Showing papers in "Sociology in 1994"
TL;DR: This article argued that the discipline operationalised within the discursive and non-discursive practices of ''career'' should be treated as an aspect of this contemporary project of self-management.
Abstract: This paper draws together recent insights in labour process analysis, which highlight the role of Panoptic techniques of disciplinary power, and work which suggests that the project of self-management has become a defining feature of contemporary subjectivity. In particular, it is argued that the discipline operationalised within the discursive and non-discursive practices of `career' should be treated as an aspect of this contemporary project of self-management. The pursuit of career is seen to have the potential to transform techniques of disciplinary power into adjuncts of these projects of the self. These themes are explored through the presentation of case study material on the accounting labour process.
569 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that citizenship cannot be understood without a dynamic theory of gender relations, and that political citizenship for women destabilises private patriarchy and the family, not only the civilising of capitalism.
Abstract: The absence of gender from writings on citizenship, such as those of Marshall, Mann and Turner, causes problems for the understanding of citizenship. Debates as to how gender can be integrated into citizenship highlight major divergences in feminist theory over the relationship between the public and the private. The paper argues that citizenship cannot be understood without a dynamic theory of gender relations, and that political citizenship for women destabilises private patriarchy and the family. Citizenship is about a transition from private to public patriarchy, not only the civilising of capitalism.
263 citations
TL;DR: The authors address some general issues concerning consumption that arise from the work of Bauman, Beck and Giddens, who all maintain that biography is a reflexive project and that life styles and con...
Abstract: 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 con...
245 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the relationship between race-of-interviewer effects and the role of the white researcher in foster parents' interviews with prospective black foster parents, and explored the effect of race of interviewer effects on foster parents.
Abstract: Although `racial matching' of interviewer and subject may often be appropriate, as a political strategy it risks marginalisation of black researchers and, as a methodological approach, its assumption of a single `truth' is open to challenge. These issues are explored through an examination of public and private accounts and their relationship to race-of-interviewer effects and a discussion of the author's experience of conducting interviews with prospective black foster parents. The final section explores the role of the white researcher.
205 citations
TL;DR: In the 1980s a political concept of blackness was hegemonic, but is increasingly having to be defended, even within the sociology of race This is to be welcomed and seven reasons are given why the
Abstract: In the 1980s a political concept of blackness was hegemonic, but is increasingly having to be defended, even within the sociology of race This is to be welcomed and seven reasons are given why the
162 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on how time is used in an organizational context, symbolically and pragmatically, to de-commitment and commitment, respectively, to achieve organizational commitment.
Abstract: Studies have revealed that organizational commitment is often managed through symbolism. This paper focuses upon how time is used in an organizational context, symbolically and pragmatically, to de...
143 citations
TL;DR: In virtually all advanced capitalist industrial societies, transitions from compulsory education into employment have been prolonged since the 1970s as mentioned in this paper, and the basic reasons are the same everywhere, but there are some differences.
Abstract: In virtually all advanced capitalist industrial societies, transitions from compulsory education into employment have been prolonged since the 1970s. The basic reasons are the same everywhere, but ...
105 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the ways in which power has been conceptualized within Foucauldian feminism are explored, focusing on two facets within this framework: power as productive and power as relational.
Abstract: This paper critically explores the ways in which power has been conceptualised within Foucauldian feminism. I focus on two facets within this framework: power as productive and power as relational....
98 citations
TL;DR: The authors explores the changing terms of debate about race and racism in contemporary social and political theory and focuses attention on criticisms of what is often called the ''race relations pr..., focusing attention on race relations pr
Abstract: This paper explores the changing terms of debate about race and racism in contemporary social and political theory. It focuses attention on criticisms of what is often called the `race relations pr...
98 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the diversity of referents which accompany the concept of the environment in academic, policy, business and lay discourses, and discuss some of the ways in which individuals who encounter environmental change at the local level employ the concepts of 'the environment' differently in order to achieve political ends.
Abstract: 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...
77 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the reports produced by management consultants as exercises in textual reality construction and concentrates on a particular variant of this genre - namely, the information techno-consultant report.
Abstract: This paper examines the reports produced by management consultants as exercises in textual reality construction. Concentrating on a particular variant of this genre - namely, the information techno...
