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Showing papers in "The Sociological Review in 1995"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article explored social class variations in choice of school in one specific locality and argued that middle-class parents are taking full advantage of "the market" to sustain or re-assert their class advantages.
Abstract: Parental choice of school is one of the main platforms of government education policy and is the centre piece of the Parents Charter. But sociological understanding of choice and choice-making is woefully underdeveloped. This paper draws on an ESRC study of market forces in education to explore social class variations in choice of school in one specific locality. The complexity of choice-making is portrayed using data from interviews with parents and it is argued that middle-class parents are taking full advantage of ‘the market’ to sustain or re-assert their class advantages.

452 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that materiality and sociality are produced together, and three metaphors are developed through a series of note-like stories to explore the implications of this suggestion.
Abstract: In this paper it is argued that materiality and sociality are produced together. In order to explore the implications of this suggestion, three metaphors are developed through a series of note-like stories. The first is that of semiotics. This suggests that materials are relational effects. The second is that of strategy. Here it is suggested that strategy is recursively and reflexively implicated in the performance of materiality. And the third is that of the patchwork. This is a way of exploring the possibility that though material and social relations might be matters of local performance, they may not ‘add up’ to form an overall pattern or structure.

399 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that how societies remember the past should be a key element of social theory and that the social sciences should direct attention to time, tradition, and memory.
Abstract: It is argued that how societies remember the past should be a key element of social theory. The social sciences should direct attention to time, tradition, and memory. Some implications of developi...

175 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In a variety of discourses and empirical studies, it has been argued that compared with women, men show more reluctance to express intimate emotion in heterosexual couple relationships as mentioned in this paper, and that men are more likely to hide their emotions from women.
Abstract: In a variety of discourses and empirical studies it has been argued that compared with women, men show more reluctance to express intimate emotion in heterosexual couple relationships. Our paper at...

111 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the case of a social movement which relies heavily on empathy in its initial recruitment, and which has been derisively labeled by outsiders as "emotional".
Abstract: This paper discusses the experience and ideology of emotions among animal rights activists, and more broadly, the applicability of the sociology of emotions to the field of social movements. I examine the case of a social movement which relies heavily on empathy in its initial recruitment, and which has been derisively labeled by outsiders as ‘emotional’. I explain recruitment to animal rights activism by showing how activists develop a ‘vocabulary of emotions’ to rationalize their participation to others and themselves, along with managing the emotional tone of the movement by limiting the kinds of people who can take part in debates about animal cruelty. The interactive nature in which emotions develop in social movements is stressed over previous approaches to emotions in the social movement literature, which treat emotions as impulsive or irrational.

67 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present preliminary findings from visitor research being executed by one of the authors in a conurbation of the English Midlands, which consists of fifteen in-depth interviews administered at a random sample of households and with a total of circa 35 subjects.
Abstract: This chapter reports preliminary findings from visitor research being executed by one of the authors in a conurbation of the English Midlands. The fieldwork consists of fifteen in-depth interviews administered at a random sample of households and with a total of circa 35 subjects. The report places the research design in the theoretical contexts of class, culture and locality, presents data from three interviews and provides a detailed analysis of one interview. The data suggest: 1 that local museums are mediators between identity and structure; 2 that museum meanings are diversely determined in relation to the class trajectories of subjects; 3 that museum visiting is to be understood as a social relationship rather than as an attribute of individuals and 4 that subjects readily conceptualize locality and identity through the visual vocabulary of museums and heritage sites.

65 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the "western" museum practices of representing culture within a dominant visual metaphor as an inherently political act which separates those who view the exhibit from those who are on display, and argue that the act of viewing is related to the acts of ordering, defining and representing according to the categories of the 'viewing' culture, and serves to deny shared space and time occupied by the representing and represented cultures, a process related to anthropological construction of ethnographic distance in ethnographic texts.
Abstract: The paper discusses the ‘western’ museum practices of representing culture within a dominant visual metaphor as an inherently political act which separates those who view the exhibit from those who are on display. The act of viewing is related to the acts of ordering, defining and representing according to the categories of the ‘viewing’ culture, and serves to deny shared space and time occupied by the representing and represented cultures, a process related to the anthropological construction of ethnographic distance in ethnographic texts. Two recent Canadian exhibitions which attempt to use irony to subvert traditional exhibit practices are analysed: Into the Heart of Africa and Fluffs and Feathers. Into the Heart of Africa attempted to mount a postmodern critique of colonial collecting practices, but its one-sided use of irony reproduced, for many visitors, the colonial relations of power that made it possible for one group to dominate another. The narrative structure of the exhibit was predicated on a relation of difference. Fluffs and Feathers, on the other hand, directly challenged the white visitor's power to view and define native peoples, by dialogically inviting visitors to try on alternate subject positions that help to fracture essentialist notions of self and culture. Thus irony, a risky trope, can lead to very different results in museum exhibitions depending on who it is aimed at and who does the aiming.

