the table a project for re-conceptualizing the relationship between sociology and the biological sciences, and present a brief account of that history, and their own interpretation of its significance.
Abstract: This paper is programmatic in its intent. I have avoided extensive literature-citations and, in some areas, resorted to rather tendentious assertion rather than thorough argumentation. My purpose is to `place on the table' a project for re-conceptualising the relationship between sociology (together with related social science disciplines) and the biological sciences. Of course, this relationship has a lot of history behind it, some of it not at all pleasant. Necessarily, therefore, I will have to preface my positive proposals with a brief account of that history, and my own interpretation of its significance. Before I try even to do that, however, I will say something about our present situation in the social sciences, and what seem to me the pressures within it towards a recasting of the established division of labour between biology and the social sciences.
185 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe and analyse counselling interviews in ways which are sensitive to the local organization of communication but avoid reducing it to ''culture'' or to the structure of adjacent turns-at-talk.
Abstract: Sociologists concerned with describing the organization of interaction have, until recently, been faced with two diverging options. Either they can focus on local cultures or on the sequential order of conversation. Ethnography's emphasis on context underpins the first option; conversation analysis' concern with a context-free structure of turn-taking provides the rationale for the second. Analysis of transcripts of AIDS Counselling suggests a middle way. Building on Goffman's account of `footings', the concept of `communication formats' allow us to describe the local management of the turn-taking machinery. By considering sequential explanations of the stability of each format and contextual explanations of their functionality, we are able to describe and analyze counselling interviews in ways which are sensitive to the local organization of communication but avoid reducing it to `culture' or to the structure of adjacent turns-at-talk. The method allows the precise description of the special characterist...
78 citations
TL;DR: A study of a social support intervention in pregnancy involving 507 pregnant women in the Midlands and the South of England as mentioned in this paper found that working class women are not more closely involved with their relatives and are more isolated in terms of friends than middle class women; male domestic support is also less common in working class...
Abstract: This paper is concerned with themes taken from two different areas of sociological theory and investigation. The first relates to work on social class and social relationships and networks, within which a central issue has been the extent to which interpersonal ties are differentiated by occupationally-based class groups in modern society. The second area of work lies within the sociology of health and illness, and concerns the question of the health-promoting potential of social support. The paper draws on data from a study of a social support intervention in pregnancy involving 507 pregnant women in the Midlands and the South of England, and considers to what extent family, friendship and neighbourhood ties exhibit different patterns by occupational and other measures of class. The study findings suggest that working class women are not more closely involved with their relatives and are more isolated in terms of friends than middle class women; male domestic support is also less common in working class ...
70 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue 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 Thri...
Abstract: 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 Thri...
57 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that the concept is rooted within masculine spheres of activity, and yet has been widely applied to women's lives, particularly in considering some of the contextual constraints of domestic activities.
Abstract: In response to the recent articles in Sociology on the concept of `strategy', this paper aims to make a contribution to the debate by drawing attention to some of its gendered aspects. We seek to raise some further questions without necessarily providing clear-cut answers. We argue that the concept is rooted within masculine spheres of activity, and yet has been widely applied to women's lives, particularly in considering some of the contextual constraints of domestic activities. We consider the reasons for the attractiveness of the concept, as well as the dangers in applying it to women's domestic lives, using illustrations from our own empirical work. While we have found an alternative language difficult to find, we are concerned that the sociological conceptualisation of women's lives in the private sphere needs to work outward from the domestic rather than inward from the public. Furthermore, such conceptual reconsideration may also assist our understandings of female and male lives in public settings.
40 citations
TL;DR: Data from a national survey of women who had recently given birth are used to examine women's employment experiences around the time of childbirth, providing support for the proposition that, as a result of an improvement in some women's labour market opportunities, the 1990s may see a narrowing in gender inequality in the labour market.
Abstract: Data from a national survey of women who had recently given birth are used to examine women's employment experiences around the time of childbirth. The data provide further evidence of the trend to...
