Showing papers in "The Sociological Review in 1983"

Case and Situation Analysis

Abstract: The current division between those sociologists who prefer to rely on survey techniques and quantitative analysis in the prosecution of their art as against those who prefer to rely on observation and verbal types of analysis has had a long history. Just over fifty years ago—in the late 1930s in fact— t̂he division manifested itself in a lively debate in some of the journals about the validity of statistical methods of enquiry on the one hand as against v ^ t were called 'case studies'. ^ Textbooks on sociological methods of research published before say 1955 such as Young 1939 (226-54) or Goode and Han 1952 (313-40) invariably included a chapter on case studies but since then the topic seems to have lost its appeal, since while non-quandtadve procedures such as participant observation receive extensive treatment the issue of the role of case studies as such seems to have disappeared. The change in emphasis is dramatically refiected in the general index of the American Journal of Sociology which had its origin in Chicago from which the most important case studies first emerged and which carried the account of the debate in its pages. The Cumulative Index at 1950 contained sixteen references to case studies and case histories. ̂ The most recent reference is to Oscar Lewis's discussion of the detailed studies of families in 1950. After that the entry for case studies disappears from the index! A paper on case studies appeared in Social Porca at about the same time (Foreman 1948). Since then it appears to have faded from sociological discussion but it has survived in education research (see Simons 1980).

The allocation of money and the structuring of inequality within marriage

Abstract: Work on inequality, and on the distribution of power and advantage, has pointed to money as a key element. Thus Marx discusses the similarities between private and puUic hoarding of money; he suggests that when it is hoarded money becomes a form of 'social wealth*. As such, money puts sodal power in material form into the hands of private persons who exerdse it as individuals. He goes on to argue that private hoarding means that social power becomes the private power of private persons, and suggests that the political and economic effects of money are dependent on its economic nature as an expression of the division of society into autonomous economic individuals (Marx, 1859). More recently, Goldthorpe has considered the relationship between sodal inequality and the distribution of economic resources. He suggests that.

Removing the Blinkers? A Critique of Recent Contributions to the Sociology of Professions

Abstract: The rapidly growing numbers and influence of both professional organisations and professional personnel in the industrialised world in general and Western capitalist societies in particular has been noted and documented more times than the author would care to recount. * Yet, although such claims have come to assume the status of mere sociological platitudes, it remains that they continue to raise crucial questions about the nature and role of professions in modern society. These questions have been tackled from a shifting and diverse range of theoretical frameworks over the past few decades within the sociology of professions. The'main purpose of the paper, though, is to examine critically the most recent Anglo-American contributions to the debate—focusing especially on those deriving from neo-Weberian and Marxist writers whose perspectives have come to dominate the field. In short, it will be argued that, while such contributors have advanced the broader study of the professions in significant respects, they have so far failed to transcend the most central limitations of the traditional taxonomic orthodoxy which they have, for the most part, supplanted. The paper concludes with some suggestions as to how more fruitful work might be produced in this important area of sociological research. Of necessity, however, the discussion begins with a brief consideration of the main features of the taxonomic apptOAcYi, the primary criticisms to which it has been subjected and the initial development of a more sceptical orientation to the analysis of professions in sociology through the unlikely vehicle of symbolic interaaionism. This is fairly well trodden ground but it is only against this background that the recent neo-Weberian and Marxist contributions can be fully evaluated.

Business Ownership and Women's Subordination: A Preliminary Study of Female Proprietors:

Abstract: Over recent years some sociological attention has been devoted to the position of women in the labour market and in the domestic sphere. However, the study of women as business proprietors has been almost entirely neglected.1 This is a serious omission because the ownership of small businesses could become an increasingly important area for female economic achievement within ‘no-growth’ industrial economies.2 Further, as trends in the United States would suggest, female proprietorship may have important implications for developments within the women's movement.3 On the basis of interviews with a small number of women business owners, we explore the personal motives for and consequences of proprietorship. We suggest that although women may be compared to many other subordinate groups in their expectations of the gains to be derived from proprietorship they encounter, as women, quite distinct experiences and difficulties. Business ownership, then, does not offer a straightforward solution to women's subordi...