63 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors traces the gendered relations of representation in museums and applies poststructuralist and feminist theory to museums, and traces the relation of text, author, and reader from pos...
Abstract: Applying poststructuralist and feminist theory to museums, this chapter traces the gendered relations of representation in museums. The author takes the relation of text, author and reader from pos...

62 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In recent years, controversies concerning the construction of displays of historical events have turned attention to the role of these public sitings as discussed by the authors, although virtually any location to which acces...
Abstract: In recent years, controversies concerning the construction of displays of historical events have turned attention to the role of these public sitings. Although virtually any location to which acces...

58 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argued that the production of popular music does not so much involve a conflict between commerce and creativity, but a struggle over what is creative and what is to be commercial, and argued for a sociology of the mundane practices that produce "commercial" and "creative" texts.
Abstract: Taking as my theme the familiar opposition between commerce and creativity, this paper contrasts different sociological approaches to the production of popular music and questions some of the assumptions about the rational nature of the market and mystical character of creative inspiration, that are often implied when these terms – ‘creativity’ and ‘commerce’ – are used in this binary oppositional manner. In arguing for a sociology of the mundane practices that produce ‘commercial’ and ‘creative’ texts, I suggest that the production of popular music does not so much involve a conflict between commerce and creativity, but a struggle over what is creative, and what is to be commercial.

56 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that if language is viewed as a form of social action rather than as a detached commentary on reality, there are radical implications for the methods traditionally used in SIA to gauge people's views and attitudes.
Abstract: In recent years there has been a growing interest in the sociological study of environmental issues. One area in which this is evident is in the application of social scientific methods in social impact assessment (SIA): the study of the anticipated social impact of proposed changes to the environment. This paper addresses one aspect of the debate about appropriate methods for SIA; whether, and how, to include the expressed views and perceptions of those who will be affected. It is argued first that although SIA ostensibly deals with the social effects of projects there is a tendency for assessments to avoid any detailed consideration of the ways in which people are affected. Instead there is an emphasis upon technical and economic considerations. When assessments do attempt to incorporate the perceptions of local people they typically do so through some form of attitude research. However if language is viewed as a form of social action rather than as a detached commentary on reality there are radical implications for the methods traditionally used in SIA to gauge people's views and attitudes. I conclude by outlining an alternative to the traditional practice of viewing peoples' accounts as a repository of their attitudes, arguing that they might be more profitably used to explore how social impacts are socially constructed.