39 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the influence of Rockefeller philanthropy on the social sciences between the wars is discussed and three central issues of contention are distinguished and rival claims are evaluated, and new empirical evidence drawn from the foundations' archives does not support some of their arguments.
Abstract: This paper comments on the debate between Martin Bulmer and Donald Fisher, which appears in an earlier issue of this journal, concerning the influence of Rockefeller philanthropy on the social sciences between the wars. Three central issues of contention are distinguished and rival claims are evaluated. I argue that new empirical evidence drawn from the foundations' archives does not support some of their arguments although each interpretation has its merits.
31 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: The authors reviewed recent research and the definitions of economic and political power which are employed to explain individual support for collective services, focusing on the political conditions for the evolution of citizenship rather than on economic and industrialisation models of welfare expenditure.
Abstract: Recent debates on the future of social benefits in the market economy have focussed attention on the origins of state services and the conditions which encouraged the growth of public welfare in modern society. The emphasis in the recent writing has been upon the political conditions for the evolution of citizenship rather than on economic and industrialisation models of welfare expenditure. At the same time there have been various attempts to adapt and refine the rational choice analysis of public goods to explain individual support for collective services. Each of these approaches has been developed with a strong interest in the historical and comparative analysis of welfare provision. This essay reviews recent research and the definitions of economic and political power which are employed. Many writers stress the continuities of traditional institutions at the expense of recurring economic and political conflict which defined the practical boundaries of citizenship. An alternative view of capitalist pr...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors suggest amendments to the outline of the theory of citizenship recently offered by Turner, including the necessity of disentangling the normative and the material, the need to recognise the significance of the differential character of experiences of citizenship, and the desirability of placing differential experiences within a context which acknowledges class and intra-class divisions.
Abstract: This paper suggests amendments to the outline of the theory of citizenship recently offered by Turner. In particular, five issues are noted: the necessity of disentangling the normative and the material; the need to recognise the significance of the differential character of experiences of citizenship; the desirability of placing differential experiences within a context which acknowledges class and intra-class divisions, incorporation and exclusion, in a number of separate but related settings; the problems of defining welfare and of a welfare stereotype; and the need to explore more fully the dimensions of property rights claims within notions of citizenship.
TL;DR: In this article, structural and individual factors are influential at all levels of the occupational hierarchy, but the strength of influence varies at different points in the hierarchy, supporting the axiom of structuration theory which asserts that structure and activity are deeply implicated in each other in the process of social reproduction.
Abstract: The paper attempts to link theoretical ideas concerning the relation of agency and structure with empirical research on the transition from school to work. In particular, some of the propositions of structuration theory are assessed in terms of their applicability to empirical research which investigates the impact of individual and structural variables on movement into the labour market, and the way the variables combine to determine entry into labour market segments. The data suggests that structural and individual factors are influential at all levels of the occupational hierarchy, but that the strength of influence varies at different points in the hierarchy. This supports the axiom of structuration theory which asserts that structure and activity are deeply implicated in each other in the process of social reproduction. However, the data further suggests the `duality of structure' principle has to be considerably modified in order to apprehend phenomena such as labour market processes. In this respec...
TL;DR: The importance of genealogies for sociological research was established by as discussed by the authors, who pointed out the cultural and ideological importance of the establishment of pedigrees and descents for particular families, subcultures and societies.
Abstract: The intention of this paper is to establish the importance for sociology of genealogy. Genealogy has been a practice in many cultures and throws light upon the way in which families have conducted themselves in the past. It additionally demonstrates the cultural and ideological importance of the establishment of pedigrees and descents for particular families, subcultures and societies. Further, genealogy is becoming an increasingly popular and highly time consuming recreational activity and as such is a phenomenon worthy of sociological research. It is also to be noted that a number of important historical works utilising genealogical research have been much under-used by sociologists. They provide a useful source for sociologists seeking to explain the extent and consequences of family life and kin relations in periods of particularly marked social change.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that there are significant problems concerning a lack of attention to the forms of mobilizatat and gender segregation in paid employment, and they consider recent debates around patriarchy, gender segregation, and women empowerment.
