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This paper involves an examination of skilled manual work in the modern paper industry. The data were collected at five mills in three countries -- the UK, Australia and the USA. The questions were formulated in order to probe four theories of skilled work. The results suggest that the distinction between skilled and nonskilled work is a fundamental feature of occupational differentiation in all five plants. They also reveal that there are intra-skilled conflicts over relative pay and demarcation lines and that these are affected by the wider socio-political environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production and reception of scientific papers in the academic-industrial complex have been neglected in sociology. In this article the social processes which influence the nature of the scientific paper in that complex are explored in depth by taking a number of controversial medical papers as case studies. The empirical evidence is collected and discussed in the light of sociological theories of normative ethos, paradigm development, reward-induced conformity and social interests in science. It is concluded that within the medical-industrial complex conformity to industrial interests can be a major criterion in defining the kind of reception given to a scientific paper and the professional autonomy of the authors in the paper's production, rather than an ethos of scientific scepticism or commitment to paradigmatic conventions. This is seen to have implications for the production of scientific knowledge -- implications that might be in conflict with the public interest. Consequently, the desirability of current British Government proposals to intensify its policy of making science more responsive to the needs of industry may have significant drawbacks, hitherto unacknowledged in official circles, and in need of more extensive sociological investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article involves an investigation of the effects of technological changes since 1970 upon the division of labour in three British paper mills. The data was collected in the Spring and Summer of 1984 and is used to develop a model of technical change and the division of labour that moves well beyond positions in the field. In particular, Braverman's theory of deskilling is challenged empirically and theoretically. A new theory — the compensatory theory of skill — is set out in the early stages of the article and a modified version of this approach is accepted in the conclusions. The most important finding involves the rapid increase in maintenance skills in the three pants examined. Other significant findings centre on the need for production workers to interpret computer controlled dials or meters and then to respond using their traditional detailed understandings of the processes of paper manufacture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, based on fieldwork conducted in Singapore and Malaysia, examines the social foundations and organizational principles of Chinese business finns, focusing in particular, on the inclination to incorporate personal relationships in decision making. It identifies three key aspects of personalism: personal control, personal guanxi relationships, and interpersonal trust or xinyong. Personal control is effected largely through depending on people whom one personally trusts as this would reduce risks and afford better business control. The paper also examines the dynamics between guanxi and xinyong, and how these ideals are played out in reality. A central argument is that economic decisions are not based solely on market considerations. Rather, they are embedded in the context of larger social relations and institutional forces which shape, reinforce, as well as challenge, a set of behaviours or organizational structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the treatment of crime and criminal justice in the British national news media. It begins by proposing a break with 'media-centric' approaches to the study of relations between news sources and the media which have tended to ignore the conflicts within and between social institutions. It moves on to illustrate the argument by examining the media strategies pursued by sources in the crime and criminal justice fields, drawing attention to the relevance for these activities of such factors as the relative institutionalization of social actors and their use of available resources. Recent developments in crime, legal affairs and home affairs reporting are the background to a discussion of the specialist organization of press journalism and television coverage. Some illustrative discussion of media content is presented that highlights pertinent differences within and between television broadcasting and the press. Brief observations are also made concerning the relations between patterns of media consumption and fear of crime in sections of the television audience. The paper concludes by arguing for more connections to be made between bodies of existing work in media sociology, political science and criminology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnostatistics is the study of the social practices surrounding the construction and interpretation of statistics. This paper considers certain ethnostatistical aspects of the official statistics on AIDS cases - the monthly updated figures on AIDS cases supplied by the Department of Health and derived from the English and Scottish voluntary reporting schemes. The paper focuses on problems in the classification of cases according to the route of virus transmission, particularly where multiple risk practices may be reported. Some (but not all) classification problems can be avoided by adopting a cross-tabular format of presentation. The data on reported Scottish AIDS cases are re-analysed in order to illustrate such a cross-tabular representation. These data are the basis for a concluding statement on the difficulties in projecting future heterosexual epidemic spread. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dominant perspectives on organizations typically assume that technological imperatives determine control mechanisms. In contrast, the recent work of neo-Marxists claims that control imperatives frequently determine technological choices. This paper argues that attempts to determine the causal priority of technology or control are misguided. While these two subsystems are interrelated, the dynamic model proposed in this paper views this relation as noncausal in character. With this model organizational change is viewed as the outcome of attempts to facilitate the congruence between an organization's technology and control system. This mode] assumes that (1) exogenously generated changes in control or technological systems often result in incompatibilities, but that (2) organizational decision makers seek to minimize such incompatibilities by altering an organization's design. With this model the paper explores the relation between technology and control by distinguishing variable dimensions of these two subsystems and examining their interrelations. The paper concludes by noting the implications this model has for the analysis of organizational change. In particular, this model should facilitate research that seeks to explain the timing, nature and reasons for changes in technologies and control systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research on social mobility in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland has confined itself exclusively to the linkages between male occupational origins and destinations. In this paper, three unique aspects of the Irish occupational mobility experience is investigated. First, the question of women's intergenerational occupational mobility is considered for the first time. Second, as in some recent North American research, traditional models of male intergenerational occupational mobility are modified to allow only the occupational achievement of mothers in the portrayal of a woman's occupational origins. Third, the occupational category of housewife is included as one possible occupational outcome for Irish women. The general conclusion of this paper is that not only does a mother's occupational attainments more realistically display the influence of occupational origins on women's subsequent occupational activities, but one vital component of this influence must be the occupational category of housewife. Only via the introduction of both these elements may the notably ascriptive nature of both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in relation to female occupational mobility become understandable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I contribute to the critique of the inconsistencies of the concepts of `modern' and `traditional' when applied in macro-sociological accounts of the family, through the examination of a relatively under-utilized indicator of house- hold behaviour: time use. Israeli Jewish households offer the opportunity to examine a range of patterns of family life along dimensions of differentiation such as ethnicity, education and religiosity. In some instances, these patterns display characteristics which have been used in the literature to differentiate `traditional' and `modern' variants. For example, it is clear that those identifying as `not religious' conform most, in terms of leisure participation and shared eating behaviour, to notions of the modern secular family. However, the complexity of the interrelationships between religiosity, ethnicity and time use demonstrates the pitfalls of the uncritical association of religious identification with `traditional' family behaviours. There is a need to take account of household behaviours and characteristics other than those customarily analysed in order to facilitate a fuller understanding of dimensions of differentiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This papers examines the interplay between informal social control, civil unrest and local crime management in Belfast. Official crime management is the responsibility of the police, but where this role is contested, `popular' or local forms of crime management occur. The local management of crime is accomplished in certain localities in Belfast by several mechanisms that extend beyond the policing role of the paramilitaries, and popular crime management is rooted in social processes, such as the survival of community structures, extended family kinship patterns, neighbourliness and legitimate authority accorded to community representatives, which constitute important informal social controls. Informal social control is recognized as important in inhibiting crime, but this paper reports on its role in the management of crime in the absence of reporting it to the police. These informal social controls are localized, being mediated by class, communal redevelopment, civil unrest and other social transformations affecting the locality. In this respect, political violence has helped, locally, to protect some areas from the worst vagaries of community breakdown and dislocation, with a positive effect on crime management. These issues are explored ethnographically by means of in-depth qualitative research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers one 'vigilante' episode in an English town in 1993 and its subsequent appearances in the press and in local 'crime-talk'. In so doing it a) proposes as an alternative to most current constructions of `fear of crime' an interpretive approach grounded in place; b) considers the intersections between the generic 'law and order' preoccupations of the national press and the salience in local knowledge of a particular sequence of events (and their consequences for their dramatis personae); c) raises conjecturally some preconditions favouring the adoption of the 'vigilante' option amongst available styles of security-seeking action. Theoretically, the paper demonstrates the relevance of locally-circulating stories of crime and low-level street disorder to the contemporary understanding of crime, place and community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illustrates how the project of `redeveloping' Dublin city has been influenced by a set of symbolic and referential functions that may be collectively called insularity. In its political configuration, this insularity constitutes a desire to debase, rather than explore alternative realities of political deliberation on transport and urban renewal issues. In its relatedly cultural form, it aspires to preserve tradition for tradition's sake. Insularity is both perpetuated and upheld through a public discourse on the city that is played out between competing social actors. This paper uses a text-oriented discourse analysis to examine a section of that discourse in the Irish Times between January 1991 and December 1995 to demonstrate how broader ideological codes