Journal ArticleDOI
Martin Parker1
TL;DR: In this article, a case study of management culture in a manufacturing organization is presented, where the authors assess the usefulness of the concept "culture" as it applies to organisations. But they also suggest that managers are not often an unified block with a common identity and that management culture is hence best seen as a map of oppositions and commonalities that reflect the wider culture that the organisation is a part of.
Abstract: This paper presents a case study of management culture in a manufacturing organisation. Its general aim is to assess the usefulness of the concept ‘culture’ as it applies to organisations. After first establishing that the organisational members had a sense that their organisation was an unique ‘family’ the article then proceeds to argue that this ‘togetherness’ was, in many contexts, divided. Managers also had a series of conflictual orientations to other members that were partially defined by the managers organisational role but were also underwritten by assumptions about organisational history, community, biography and profession. The paper concludes by suggesting that, at this level of analysis, managers are not often an unified block with a common identity and that management culture is hence best seen as a map of oppositions and commonalities that reflects the wider culture that the organisation is a part of.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, it is argued that sociology lacks an adequate conceptualization of the museum/society relationship, and that the museum is an agency of classification; it is a relationship of cultural interdependence; and it is shown that museums have an internal relationship to modernization.
Abstract: It is argued that sociology lacks an adequate conceptualization of the museum/society relationship. It is further argued (1) that the museum is an agency of classification; (2) that it is a relationship of cultural interdependence and (3) that museums have an internal relationship to modernization. The institution of the museum is shown to arise out of the indeterminacies of modernization. A dispute in the early history of London's Tate Gallery is explored as it illuminates that institution's organization of the contradictions of modernization. Pace Bourdieu and Elias, a key contradiction is seen to arise from a differentiation of the field of power and the cultural field. It is argued, against essentialist accounts of museums, that the Tate produced its point of view through the medium of this contradiction.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors take up Malraux's discussion of the museum without walls and ask the question "how might we think of the space of such a "museum"?"
Abstract: This chapter takes up Malraux's discussion of the museum without walls and asks the question ‘how might we think of the space of such a “museum”?’ To answer this question the chapter draws on Fouca...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The article explores the way in which the sexual division of labour changed but survived in a negotiated form in the female gendered profession of nursing and the male gendered medical profession.
Abstract: In his seminal work Braverman (1974) suggested that, like manual workers, the majority of ‘non-productive’ workers are equally subject to scrutiny and Tayloristic methods of rationalisation and dif...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The social and technical are commonly defined in opposition to each other as discussed by the authors, and technology practitioners are often quite comfortable with the idea that the technical is constitutively social. Drawin...
Abstract: The social and technical are commonly defined in opposition to each other. Yet technology practitioners are often quite comfortable with the idea that the technical is constitutively social. Drawin...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the sociology of music as discussed by the authors, the sociological concern with music and social concerns has been explored, and the worlds' concept has been used to describe the relationship between music and the social sciences.
Abstract: Developments in the sociology of music during the 1980s have brought the sub-field more firmly in to the center of sociological concerns. The worlds' concept, and the concern with music and social ...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article explored the diffusion of museums around the globe and drew upon world systems and globalization theory to argue that we can understand this as a diffusion of an institutionalized form which seeks to realize the world in its organization.
Abstract: The chapter explores the diffusion of museums around the globe. It draws upon world systems and globalization theory to argue that we can understand this as the diffusion of an institutionalized form which seeks to realize the world in its organization. This is explored particularly in relation to cosmological models of order in early museums and the role of museums in the process of nation building; and the argument is illustrated through contemporary examples from the National Museum of Sri Lanka.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Weber's ideas about science and technology have largely been neglected by comparison with his views of modern politics and economics as discussed by the authors. Yet his notion of disenchantment is central to his conception of modern society and to his comparative studies of the rise of Western rationalism.
Abstract: Weber's ideas about science and technology have largely been neglected by comparison with his views of modern politics and economics. Yet his notion of disenchantment is central to his conception of modern society and to his comparative studies of the rise of Western rationalism. This importance is underlined by the use to which Weber's ideas have been put by two contemporary thinkers. Ernest Gellner extends the notion of disenchantment in his account of the cognitive style of industrial society, but argues that it does not necessarily pose the threat which Weber's cultural pessimism suggests. Randall Collins, on the other hand, develops a Weberian account of the social basis for technological change, arguing that geopolitical centres give rise to technological innovation. In view of the urgency of the question of the role of science and technology in modern society, these Weberian perspectives provide an important theoretical tool since they offer a framework in which this question can be addressed.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article explored certain directions a postmodern sociology (rather than say a sociology of postmodernism) might take, and reinterpreted Gouldner's prescient warnings of a crisis in academic sociology as an expression of despair within modern sociology.
Abstract: As its title suggests, this paper explores certain directions a specifically postmodern sociology (rather than say a sociology of postmodernism) might take. It reinterprets Gouldner's prescient warnings of a crisis in ‘academic’ sociology as an expression of despair within modern sociology. In particular, three important ‘contradictions’ are examined as possible points of departure for a postmodern sociological discourse. Foucault's genealogical approach, it is argued, is useful in helping to orientate any attempts to develop a sociology of this kind. The analysis concludes by anticipating possible objections, showing how these might profitably be incorporated into future enquiries. The aim of the paper is not to offer concrete enunciations for a postmodern sociology, but to develop more modest rules of thumb through which such a discourse might be erected.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The relationship between feminist politics and the state around the issue of domestic violence is explored in this article, where a particular form of feminist politics, the refuge movement, has been instrumental in effecting legal changes which bestow certain rights on women threatened with domestic violence and in increasing women's access to resources in the form of temporary refuge and permanent housing.
Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between feminist politics and the state around the issue of domestic violence. Its focus is the refuge movement in Wales. Feminist analyses of the state and feminist political practice identify the state as an important object of struggle. A particular form of feminist politics, the refuge movement, has engaged with the state while retaining its autonomy. It has been instrumental in effecting legal changes which bestow certain rights on women threatened with domestic violence, and in increasing women's access to resources in the form of temporary refuge and permanent housing. Feminist political practice can affect the distribution of resources through engaging with the state, thereby enabling women to challenge the gendered power relations which structure their daily lives.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the impact of service quality initiatives on the role of professional academic librarians is considered, and it is argued that these initiatives offer a powerful legitimating device which is currently being used to support radical changes in professional work.
Abstract: This article considers the impact of service quality initiatives on the role of professional academic librarians.1 It is argued that these initiatives—by asserting the dominant role of ‘sovereign’ consumers—offer a powerful legitimating device which is currently being used to support radical changes in professional work. One possible outcome of this is a weakening of professional autonomy and power to unilaterally determine levels and standards of service. The case of academic librarians is adopted to illustrate these points. Firstly, two ideal types of library and professional organisation, developed from a review of the librarian literature, are compared. These are the ‘traditional’ and the ‘service quality-led’ models. Following this, a case study of an academic library which has recently adopted various quality improvement strategies is discussed. The results of this investigation suggest that not only have service quality initiatives provided a legitimation for radical change, but they have also generated a number of unintended consequences and hidden costs for the users of library services. Finally, some of the wider problems associated with service quality initiatives in the public sector are discussed.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article explored how enduring notions of racial identity continue to make it unlikely that an ongoing attempt by America's largest outdoor living-history museum (colonial Williamsburg) to tell stories about race relations in the antebellum era will be pedagogically effective.
Abstract: In this chapter, I explore ethnographically how enduring notions of racial ‘identity’ continue to make it unlikely that an ongoing attempt by America's largest outdoor living-history museum — Colonial Williamsburg — to tell stories about race relations in the antebellum era will be pedagogically effective. I focus on pedagogic practice among Colonial Williamsburg's ‘frontline’ because, while the professional historians ostensibly set historiographical policy and monitor historiographical product at Colonial Williamsburg, it is ultimately the dozens of guides who tell Williamburg's story to the visiting public. Moreover, I focus on the way guides talk about a particularly revealing topic — miscegenation — because it is a generally accepted argument among historians of antebellum America that the history of laws against miscegenation (which were codified in the eighteenth century), coupled with the history of their systematic violation, is at the root of the invention of distinct racial categories. To tell this story of ‘kinship denied’ at Colonial Williamsburg would have meant that a largely white audience and a mostly white ‘frontline’ would have had to rethink the category of race itself in ways perhaps more threatening to their ‘identities’ than to their ostensibly ‘black’ peers. In this chapter, I suggest that the way miscegenation remained a resisted topic at Colonial Williamsburg, reinforces, at the level of vernacular historiography, the very dichotomizing thinking about racial categories that the topic should have called into question.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a case study of a district authority highlights the complex nature of managerial discourse in its relations to both central and local government, and concludes that due to the structural constraints under which local authorities operate directly managerial discourse is becoming increasingly significant in the reconstitution of professional and semi-professional identities.
Abstract: This paper arises out of continuing debates on the class position of managers and professionals in the context of public sector restructuring. Recently, attention has been focused on the self-sustaining and autonomous character of ‘professionalism’ in organisational dynamics. Such an approach underplays the cultural significance of managerial discourse as this is active in the reconstitution of professional work. In a case study of a district authority it is possible to highlight the complex nature of managerial discourse in its relations to both central and local government. This relation is above all mediated by shifting conceptions of public service on the part of managers and those in non-managerial positions. The paper concludes that due to the structural constraints under which local authorities operate directly managerial discourse is becoming increasingly significant in the reconstitution of professional and semi-professional identities.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the striving of preventive health care in persuading consumers to take preventive measures is discussed. But the authors focus on the basic conditions of family life and food practices.
Abstract: This paper emanates from a problem with general reference to basic conditions of family life and food practices. More specifically it concerns the striving of preventive health care in persuading c...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors reviewed earlier studies and literature on children's access to money, food, space and time, and found that the norms governing distributive justice between adults and children in families are violated.
Abstract: This paper incorporates children's perspectives on the issue of resource distribution in households. It is part of a relatively new trend of sociological explorations into childhood. The paper aims to review earlier studies and literature on children's access to money, food, space and time. The data illuminates norms governing distributive justice between adults and children in families.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper found that only 12% of a sample of young people had received financial help for housing purposes since they had left home, less than found in previous studies with different samples The amounts involved were less than young people believed their parents could afford The role of inheritance was also found to be minor.
Abstract: Recent debates about flows of help within the family have indicated considerable diversity according to the type of help (money, services), and ages and gender of those involved, and have shown that values are only a partial guide to the scale of such flows This paper focuses on a particular occasion for help, young people's housing, and a particular region, South-East England, where one would expect family financial help to be high given the capacity to help of older generations (due to higher average incomes and wealth) and the affordability problems faced by young people It is shown that contrary to hypothesis only 12% of a sample of young people had received financial help for housing purposes since they had left home, less than found in previous studies with different samples The amounts involved were less than young people believed their parents could afford The role of inheritance was also found to be minor The results from the different studies are explained as due to changes in the housing market, changing values regarding financial help and differences among the samples Intensive re-interviews with three households from very different backgrounds are used to show the different ways in which family help operates