Abstract: This paper considers recent debates around patriarchy and gender segregation in paid employment. I argue that there are significant problems concerning a lack of attention to the forms of mobilizat...
TL;DR: In this article, Weber's restricted concept of the entrepreneur, Parsons's rendering of these ideas in English, the assumption that science in general has had a Newtonian character, and that association with science produces a rational disposition in human actors.
Abstract: In an earlier paper the professions were identified as a primarily Anglo-Saxon phenomenon, and associated with economic under-performance. The present paper goes further by questioning the theoretical interpretations of professionalism in the writings of some of the founding fathers, and occasionally of their translators. We variously question here Weber's restricted concept of the entrepreneur, Parsons's rendering of these ideas in English, the assumption that science in general has had a Newtonian character, and that association with science produces a rational disposition in human actors. The view expressed here is that these various misapprehensions - about entrepreneurialism, professionalism, rationality and science - derive from a desire to impose order, to oversimplify phenomena as systems, and to focus on that which may be described and codified, to the neglect of voluntaristic and problematic dimensions.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that rather than adopting a simple categorical distinction between class homogeneous and class heterogeneous families, it is important to distinguish between levels or degrees of class heterogeneity.
Abstract: While the class location of families has received considerable attention in recent years, existing research has adopted quite divergent approaches in defining those locations. This inconsistency is symptomatic of a number of unresolved practical problems associated with classifying the class composition of families. This analysis identifies these problems and suggests ways in which they might be overcome. It argues that rather than adopting a simple categorical distinction between class homogeneous and class heterogeneous families, it is important to distinguish between levels or degrees of class heterogeneity. A strategy for doing so is outlined, and its advantages in distinguishing different types of class locations are demonstrated through an analysis of class identity.
TL;DR: This article examined the restructuring of finance capital between 1976 and 1986, a time of great flux in the structure of capital, both internationally and in Canada, showing a shift away from the relatively depersonalized system of 'polyarchic financial hegemony' prevalent during the post-war boom era to a holding system of family-controlled enterprise groups, the largest of which are self-contained financial-industrial complexes whose members are linked by complicated patterns of intercorporate ownership and capital allocation.
Abstract: On the basis of a network analysis of interlocks among the largest Canadian corporations, this paper examines the restructuring of finance capital between 1976 and 1986, a time of great flux in the structure of capital, both internationally and in Canada. Results indicate a shift away from the relatively depersonalized system of `polyarchic financial hegemony' - prevalent during the post-war boom era - towards a `holding system' of family-controlled enterprise groups, the largest of which are self-contained financial-industrial complexes whose members are linked by complicated patterns of intercorporate ownership and capital allocation. The increasingly internationalized - and particularly continental - character of Canadian-based finance capital points to the consolidation of a circuit of transnational finance capital that expresses Canada's specific location in the global economy.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored the religiosity-health association while differentiating between the collective, the belonging to a religious community, and the individual aspects of religiosity, and found that religious kibbutz members reported more health behaviour, better mental and physical health status, and less illness behaviour, while private praying was adversely related to health status and psychological well-being.
Abstract: This article presents an attempt to explore the religiosity-health association while differentiating between the collective, the belonging to a religious community, and the individual aspects of religiosity The health behaviour, health status, and illness behaviour of a sample of members of a secular kibbutz (n = 125) and a religious kibbutz (n = 105), were studied The religious kibbutz members reported more health behaviour, better mental and physical health status, and less illness behaviour Private praying, however, was adversely related to health status and psychological well-being Other measures of individual religiosity either overlapped community membership or were not related to health and health related behaviour It seems that the regulative and integrative function of belonging to a religious community makes for a healthier life-style and promotes health status At times of suffering people turn to religion, in private praying, seeking comfort and help
TL;DR: In this paper, a small sample of married women at the intensive stage of the family cycle described confidant relationships outside the marital relationship and found that these relationships had very little to do with the level of intimacy in the relationship, but reflected the security of the respondents' base in the local community and their financial resources to create and maintain such relationships.