What is ‘popular music’?

Abstract: The object of this paper is to examine the way in w^ch what is considered to be popular music is constructed through the interlocking effects of two structures which I here call the economic and the discursive. As a consequence of this limitation I shall not discuss certain aspects of the practice of popular music such as the Iiit parade' which, whilst having important economic and cultural effects, are not directly a pan of the economic order of the industry. I should perhaps say at the beginning that, although my example is based on research in the popular music industry, I do not consider this culture industry to be unique. Fucther researdi may well demonstrate that all culture industries under capitalism operate in an analogous fashion. First I wish to took at the structure of the economic system through which the music passes. In doing this I think it is particularly important to emphasise the separateness of the economic organisations of the popular music press and of the popular music radio from the economic structuring oi the record companies. Although at a corporate level there may be connections between these two parts of the economic system, i at the level of day-to-day practice, practitioners, and public, perceive the two parts as being separate. ̂ I wish to contend that the perceived lack of vertical integration in this area of the music business is an aid in the attempt to construct popular music as a cultural artifact and therefore as something neither subject to economic based standards of usefulness nor subject to commercial pressures. Second I wish to look at the way in which peofde in the music business talk about popular music. My discussion of what people say about popular music is premised on the assumption that, ^though it may never be articulated, the people who work in the music business—using this term to cover a broad r a r ^ of interrelated

Indetermination: professional knowledge, organization and control

Abstract: This paper is a critique of the tradition of sociological writing which has emphasized the ability of occupations organized on the professional principle to gain for their members an occupational monopoly and a position in the division of labour which provides them with autonomy to determine occupational tasks and functions. It is argued that theories which seek to account for the conditions which provide the framework for successful resistance to rationalization and codification in professional work have not adequately articulated the concept of power. The theoretical discourse on professional and managerial power has therefore tended, with few exceptions, to locate the determination and exercise of power as though it were a zero sum commodity deriving from social relations of organizations. Theories predicting the emergence of professional rather than mangerial forms of control therefore have little explanatory ability other than for a particular mode of rationality within a limiting theoretical framework. This analysis represents an attempt to propose a mediation between structuralist theories of power and organization and those theoretical reflections on the professions which locate the determination of occupational authority in a broader matrix of social processes. Copyright

Woman-battering, child abuse and social heredity: what is the relationship?†

Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between child abuse and woman-battering. In so doing the authors test and reject the hypothesis, common in the violence literature, that ‘violence begets violence’. The vast majority of woman-batterers do not come from homes where they were beaten, and the vast majority of men who were beaten as children do not later batter their wives.Child abuse experts deny the importance of woman-battering. Interventions to stop child abuse focus on changing the ‘mother's’ behaviour. Wife abuse is, however, the major precipitating context of child abuse. Children whose mothers are battered are more than twice as likely to be physically abused than children whose mothers are not battered. When women are battered and children are abused it is usually the male batterer who is responsible for the maltreatment of the child. In other cases women may turn to child abuse when their own battering is already well-established. Battered women who abuse their children are more likely to be trea...

Relations between strangers: cycles of structure and meaning in tourist systems.

Abstract: Tourism is a paradoxical human activity–a supposedly ‘smokeless industry’ that produces littered beaches, a cornucopia to local economics that gives rise to inflation and embittered natives, a profitable enterprise that often requires governmental subsidy. It is also a major social and economic phenomenon: witness 280 million international tourists and 180 billion dollars in expenditures in 1979 (Waters, 1979). For the population of many societies, it is a primary source of work; for others it is a primary outlet for leisure. An understanding of the modern era is incomplete without understanding the social processes of tourism. This paper speculates about cycles of structure and myth in tourism development. The goal is an integrated theory of tourism, based on empirical evidence, amenable to test, and permitting the prediction of future behaviour. The paper is divided into several sections. First, we briefly review some earlier analytic frameworks used for understanding tourism. We draw upon these frameworks to develop an integrated explanation of the behaviour of tourists, the evolution of the tourist industry, and the consequences of tourism for host and guest populations. Second, our attention is devoted to structural and symbolic factors shaping relations between strangers. Such relations, we argue, are the engine of change in tourism. Third, we present a typology of the social cycles involved in tourism. We attempt to describe which elements of the social order are likely to respond in predictable patterns to tourism development; speculate on the form these responses might take and provide a set of hypothetical curves for potential indicator measures. We close by suggesting some theoretical and practical implications of our discussion.