that perpetuate structural relationships of inequality find expression through discursively-elaborated urban development issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we argue that it would be fruitful to regard personal networks as a form of capital capable of generating economic returns by drawing on our research findings on the recent wave of emigration from Hong Kong. By putting network capital on a par with economic and cultural capital, we seek to identify its distinctive features in terms of institutionalization, capacity, moral economy, and processes of conversion and reproduction. In substantiating our argument, we present some quantitative evidence from our survey data on the uneven distribution of kinship ties which can be mobilized for emigration among different occupational classes. We then make use of our in-depth interview data to show that there is a qualitative variation too in the type of networks used by different occupational classes for emigration purposes. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of the concept of network capital for the study of migration, class formation, and the global economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we provide a comparative analysis of the political and ideological salience of class in Britain and the USA, using the Comparative Project on Class Consciousness and Class Conflict dataset. We show that class divisions, however measured, are much more salient in British political choices. We then ask whether this difference results from the weaker cultural salience of class in the USA, or whether it reflects the distinctive nature of the American political system. We find that class is strongly salient in the USA, not in politics, but in the sphere of work- place and industrial relations. We conclude with a discussion of the meaning of these findings for British and American class research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines changes in the relationship between class origins and the position young people occupy one year after finishing post-primary education in the Republic of Ireland over the period 1984-1993. We find that class differentials in the position occupied after leaving school do not change over time, although, among young women, the relationship between educational attainment and the position occupied does change slightly. We show that the reason why this latter change can co-occur with an absence of change in class differences is because class origin effects on the position a school leaver occupies one year after leaving school are substantially independent of educational attainment effects. In other words, class differences in how young people fare after leaving school are only weakly mediated by education. Other channels of class influence must therefore be operating, and their cumulative impact is much greater than that of class based educational inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author responds to the sociologist Bryan S. Turner's comments on his article related to the inter generational conflicts. Turner's interpretation, and suggestion that he was drawing attention away from structural issues, is rooted in a paradigm which is inadequate to the task of properly describing how life course processes are integral to general social arrangements. In his paper, the author took issue with the assumptions and arguments of age stratification and generational conflict theorists. These writers see age and generation related self interest as underpinning a growth in age based conflict. The dimensions of such conflict are seen to cleave around people's current relations to work and welfare. In his response to the author's paper Turner re-asserts the salience of intra-generational cohesion and inter-generational difference in shaping consciousness and action in efforts to secure social advantage. Turner insists that age and generation are important components of social stratification and should be incorporated in theory accordingly.

Drawing on the sociology of moral panic, this paper argues that the media will shift from alarming to reassuring coverage when a `hot crisis' portends a possible grass root panic. To determine whether this moderation effect follows from dread-inspiring events that are developing in unpredictable and potentially threatening ways, the paper compares newspaper and magazine coverage of emerging diseases with their coverage of Ebola Zaire. The results reveal that the mutation-contagion package, with its frightful account of emerging diseases, was quickly abandoned and subverted during the Ebola epidemic. In its place, the media fashion a containment package that uses a strategy of 'othering' to allay the fear. The conclusion discusses the flexibility in the tool kits used by the media to frame events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been widely claimed that knowledge production in contemporary western societies is undergoing some kind of fundamental change: these claims form the background for this paper. it focuses on relations between different intellectual, and other, communities, the problematization of `traditional' disciplinary boundaries and divisions and, in particular, the significance of such issues for sociology. Drawing on an ethnographic study of the work of computer scientists, it looks both at their communications with increasingly heterogeneous audiences, and at ethnographic relations between researcher and researched. It is argued that processes of `simulation' can be discerned: firstly, the simulation of certain forms of order in computer scientists' representations of their own work in communications across boundaries; secondly, the simulation of a sep ante ethnographic object of study by the social scientist. It is suggested that since certain well established conceptions of social science inquiry rely implicitly on just such senses of order and separation, their problematization raises questions about the conceptualization, status and practice of sociological inquiry in the light of apparent transformations to relations of intellectual production and exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