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article explored the knowledge of education possessed by lay governors and explored the systematicity of that knowledge; its possible sources, and how gender, ethnicity and social class influence the knowledge held and used by governors.
Abstract: Recent educational reforms in England have given considerable responsibilities for the overall administration of schools to governing bodies largely comprised of lay people. The paper explores the knowledge of education possessed by lay governors. Issues considered include: the systematicity of that knowledge; its possible sources, and how gender, ethnicity and social class influence the knowledge held and used by governors. Also examined are the question of whether governors are always knowledgeable actors within the context of education and the implications of this for schools and democratic participation in their governance. Data is derived from a four year qualitative multi-site case study of ten school governing bodies in two English local education authorities undertaken by the authors between 1988 and 1992.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the vocabularies of motive informing social investigation and, secondly, the local contexts in which women conceived, bore and reared their children, and the roles of poor relief, the churches, grandparents and fathers.
Abstract: ‘Epidemics’ of teenage pregnancy and ‘amazing rises’ in illegitimacy are part of a recurrent moral panic about the social implications of sexual nonconformity. Simultaneously, major social surveys attempt to provide empirical assessments of actual sexual behaviour. There is often a yawning gulf between the images created by press and politicians and the experiences of their subjects. Similarly, in the 1850s when statistics first ruptured the cosy notion that rural Scotland was the home of all that was virtuous and that vice inhabited the cities, perplexed clerics and reformers set about creating convenient fictions to explain high levels of bastardy in farming districts. Their conclusions tell us far more about middle-class suppositions about sexual attitudes than they do about the motives of those that they purported to be investigating. Thus explanation of rural sexual behaviour needs to be sought in ways that reach beyond the ideology of social concern. This paper explores, first, the vocabularies of motive informing social investigation and, secondly, the local contexts in which women conceived, bore and reared their children, and the roles of poor relief, the churches, grandparents and fathers. Far from representing ‘an index of “disorganisation” in an urbanising epoch’, unmarried motherhood appears to have been both a relevant and culturally sanctioned response to straitened circumstances (Goode, 1961). The discussion considers the pervasiveness of attempts to classify and contain illegitimacy within an underclass interpretation despite clear evidence to the contrary. Against such willing opacity, accessing the motives of the parents themselves remains a tantalizingly difficult exercise, especially when dealing with historical data beyond oral recall. The routes by which intentionality may be inferred are critically assessed.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article used data from a qualitative study to examine the extent to which the perceived problems of dealing with the acute emergency hospital admission can be used to illuminate the interface between professional and managerial authority in hospitals.
Abstract: This paper uses data from a qualitative study to examine the extent to which the perceived problems of dealing with the acute emergency hospital admission can be used to illuminate the interface between professional and managerial authority in hospitals. Clinicians, nurses and managers all described emergency admissions as constituting a ‘constant crisis’ in their hospital. There were practical senses in which this was a realistic depiction of the situation but, as rhetoric, this description had two major implications for the management-professional interface. First, it served to legitimate the authority of managers by creating a problem which needed constant management. Second, in providing the ultimate challenge to general management it provided a scenario in which the superiority of rational management techniques over more localised and apparently self-interested clinical decisions could be demonstrated.