The 'battered husband syndrome': social problem or much ado about little?

Abstract: The newly recognized social problem of wife-beating quickly became clouded by confusion over the introduction of the idea of a ‘battered husband syndrome’. The media immediately sensationalized the...

American automobiles and workers’ dreams

Abstract: This paper reviews Chinoy's Automobile Workers and the American Dream as an example of a lot of work which revolves around themes of alienation, worker degradation and quiescence. Two aspects of the automobile as an item in the sphere of consumption in post-war America are then detailed to try to point to the theoretical assumptions and empirical absences which characterize the dominant tradition exemplified by Chinoy's classic text. The paper ends by making some criticisms of the way production activity is privileged in social analysis and calls for the creation of a sociology of consumption to combat the emphasis on production as the source of social meaning and worth which is institutionalized in much sociology and most Marxism.

Social mobility in industrial nations: women in France and Sweden

Abstract: In three recent papers,^ Erikson, Goldthorpe and Portocarero (EGP) have compared the intergeneradonal class mobility of men in England, Fiance and Sweden. The basic sociological problem they addressed was that of whether, in the industrial societies of these countries, mobility rates and patterns could be regarded as essentially similar, either in terms of absolute rates—as argued by Lipset and Zetterberg; ^ or in terms of relative rates (i.e., mobility rates considered net of structural effects)—as suggested in the reformulation of the Lipset-Zetterbeig thesis proposed by Featherman, Lancaster Jones and Hauser, ^ or in the sense that trends in mobility rates and patterns over time are set on convergent lines—as implied by various writers who have emphasized the standardizing influence that is exerted on both social structure and process by tfie functional exigencies of modem industrialism. * For two of the countries in question, France and Sweden, the nationally-based sample surveys (conducted in 1970 and 1974 le^sectivelyX from which EGP drew their data, indude women. The research project of which this is the first report has as its major aim the comparative study of the social mobility of women in France and Sweden on lines that will generally run parallel to those of the EGP work. Thus, the present paper may be r^arded as the counterpan to the first in the EGP series and, as such, is concerned specifically with similarities and variations in rates and patterns of absolute mobility, viewed cross-secdonally. Further papers wiU deal with similarities and variations in relative mobility and with the maner of mobility trends. One question which will be central to this and to subsequent papers will be that of how ht analyses of the mobility of women tend to support, or to require qualification of conclusions that have been

"In the beginning was the work...." Reflections on the genesis of occupations.

Abstract: One of the most curious omissions in the sociology of work and occupations is what would seem to be one of the most basic questions: When is an occupation an occupation? While there have been recent attempts to explore the issue by examining the history of census categories,1 these represent the end-point of the process at which new occupations receive official recognition and legitimation. My purpose in this paper is to discuss how occupations form and come to be recognized as such. The creation of health visiting between 1850 and 1919 will be taken as a case study.

Theories of Skill and Class Structure

Abstract: This paper notes an increased interest in issues of skill and class structure evident amongst both Marxist and non-Marxist sociologists. It examines three questions in this area. Firstly, what theories are available to sociologists? How adequate are they, particularly for an understanding of trends in manual work in Britain? Finally, what improvements can be suggested?Two dominant grand-theoretical approaches, post-industrialism and Marxism, are analysed Post-industrialist theories of ‘skilling’ are rejected as empirically implausible and Marxist versions of ‘deskilling’ rejected on theoretical and empirical grounds. None the less, a secular decline in levels of training as measured by length of apprenticeships is noted, but the question of deskilling requires further research. A model of the relationships of skilled trades unions and capitalist employers under different local labour market conditions is suggested which, despite its simplicity, incorporates marked improvements upon the Marxist models that...