The objective of this paper is to integrate class, citizenship and gender in a comparative approach to the analysis of welfare state regimes. I argue that the incorporation of gender into the analysis entails a reassessment of the conventional conception of citizenship, a broadening of conventional definitions of political mobilization and participation and a modification of the welfare state regime concept used in the mobilization of power resources research approach. Furthermore, the concept of de-commodification or insulation from the pressures of the labour market, which is central to the analysis of welfare state regimes, must be supplemented by the concept of personal autonomy or insulation from personal and/or public dependence. To date comparative research has concentrated on the relationship between the labour market and the state with little attention to the family aspect of this tripartite relationship. The concept of personal autonomy remedies this imbalance since it relates directly to the articulation of relations of reproduction and production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates relationships between actual occupational incomes, perceived incomes and legitimate incomes. It is based on two Australian national surveys (N = 1000) conducted in 1988. Results indicate that the public believes that incomes ought to be much more equal than they currently are. There is support both for increasing low incomes and decreasing high incomes. However the public systematically misperceives the income distribution and erroneously believes that there is virtually no difference between legitimate incomes and actual incomes. The main implications for an empirically sound theory of distributive justice are that: (1) it is incorrect to assume that public perceptions of the distribution of social goods are even remotely accurate and (2) a normative standard of equality distorts perceptions of distributive outcomes. Perceptions of justice determine perceptions of fact rather than vice-versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that, for a variety of reasons, the sociology of social stratification -- and, as a consequence, mainstream sociology more generally -- has neglected the topic of disability. Using material drawn from a range of sources, it is argued that disability is related in definite ways to social class. Further, it is also argued that disability must be considered as a factor contributing to the production and reproduction of stratification in its own right, independently of class relations. These arguments are further advanced in the course of a more detailed consideration of research evidence concerned with mental handicap. The paper ends with a consideration of the role of non-class factors -- specifically social status and citizenship -- in the stratification systems of modern industrial societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debate about elderly people has been dominated by stereotypical images, while profound inequalities in the circumstances of elderly people have been neglected. This paper examines one aspect of inequality, that of personal income, showing that elderly people span the gulf between affluence and poverty, and that ageist representations of pensioners mask structured inequalities which have arisen during the working life. The paper focuses on gender inequality of occupational and private pension income and assesses the effects of the sexual division in the labour market ('the price of being female') and of women's role in the domestic economy ('the cost of caring'). Gender and marital status as well as class are found to be crucial factors in understanding income inequality among elderly people. Occupational and personal pensions are the chief means of perpetuating these divisions into later life. The paper uses data from the 1985 and 1986 General Household Survey, which provides a representative sample of over 7000 people over age 65. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alan Fox is one of the most prolific and original British sociologists of industry and employment. Fox's largely derivative writings on macro-sociology have received considerable attention in the literature. In comparison his original micro-sociological theory of the role played by trust in organizational integration has been neglected. This paper presents a critical evaluation of Fox's microsociological theory of 'trust dynamics' in organizations. The paper identifies conceptual, theoretical and methodological weaknesses in Fox's complex argument and concludes that Fox's theory is invalid. The paper also suggests that trust in organizational life is probably more significant as an aspect of 'social integration' than, as Fox contends, as an aspect of' 'system integration'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observing that the violent realities of family life belief the social rhetoric of harmony, most sociologists recommend 'demythologizing' the family. This paper challenges that view, arguing that social rhetoric must be analysed rather than debunked. The sense-making activities of actors who engage in violent family events are identified as a strategic site for such an analysis. The paper explores the ways in which the rhetoric of family harmony is routinely sustained and reproduced. Two kinds of supports are considered (i) macrosocial supports, which sustain family rhetoric by integrating it into a wider system of collective representations; and (ii) microsocial supports which sustain family rhetoric by embodying it in the accounts of family members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to develop the concept of dialogue as a dimension of social life bearing its own ethical code. It is suggested, that the principle underlying the framework of dialogue is the production of a 'dialogic' connection' between two (or more) individual selves based on the idea of recognition. Recognition is both demanded from and given to the Other. But, unlike ordinary exchange it is not carried through by way of things. It occurs directly between selves, and it is ethically governed by a set of three obligations: The obligation to speak, the obligation to listen, and the obligation to respond. In each of these three dialogic acts one is obligated to turn to the other as an Other, and call the other into presence within the dialogic connection. Across the dialogic distance selves are interpersonally created, connections produced and thereby the social 'whole' as an open dialogic structure and process is realized. In this paper, the dialogic connection and its ethics are first examined and compared with commodity exchange and gift bonds. Then, each of the three dialogic obligations is explored. Finally, a distinction is made between ritualistic