TL;DR: In this article, the historical background of the structural conditions for gender inequality in pre-revolutionary Chinese society is sketched out, emphasising the lack of institutional separation of household and enterprise.
Abstract: This article proposes an interpretation of changes in patterns of gender inequality in urban China in terms of the specific interrelationships of production and reproduction in Chinese work-units (danwei). The historical background of the structural conditions for gender inequality in pre-revolutionary Chinese society is sketched out, emphasising the lack of institutional separation of household and enterprise. The communist danwei is a multi-functional organisation which combines productive and reproductive functions. This structure has been conducive to the relatively greater gender equality which has been achieved in communist China. The reforms of recent years introduce pressures to separate productive and reproductive functions, which are likely to erode the trends towards greater gender equality.
TL;DR: This paper examined the relevance of the concept of an ''underclass'' for understanding the situation and experiences of the unemployed, focusing in particular on the long-term unemployed, and concluded that underclass veils the close interconnection between unemployment and the employment structure.
Abstract: This paper examines the relevance of the concept of an `underclass' for understanding the situation and experiences of the unemployed, focusing in particular on the long-term unemployed. It draws on survey data from six British local labour markets, collected as part of the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative. It distinguishes two versions of the underclass thesis, a `conservative' and a `radical' version. It argues that past work history experiences and the current attitudes to work of the unemployed fail to fit the assumptions of the conservative thesis, while the socio-political attitudes of the unemployed differ from those that would be expected in terms of the radical thesis. It concludes that the concept of underclass veils the close interconnection between unemployment and the employment structure.
TL;DR: For instance, this article pointed out that "ethnicography has always been subject to criticism from quantitative sociologists, who accord it a minimal role, but it has recently come under attack from sociologist sympathetic to the method, who...
Abstract: Ethnography has always been subject to criticism from quantitative sociologists, who accord it a minimal role, but it has recently come under attack from sociologists sympathetic to the method, who...
TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of different forms of lone parenthood (lone mother, mother and step-father, lone father, or father and stepmother) compared to natural parents families on the educational attainment of their children, using a national data-set on educational attainment in the Netherlands in the late 80s.
Abstract: This article1 analyses the effects of different forms of lone parenthood (lone mother, mother and step-father, lone father, or father and step-mother) compared to natural parents families on the educational attainment of their children, using a national data-set on educational attainment in the Netherlands in the late 80s. Children living in lone parent families attain lower educational levels at the start of secondary education compared to children living in natural parents families. This is still the case after controlling for background variables. There are indications that lone mother families function differently from families of a lone father. Compared to the negative effect of lone parent families on educational attainment in the late 70s, the negative effect of the lone mother family has increased in the late 80s.
TL;DR: In this paper, which? is analysed as a lifestyle guide in which rational consumption and the rational consumer are socially constructed, and it is shown that rational consumption is a serious matter to be approached with self-discipline; searches for the reality underlying appearances; and promotes confidence in independent, rationally organized expert systems.
Abstract: Published by the Consumers' Association and launched in 1957, Which? magazine aims to offer impartial, independent and scientifically-grounded factual information in order to promote rational choice in consumption. In this article, Which? is analysed as a lifestyle guide in which rational consumption and the rational consumer are socially constructed. Which? repudiates the irrationalist anti-Enlightenment thrust of postmodernism: it concentrates on use-value; brackets ethical and aesthetic considerations; treats consumption as a serious matter to be approached with self-discipline; searches for the reality underlying appearances; and promotes confidence in independent, rationally organised expert systems.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors develop a methodology for exploring the construction of university science research systems that are being distorted by corporate influence, and explore the possibility of alternative approaches to this problem.
Abstract: The growing commercialisation of university science has often led to claims that research is being distorted by corporate influence. This paper develops a methodology for exploring the construction...
TL;DR: The authors examines the ways in which ''between partners' forms of the domestic division of labour within dual career households are influenced by the employment of waged domestic labour'' and examines the effects of domestic labour on dual-career households.
Abstract: This paper examines the ways in which `between partners' forms of the domestic division of labour within dual career households are influenced by the employment of waged domestic labour. The paper ...