Abstract: This paper is concerned with describing confidant relationships outside the marital relationship in a small sample of married women at the intensive stage of the family cycle. Such confidant relationships were by no means universal: only one third of the women in this study having at least one such relationship. In the context of an ideology which extols the couple as the locus of intimacy, such relationships can be seen as potentially threatening. In fact, such a view does not appear to be warranted. These relationships had very little to do with the level of intimacy in the marital relationship. Rather, they appeared to reflect the security of the respondents' base in the local community and their financial resources to create and maintain such relationships.
TL;DR: In this paper, the socio-medical organisation of psychiatric disorder has been examined in three contrasting contexts: Freud and Breuer's studies on Hysteria, the case books of a turn-of-the-century asylum, and the activities and practices of a modern psychiatric ward.
Abstract: This paper is concerned with the socio-medical organisation of psychiatric disorder. The main line of analysis demonstrates how different psychiatric ideologies produce different objects of professional focus and, consequently, radically different forms of therapy and therapeutic environment. By way of empirical evidence, the paper examines in some detail three contrasting contexts in which psychiatric disorder has been described and organised. The first is represented in Freud and Breuer's Studies on Hysteria, the second in the case books of a turn of the century asylum, and the third in the activities and practices of a modern psychiatric ward. By drawing on these sources of data, it is argued that an understanding of large scale changes in the organisation of psychiatric health care (such as is evident, for example, in modern trends from hospital to community care), firmly depends upon a study of the inner structure of psychiatric ideologies. Furthermore, and as a corollary of this it is claimed that a...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the way in which farmers use survival strategies to ensure the reproduction of the family farm and argue that what is important is the way farmers understand their structural relationships and the meaning they give to them.
Abstract: This paper examines the way in which farmers use survival strategies to ensure the reproduction of the family farm. These survival strategies develop from farmers' individual motivations and their attitudes towards social processes - the way they read history. However, farmers are constrained by their structural relationships. I argue that what is important is the way farmers understand their structural relationships and the meaning they give to them. This is so especially in the case of family farming, where there is an intersection between family-centred motivations and vocation-centred motivations. Initially I explore these issues by introducing the theoretical literature which attempts to understand the structural relationships in which farmers live and act. Then I describe farmers' family-centred and vocational-centred motivations (or privatisms) and the way in which they understand social processes. These form the foundation for farmers' survival philosophy and practice. I conclude by arguing that farmers are (unintentionally) reproducing the structural relationships that are threatening the survival of the family farm in its present form.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the 1992 European Community's single internal market with special reference to harmonisation and variation among the twelve members of the EC, ''Social Europe' and the Social Charter, ''Citizens' Europe', and the wider European context following the collapse of state socialism in Eastern Europe.
Abstract: Completion of the European Community's single internal market by 31 December 1992 is intended to secure the free movement of goods, services, capital and labour within the Community. This article examines the 1992 project with special reference to harmonisation and variation among the twelve members of the EC, `Social Europe' and the Social Charter, `Citizens' Europe', and the wider European context following the collapse of state socialism in Eastern Europe. It is argued that the interaction between the neo-liberalism of the single market, other EC policies, and the various historic practices of the twelve will generate highly complex outcomes for the Community as a whole and for individual members. Novel social and political forms - some of them hard even to conceptualise - may be expected. The same may be said of Eastern Europe. Throughout the continent sociologists will have an indispensible part to play in making the provenance and character of the various outcomes understandable to all concerned.