dialogue and dialogue that is regarded as an ethical accomplishment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent commentary on working-class life has emphasised its 'privatisation', the restriction of networks of everyday relationships to the immediate family and its home. This marks a distinctive shift from earlier characterisations in terms of 'communal sociability' in which the extended family and a web of neighbours and friends are prominent. This paper presents evidence from a study of people living in a post-war suburb of Coventry which points to a considerable degree of communal sociability in an (apparently unlikely) locality. Privatisation is wholly inapt as a description of the contact with relatives, sources of help, neighbourliness, membership of organisations and recreation reported by respondents. The empirical basis of claims put forward by advocates of the privatisation thesis is examined and an alternative approach to the issue is sketched. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the extent to which Hargeaves' and Lacey's differentiation-polarisation theory is applicable to setted comprehensive schools bearing in mind certain objections to the theory made by Quine. The research is based on an ethnographic study of a comprehensive school, located in the south of England, in which the pupils are streamed by sets after the first year. The sample of pupils studied are fourth years in the top, middle and bottom streams of the school. By using a variety of research methods to study the historical and current academic and behavioural values of the pupils, this paper suggests that the differentiation-polarisation theory holds fairly well, particularly in the second year. The research does not substantiate Quine's objections to the theory. The paper concludes by considering the implications of the theory for social class differentiation and other contemporary theories in the sociology of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociological writing on social mobility has neglected to consider whether upward social mobility is linked to an individual's geographical mobility. This paper argues that there is no necessary link, but that in post-war Britain, where much intra-generational social mobility has been linked to workers' being promoted through internal labor markets of bureaucratic organizations this frequently means that these workers have to be re-located to different sites of that organization. In these circumstances there is a significant -- though under-researched -- link between social and spatial mobility. I argue that this type of upward social mobility is however becoming less important as public and private sector organizations have retrenched in recent years. Hence the link between social and spatial mobility has declined. I speculate on the implications of this for patterns of class formation and political alignment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper incorporates an emphasis placed on relational processes in contemporary feminist scholarship, and in so doing extends the development of a power-control theory of gender and delinquency. Feminist scholarship emphasizes that relational processes - involving shared intimacy, mutual understanding, caring and other kinds of interpersonal affect - are more characteristic of women than men. However, there is debate among feminist scholars, such as Gilligan and MacKinnon, as to the sources of this difference. An elaboration and test of power-control theory suggests that mothers in patriarchal families are assigned roles in controlling daughters, relationally and consequently instrumentally, more than sons, and that this leads daughters to prefer risk taking less than do sons. Therefore daughters in such families engage in less delinquency than do sons. In other words, these data indicate that there is a sexual stratification in the social control of adolescents that is connected to patriarchal family structure, and that this is important to the explanation of gender differences in delinquency. The analysis indicates that these gender differences are social structural in origin rather than biologically inherent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper opens with a review of recent developments in the sociology of spatial organization and after an examination of the ontological and epistemological assumptions which are embedded within current theorizations of space a number of arguments are advanced concerning the inter-relationships which hold between forms of knowledge, social practice and physical design. Using architectural plans, these arguments are then developed with reference to the study of the spatial organization of hospital wards in three contexts; the care and treatment of children, the containment of madness in the pre-1845 period and the management of psychiatric patients 1973-1982. The paper concludes that schemes of spatial organization are best understood in relation to the discursive practices of which they form a part rather than as decontextualised and reified social facts which exhibit their own 'logic'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article traces the career of the concept scientific community through three discernible stages. The formative stages is presented by Ludwik Fleck's Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. It was learned that one of the early expositions of the theme that scientific knowledge is socially conditioned, Fleck's work revolves around the correlative concepts of thought collective and thought style. Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, was discussed. Stage three in the career of the concept scientific community is marked by criticism and the development of alternative models. During the 1960s and 70s, the view prevailed among metascientists that scientific knowledge is produced by communities of specialists. In the works of leading contemporary philosophers of science, as in many historical studies, the existence of scientific communities was assumed without question or argument. Kuhn's paper represents a watershed in the histories of both the concept itself and the entire discipline of sociology of science. Social integration in science was considered a result of a consensus about strategic norms or standards. Findings on the examination of the concept scientific community through the related works of Kuhn and Fleck, the Polish scientist and scientist knowledge, was presented.