TL;DR: The concept of the home at the personal creation of its occupant, as developed in recent literature, has been used to examine what happens to a home after the death of that occupant as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: This paper draws upon the concept of the home at the personal creation of its occupant, as developed in recent literature, to examine what happens to a home after the death of that occupant. Our central question is: given contemporary meanings attached to home, what happens to a home when the person who created it dies? Does the home die with its creator? Can it survive to become someone else's home? If not, what are the processes through which the death of the home is effected? We examine these questions using empirical data from a recent study of inheritance.
TL;DR: Evidence is suggested to suggest that industrial interests biased scientists' production and interpretation of medical knowledge about Opren with potentially adverse consequences for patients' interests in safe medication and an alternative system for the clinical testing and regulation of drugs is proposed which could discourage such industrial bias and provide greater patient protection.
Abstract: Analysis of the scientific evaluation of medicine safety has been neglected in sociology. This article examines the influence of interests and values on scientists' safety evaluation of the medical drug Opren in industrial and government contexts. By systematically identifying inconsistencies in the technical justifications of industrial and government scientists it is argued that the concept of interest-based bias is crucial for explaining the development of medical knowledge. Specifically, evidence is adduced to suggest that industrial interests biased scientists' production and interpretation of medical knowledge about Opren with potentially adverse consequences for patients' interests in safe medication. The Mertonian `ethos' of science is seen to have very little application to the work of scientists in the context of drug regulation, giving way to institutional instrumentalism. The paper concludes by proposing an alternative system for the clinical testing and regulation of drugs which could discourage such industrial bias and provide greater patient protection.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the constructivist, relativist trend in the sociology of science and expose its internal contradictions, concluding that such a sociology has fabricated a science science.
Abstract: This paper critically examines the constructivist, relativist trend in the sociology of science and exposes its internal contradictions. It concludes that such a sociology has fabricated a science ...
TL;DR: The authors argues that race and racism are inextricably linked and that recently discovered new racisms depend for their power on the continued influence of biologically determinist modes of conceptualizing human difference.
Abstract: The paper critically reviews some recent contributions to the debate about the nature of race and racism. It questions the analytic and empirical divorce between race and racism for which Floya Anthias and others have argued. It suggests that disconnecting race and racism while insisting on the retention of a concept of race could well give rise to a view that race is, after all, a valid scientific concept denoting a real biological division of the human species. This paper argues, instead, for a focus on race as a social relationship rather than a category of human being. It suggests that race and racism are inextricably linked and that, moreover, recently discovered new racisms depend for their power on the continued influence of biologically determinist modes of conceptualising human difference.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors take issue with Elaine Showalter's claim in The Female Malady, that in nineteenth-century Britain madness was first and foremost a female condition, and argue that whether we look at the statistics on insanity or at cultural representations, neither provide evidence of any marked affinity between women and madness.
Abstract: This paper takes issue with Elaine Showalter's claim in The Female Malady, that in nineteenth-century Britain madness was first and foremost a female condition. This claim appears to have become part of feminist orthodoxy, yet has little empirical support. In Showalter's study, the claim is presented as having dual grounding. First, it is based on a cursory discussion of statistics on the confinement of lunatics in nineteenth-century asylums. Second, it is based on an analysis of cultural representations of female insanity. I shall argue, however, that whether we look at the statistics on insanity or at cultural representations, neither provide evidence of any marked affinity between women and madness. Regrettably Showalter's claim, which is occasioned by her focus on women rather than on gender relations, is in danger of distorting rather than clarifying our understanding of women's madness.
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that these problems can be resolved only if the theoretical foundations of the Weberian class analysis are clarified, in particular, the distinction between ''class situation'' and ''social class'' along with ''class' and ''status'' must be used to resolve the questions of the demographic formation of social classes.
Abstract: Debates over the Weberian programme for class analysis have involved a number of unresolved theoretical problems. It is argued that these problems can be resolved only if the theoretical foundations of the programme are clarified. In particular, the Weberian distinction between `class situation' and `social class', along with the distinction between `class' and `status', must be used to resolve the questions of the demographic formation of social classes, the individual and the family household as units of analysis, and the relationship between gender and class.
TL;DR: In this article, a model is advanced of young people's housing behaviour as resulting from strategies regarding household type, childbearing, work, expenditure and family help, which in turn are partly a response to housing constraints.
Abstract: 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 r...
TL;DR: This paper presented an adaptation of Lukes's (1974) theory of power to consider three interpretations of privatisation as illustrated in Britain and the United States during the 1980s and early 1990s.