Personal relationships: help and hindrance.

Abstract: This paper shows the extent to which the lives of battered women are controlled by their violent partners. Women are prevented by physical means or threats from seeking help from, or even having any contact with, family, friends and neighbours. Isolation is a prominent feature of their lives. Many men fail to recognize that there is a problem and they behave aggressively towards health visitors, social workers or anyone else who comes round to the home. Nevertheless, there is evidence to suggest that when battered women begin to seek help they turn first to family, friends and neighbours, and the main purpose of this paper is to examine these informal sources of assistance. An important consideration was that 25 per cent of the women had no accessible parents, but there were other constraints which reduced the degree to which women turned to relatives and friends for help. These included feelings of shame, ideas about privacy and the need for independence, the need to protect family members, friends and neighbours from the man's violent behaviour and the unwillingness of some of those approached to become involved. Women who overcame these constraints spoke warmly of the support they received.

Economic growth and female labour: the case of Israel

Abstract: This article aims to demonstrate the relation between the participation and location of women in the Israeli labour force and economic-structural processes central to the development of the Israeli economy. It begins with a discussion of the main features of the economic growth of Israeli society, indicating the implications of these features for female labour. The overall pattern of female participation in the labour force is then discussed, noting the main shifts in this pattern and their significance, followed by a more detailed presentation of the position of women in a number of economic branches–the textile and clothing industries, education and welfare services, finance and trade. The sexual division of labour is further examined according to the difference between Ashkenazi and Oriental women of first and second generations. Finally, a concluding discussion assesses the significance of women to the economy and the implications of their position within the economy to their future prospects.

Spencer's sociology of welfare

Abstract: From 1836 almost until his death in 1903 Spencer wrote frequently on welfare matters, producing what must be counted as a major anempt at a sociological perspective on them. Yet this extensive body of literature has unaccountably not been examined thoroughly. This article attempts to remedy this state of affairs. It seeks to establish the nature of his comments on the many matters which attracted his attention. These include the Poor Law, sanitary reform, the rights of women and children, voluntary organisations and informal help. In the survey of what Spencer h ^ to say I have adopted a chronological approach; a thematic approach would not do justice to the need to locate Spencer's words in the context of his own evolution as a thinker. The article also aims to establish that his comments reflected a conviction that he had discovered the correct interpretation of the meaning of 'welfare' and discusses this interpretation by critical reference to the analyses offered in some recent philosophical studies. Spencer's insistence on not defining 'welfare' in terms of 'need' is identified as unusual and thought-provoking. A few words on the present state of knowledge seem desirable. Peel (1971) remains the most comprehensive account of Spencer's career but it can now be supplemented by Wiltshire (1978). However, neither book is systematically concerned with Spencer's treatment of welfare matters. With the exception of Pinker (1971) and perhaps Fine (1956) and Mishra (1977) references to Spencer in the specialist literature on welfare are very brief and confined to comments on his influence on policy, exemplified by the following from Bruce (1968, p. 122; compare Fraser, 1973, p.96 and Titmuss, 1974, p.31):

Contradictions in the educational theory of Gintis and Bowles

Abstract: Since its publication in 1976, Bowles and Gintis's Schooling in Capitalist America (hereinafter referred to as Schooling) has received a considerable amount of attention mostly from those sympathetic to its commitment, but critical of its economistic base/super-structure analysis. In ‘Contradiction and reproduction in educational theory’ Gintis and Bowles reply to the criticism of Schooling but limit their reply to a single question—their handling of contradictions within education and contradictions in the capitalist social formation resulting from the specific nature of the educational system. The article begins with a defence of ‘the correspondence principle’, continues with a formulation of sites and practices and concludes with an evaluation of the potential of liberal discourse.

Police, social work and medical responses to battered women.