This paper deals with the formation of the ethnic division of labour within the Jewish population in Israel during the rapid economic growth of the first decade of the existence of the state. It is argued that the division of labour stemmed from the specific patterns of economic development and the expanding capitalist relations of production. This approach is opposed to the functionalist view which argues that the position of the oriental immigrants was determined by their ‘traditional&rsqou;, pre-immigration, characteristics. Four major economic spheres—argiculture, construction, industry and the civil services—are examined in terms of the specific pattern of growth in each sphere, the ethnic division of labour it entailed and the ethnic division of rewards. Finally, the paper discusses the function of the dominant ideology in disguising the concrete ethnic-class relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ social action with reference to recent research in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. Evidence is presented in support of the proposal that a taken for granted model of conversational interaction is used by analysts, both lay and professional, as a comparative reference point against which certain actions are categorized as ‘formal’. Such a procedure, it is suggested, results in evaluative interpretations which fail to address the question of how such interactions may be operating to produce orderliness in the settings where they are found. This theme is developed mainly in relation to the way a number of recurrent features of multiparty interaction may provide practical solutions to a general problem which appears to be common to all such settings, namely that of how to create and preserve the conditions for sustaining the shared attentiveness of all co-present parties to the proceedings at hand. The general themes are also briefly considered with reference to small-scale interactions that are likely to be regarded as ‘formal’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of Basil Bernstein's work on language in relation to education and child rearing is widely recognized, but his contributions to the sociology of the school are less well-known. It is not the purpose of this article to make an extended critique of the theoretical and other propositions made in Bernstein's series of writings, but to report an attempt to put some of them to the empirical test. The results of the investigation give only limited support for some of the propositions made by Bernstein about the sociology of the school. This statement must be qualified by a number of reservations. Firstly, the variables used to test the propositions were not constructed for this specific purpose, and may not therefore represent the best use of the concepts involved. Secondly, they do not cover all the examples suggested by Bernstein. Thirdly, the schools to which the measures apply are secondary schools. With these reservations, the results suggest that Bernstein's explanation of the relationship between the different aspects of the school should be reconsidered. The explanations appear to be based upon an adaptive view of education, in which its form and change are determined by, or closely related to, the nature of and changes in superordinate sectors of society.

The culture of poverty debate has been a constant theme of analyses or ghetto poverty and accompanying discussions of policy. Most attention has focused on the educational and community aspects of the debate. Relatively little attention has been directed towards the analytically central issue of work orientation and behaviour. This paper examines some critical issues in this key problem area with respect to the ghetto lower class. Initially the two competing theories of ghetto lower class work behaviour and values are presented and materials introduced from the ethnographic and sociological literature which support a modified form of the sub-cultural theory. Evidence from a field study of job training programmes is then presented to offer further support for the importance of sub-cultural values and orientations in shaping lower class ghetto work behaviour. Finally, some conclusions on the theoretical and policy implications of the paper are drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the theory on suicide advanced by sociologist Emile Durkheim. Durkheim attempted to derive a sociological explanation of variations in social suicide rates. He postulated identical relations between each of two independent variables -- integration and regulation -- and suicide. When either is high or low, the suicide rate is high; when either is moderate, the rate is low. Changes in rates are proportional to changes in the strength of these two variables. The low and high points of each are named -- egoism and altruism (integration), anomie and fatalism (regulation) -- and identified as the cases of suicide. The author of this article argues that Durkheim's attampt to establish a viable sociological distinction between integration and regulation are unsuccessful; indeed his book "Suicide" contains numerous indications that no such distinction exists. The paper then analyzes the theory of regulation as it fits into his book's explanatory structure and concludes by stating a theory of suicide devoid of any integration-regulation direction. Durkheim's initial attempts to distinguish between integration and regulation do little more than refer to societal attachment and attraction as integration, and societal control as regulation.