TL;DR: Harrison's generous treatment of my attempt to develop a general theory of citizenship identifies a number of major issues; a detailed answer to all the points which he raises is not possible within the limitations of this reply as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Harrison's generous treatment of my attempt to develop a general theory of citizenship identifies a number of major issues; a detailed answer to all the points which he raises is not possible within the limitations of this reply. In any case, I accept many of the additions and corrections which he recommends for advancing the sociology of citizenship. It appears that the essence of his position is that, in addition to providing a historical understanding of the shifting nature of the concept of citizenship, we should turn our attention to 'the material conditions' which determine citizenship inequalities and that we need to examine 'the differential nature of citizenship experiences' by reference, for example, to class and intra-class differences. Harrison quite correctly notes that ethnic or racial inequalities are crucial, especially in contemporary Britain, for the ways in which different social groups experience citizenship entitlements unequally. These comments suggest that we should examine the experience of citizenship within the life-cycle of the individual in relation to unequal and changing access to scarce resources in a community. Thus, while Harrison appropriately refers to gender and ethnic differences in the experience of citizenship entitlements, he fails to discuss the impact of ageing in the life-cycle of individuals on social membership. In ideal-typical terms, as individuals mature, they acquire greater status within the community as a result of education, employment, or inheritance, which provide the means for possessing property, forming households and creating families. It is this process of increasing reciprocity Which
TL;DR: This article examined employment patterns in the British textile industry over the last twenty years, focusing on a dramatic structural shift in the balance of male and female employees within textiles and found that women were far less likely to enter textiles in the 1980s than at any time since the advent of industrialization.
Abstract: This paper examines employment patterns in the British textile industry over the last twenty years. In particular it focuses on a dramatic structural shift in the balance of male and female employees within textiles. From the onset of the Industrial Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century until the 1960s, around two-thirds of textile employees were female. Over the last twenty years textile manufacture has become increasingly the domain of male employees. The research reported was located in Rochdale, one of the six localities which were researched as part of the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative. Rochdale has long been a major centre for textile production. The data are based upon a survey of textile plants undertaken in 1986 and 1987. The analysis revealed that employment in these textile plants had become increasingly male during the period between 1980 and 1986. These changes were more pronounced in larger establishments and within the minority of plants that had introduced advanced machinery. A further analysis of 987 work histories collected in 1986 revealed that women were far less likely to enter textiles in the 1980s than at any time since the advent of industrialization. A major reason for this lies in the increasing adoption of full-time shift work by plants in the town. Most part-time employment has been eliminated from textile mills as they seek to run advanced equipment continuously. The growth of flexible patterns of employment in the burgeoning service sector has interacted with these developments in textiles. Women still seek paid employment in Rochdale but no longer in the textile industry.
TL;DR: This paper examined representations of pregnancy and parenthood in parentcraft literature in the United Kingdom and Japan as evidence of the beliefs and values of the two societies and found that the UK manuals are seen to present parenthood as the joint responsibility of choice-making adults, while the Japanese marginalize women and emphasize their subordination to medical authority.
Abstract: Depictions of pregnancy and parenthood in parentcraft literature in the United Kingdom and Japan are examined as evidence of the beliefs and values of the two societies. Following a review of the texts produced in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with their common authoritarian tone and emphasis on women's responsibilities towards the nation, there is a brief discussion of the concepts used to guide the analysis of contemporary visual material. The `official' versions of parenthood produced by government agencies are set alongside `commercial' and `alternative' models produced by mass-market publishers and radical groups. The UK manuals are seen to present parenthood as the joint responsibility of choice-making adults, while the Japanese marginalize women and emphasize their subordination to medical authority. The Westernized tone of the commercial publications is essentially superficial and a reflection of a prevailing consumer style which overlays a traditional culture. Contemporary UK text...
TL;DR: The statistics of union density in Britain are throughly documented and there is little disagreement about the overall pattern across British industry between the turn of the century and the early 1990s.
Abstract: The statistics of union density in Britain are throughly documented and there is little disagreement about the overall pattern across British industry between the turn of the century and the presen...