Abstract: Battered women frequently experience difficulties in seeking help from formal sources. They do not always know what services are available and they may be deterred by feelings of embarrassment, shame and even guilt. They may also fear reprisals. A further problem is that services are poorly co-ordinated. This paper examines the response of the three agencies most frequently approached by battered women seeking help. The police, social workers and medical and paramedical personnel reveal the same or similar attitudes towards marital violence and the problem is either ignored or redefined (usually in terms of child care). There is a marked reluctance on the part of all practitioners to become involved in cases of marital violence which they see as peripheral to their main concerns. The privacy of the family and of marriage is constantly stressed and women are viewed primarily as wives and mothers. When practitioners do become involved, therefore, the emphasis is on reconciliation rather than firm action. This response has the effect of trivializing the problems, and the legitimacy of male violence as a means of controlling women remains largely unchallenged. It is small wonder that battered women frequently express dissatisfaction with the services concerned.

Making the break.

Abstract: Mary Brailey's paper reports on research into the rehousing of women after marital breakdown in four local authority areas in Scotland. The four areas represented a range of allocation and homelessness policies. The paper identifies the underlying assumptions of rehousing policies in cases of marital breakdown. One such assumption is that people fabricate stories of breakdown, manipulating the housing system in order to secure a house, move to a better house or evade rent arrears. The research uncovered no evidence of such abuse; most women did not have a sufficiently sophisticated knowledge of the housing system to manipulate it in the manner suggested. Another assumption is that marital breakdown is a ‘bad thing’ and that reconciliation is to be preferred. This leads to procedures designed to give the parties time for reconsideration, minimum separation periods being stipulated by some authorities. In the four areas studied the proportion of battered women whose applications for rehousing were successful varied from 19 per cent to 52 per cent; they were usually denied access to the better housing. The author argues that if the underlying assumptions were changed, there would be scope for effective change within the existing framework of law and local government operations.

Domestic violence and the law: the 1976 Act and its aftermath

Abstract: This paper examines the parliamentary response to domestic violence as represented in three pieces of legislation: the Domestic Violence and Matrimonial Proceedings Act 1976, the Domestic Proceedings and Magistrates' Courts Act 1978 and the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977. There is also briefer consideration of the role of criminal law, divorce and the possibility of using wardship procedures and actions in tort.The author maintains that the most important need of battered women is the provision of alternative permanent accommodation, and that this must be the criterion by which the efficacy of the present law is judged. With this in mind, the provisions of the three major Acts are described and evaluated, with most attention going to the 1976 Act. Maidment's general conclusion is that the promises held out by the legislative reforms ‘do not appear to have been fulfilled in practice’. The legal remedies are available, but the ways in which they are interpreted and implemented mean that battered women ...

Constructing images of deviance: a look at state intervention into the problem of wife-battery.

Abstract: Patricia Morgan's paper describes what happens when the state intervenes in the social problem of wife-battering. Her analysis refers to the United States, but there are clear implications for other countries, including Britain. The author argues that the state, through its social problem apparatus, manages the image of the problem by a process of bureaucratization, professionalization and individualization. This serves to narrow the definition of the problem, and to depoliticize it by removing it from its class context and viewing it in terms of individual pathology rather than structure. Thus refuges were initially run by small feminist collectives which had a dual objective of providing a service and promoting among the women an understanding of their structural position in society. The need for funds forced the groups to turn to the state for financial aid. This was given, but at the cost to the refuges of losing their political aims. Many refuges became larger, much more service-orientated and more diversified in providing therapy for the batterers and dealing with other problems such as alcoholism and drug abuse. This transformed not only the refuges but also the image of the problem of wife-battering.

The burden of dependency

Abstract: The control of financial resources is an important indicator of the distribution of power within families. This may be particularly significant when economic power is accompanied by physical violen...