Abstract: Starting from the premise that social policies represent solutions to socially constructed problems (Edelman 1987), this article presents an adaptation of Lukes's (1974) theory of power to consider three interpretations of privatisation as illustrated in Britain and the United States during the 1980s and early 1990s. Privatisation is most frequently presented in political and academic discourse as essentially a matter of contracting out public services or functions and selling off state assets. This `first face' of privatisation coincides with a naive pluralist approach to power and a liberal capitalist vision of society. While this view has some justification within a very narrow frame of reference, a `second face' of privatisation is necessary to bring attention to crucially related aspects of exercises of power, such as corruption, homelessness and social inequality, which may be products of contracting out and sell-offs. Additionally, a second face view of privatisation highlights the privatising effe...
TL;DR: In this paper, a gender-focused analysis of income maintenance policies in the British welfare state is presented, tracing female and male access to welfare income, in the process considering how women and men have been constructed by public income-support policies.
Abstract: The welfare state has fostered a large volume of academic investigation but the core of its scholarship has been on the relationship between class forces and different systems of welfare. The possibility of a gender effect does not appear to have seriously troubled the minds of mainstream scholars in this domain. As a result, gender as a structuring principle of welfare systems remains under-explored. This paper undertakes a gender-focused analysis of a key aspect of welfare provision - income maintenance policies. The British welfare state is a useful site of analysis - at one stage an exemplary model of welfare provision, now a `laggard' among its European neighbours. To identify the gender dimension of British income maintenance policies, we go back as far as the 1830s for the new Poor Law. From then we trace female and male access to welfare income, in the process considering how women and men have been constructed by public income-support policies.
TL;DR: This article found that the proportion of unemployed people who had found work one year later was much lower after the economic recovery of the late 1980s than it was ten years previously, suggesting that changes in the type of labour sought by employers have been particularly disadvantageous for older people.
Abstract: High levels of unemployment over more than a decade together with industrial restructuring suggest there may be a widening gap between the work chances of unemployed people and the rest of the workforce in Great Britain. Labour Force Survey data show that the proportion of unemployed people who had found work one year later was much lower after the economic recovery of the late 1980s than it was ten years previously. We model trends between 1979 and 1989 in the work chances of unemployed people relative to the chances of people in work. During the first half of the decade work chances of these two groups diverged, and though later economic recovery enabled young unemployed people to regain their 1979 position relative to young people in work, the relative work chances of older unemployed people were permanently impaired. These trends relate closely to employers' recruitment rates, and suggest that changes in the type of labour sought by employers have been particularly disadvantageous for older people, es...
TL;DR: The Canadian Farm Women's Network (CFWN) as discussed by the authors is a women's network with a dual mandate of promoting rural community life and sustaining the farm family, while also increasing the recognition of female farm labour and increasing representation of women on farming boards and in official farming statistics.
Abstract: The feminist movement is one of social change. The Canadian Farm Women's Network (CFWN) is in many respects a feminist movement and a movement of social change. It has a stated dual mandate of promoting rural community life and sustaining the farm family, while also increasing the recognition of female farm labour, and increasing representation of women on farming boards and in official farming statistics. The CFWN is active at the community and provincial level in most provinces. Promoting rural community life and the farm family calls, on the one hand, for the continued exploitation of women through undervalued voluntary community services and the provision of an invisible unrecognised farm labour force. On the other hand the very existence of a successful, visible farm women's group dispels the traditional silent role of farm women on farming issues and that part of its mandate which calls for increased female representation in farming activities and organisations calls for radical social change in far...
TL;DR: This paper summarized the features of such a methodology under four headings: the ubiquitous social significance of gender, the validity of experience as against method, the rejection of hierarchy in the research relationship, and the adoption of the emancipation of women as the goal of research and the criterion of validity.
Abstract: There is now a considerable literature advocating a feminist methodology. This article summarises the features of such a methodology under four headings: the ubiquitous social significance of gender, the validity of experience as against method, the rejection of hierarchy in the research relationship, and the adoption of the emancipation of women as the goal of research and the criterion of validity. The arguments supporting each of these themes are assessed. The conclusion reached is that while some of these arguments are convincing the overall case for a feminist methodology is not.