Ideology and the analysis of discourse: a critical introduction to the work of Michel Pêcheux

Abstract: The study of ideology is one area, it seems, where the divide between theoretical reflection and practical analysis is particularly deep. There is no shortage of thinkers, from Marx and Engels to Aiannheim, Habermas and Althusser, who have offered theoretical accounts of thr formation and operation of ideology in modem societies. Such accounts are seldom linked, however, to detailed investigations of actual ideologies, that is, to the ways in which ideology is actually manifested in the conceptions and expressions of everyday life. In France there has recently appeared a notable exception vo this unfortunate rule. Working within a broadly 'structuralist' tradition of thought, Michel Pecheux and his associates have attempted to integrate an Althusserian approach to ideology with a technical q>paratus for the analysis of discourse. What is at stake in this attempt—beyond the particular form in which it is undertaken—is the very possibility of establishing links between the \"critical heritage' left by Marx, on the one hand, and the methods of analysis devdc^ed by modem linguistics and related disciplines, on the other. As a sustained interrogation of this possibility, the work of Pedieux and his associates deserves more attention than it has so &r received in the literature outside d France. My Yiopt is that this essay will help to stimulate the critical reception of their work.'

The images of the development of companies

Abstract: There is a general belief that development and expansion are desirable and their antonyms, stagnation and even more so regression, are not. This is especially true in business where, for example, an expanding company is a model to others and one that is regressing or even stagnating is suspect. The term economic development recurs like an extensively used or, as I shall point out, misused leitmotif which is revealing of certain socio-political options. In this article I shall analyse the way in which journalists talk about the development of companies and proceed from my findings to assess how the press promulgates and reinforces certain socio-political values to the distina advantage of a limited section of our society. Journalists as we know rely'heavily on metaphorical language to describe firms (which get married, suffer from a variety of ailments, compete in a wide range of sports, etc) and their choice of images and other cognitive elements is significant. A second point of interest is the repeated use of the same or similar images, metaphors, analogies and other stock phrases. I shall argue that there is a definite design in the linguistic elements and cognitive material offered by an important sector of the press for the public to adopt. The use of diches is a socio-ailtural process, so one would expect to find differences in the rhetoric of two dissimilar groups and even more so two different societies. That is why I have chosen a comparative approach, between France and England However what is of greater interest than simply ascertaining the nature of any variations that might exist in the social representations of two countries is trying to fit these differences into a more general panem. By choosing France and England I have seleaed two different languages and dissimilar social discourses but I shall point out that these variations are in fact explicable as examples of the same

Action, System and Norm in the Action Frame of Reference: Talcott Parsons and His Critics

Abstract: ion is generally necessary. It consists in generalising the oq)Cual scheme so as to bring out the functional relations m the facts alrtady deacripdvdy arranged' (1937: p. 49)k Furthermore it dear that this analysis of functional relations' is concerned with the emergent properties of systems of social action. Arsons writes that

Entrée and exit

Abstract: This paper describes an abortive attempt to make contaa with a group of older adolescents from a multiply deprived estate in the centre of a main city in the north-east of England One ofthe central aims ofthe article will be to help other researchers avoid the mistakes and pitfalls awaiting those who, flush with the success of receiving a research grant, are perhaps over-anxious to establish relationships of mutual trust and respect with their target populations. The natural history of this episode will be described in as dispassionate a manner as possible, one major incident will then be analysed, and finally some general condusions will be drawn from the experience. The literature is replete with examples of successful attempts (e.g. Spencer, 1964; Farrant and Marchant, 1970; Holman, 1981, etc.) to establish contact with 'difficult to reach' youngsters; it is just possible that as much, if not more, could be learned from a detailed study of a conspicuous failure. We were attempting a participant observation study of groups of older adolescents and had obtained grants from both the SSRC's research initiative into 'Young People in Society' and from Durham University. (The views expressed are, of course, our own.) Our aim was to present with empathy a rounded picture of the ordinary, day-to-day activities of groups of older adolescents who would appear as recognisable human beings rather than walking concepts from either the psychological or the sociological literature. It is also necessary to introduce the social, economic and physical context within which the action took place. In economic terms the Northem Region is a depressed area which continues to decline. For more than twenty years it has suffered huge job losses, particularly in coal mining (60,000 jobs lost since the mid-1960s), in uron and steel,