This paper will attempt to present an encounter between the people-changing sciences and the Protestant Ethic. The term psychotherapy will be used here to refer to all professional treatment systems aimed at changing people. The central point of this paper is to argue that the inhumane treatment of deviants practiced in Europe from the 16th to the 19th century was imbedded in the belief in predestination and dualism, which was revived and sharpened by John Calvin during the 16th century and which grew to become a major influence in Europe during the centuries to follow. According to Calvin, people are not all created with a similar destiny; but eternal life is foreordained for some, and eternal damnation for others. Those who belong to the elect were predestined to have symptoms of righteousness, while the damned were born with the unchangeable symptoms of wickedness. According to Calvin there are two factors by which man can prove that he was of the elect or rather how did he rid himself of the fear of damnation--calling and constant striving for perfection in one's work. It was on this basis of these two factors that Max Weber developed his thesis regarding the relationship between the Protestant Ethic and the rise of the modern capitalism.

This paper is an attempt to show that distinct dimensions of political alienation are reliable predictors of variations in political behaviour, independently of factors such as level of government and kinds of situations. In other words, there is a direct relation between the type of alienation and the mode in which it is expressed. The paper also calls attention to the functions served by the alienated as agents of political change. Variations in the modes of expression result from the following four types of political alienation: powerlessness, distrust, meaninglessness and isolation. Political powerlessness refers to the "perceived expectancy of an individual that his own behaviour cannot determine the occurrence of political outcomes that he seeks." The incentive to take part in politics is weak among the powerless who consequently elect to express their alienation through non-participation. Distrust is a person's feeling that the occupants of political roles systematically and consistently violate specific political norms or the "rules of the game" when dealing with certain publics.

The aim of this paper on occupational prestige is two-fold. The first part of the paper is devoted to a more general discussion of some theoretical and methodological shortcomings of the sociological literature on occupational prestige. The aim of the second part of the paper is to provide an illustration of one possible approach to the theoretical and empirical analysis of dissensus in occupational prestige which may be able to transcend at least partly some of the suggested shortcomings of the conventional approach. The sample utilized for the empirical analysis is a sample of the West German élite. The findings indicate that the position of an individual in the structure of voluntary interaction and his normative standards have an impact on the prestige assigned to different groups of occupations. Comparing science and nonescience occupations all requiring a university education, it was found that members of the elite who had close, personal interaction with scientists as well as a more favourable attitude towards the consequences of science and read proportionally more science literature assigned disproportionally higher prestige to science occupations in contrast to occupations outside of science.

This paper proposes a tentative theory of congregational Organization; one that is grounded in data about the common organizational features of contemporary churches and synagogues and the practical problems they encounter in their work. Religion is an important factor in accounting for both the similarities and differences between congregations but other factors also contribute to organizational issues which arise, It is suggested that congregations are `special case' voluntary associations in which the actions of members are limited in ways which would not normally apply in secular associations. In addition to having associational features, congregations also have special organizational characteristics with respect to the role of ministers of religion and their `ultimate goals'. The challenge for clergy, lay staff and lay members can be seen as one of operating the basic voluntary association model in a way that also takes into account the two special characteristics of congregational organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The `fear of crime' has been at the centre of political and policy debate for some time. The purpose of this paper is to examine critically the continued relevance of that debate in the light of findings from an in-depth two and a half year research project. The findings from that project suggest that the relation people have with crime, criminal victimization, and the fear of crime is mediated by the relevance of their relationship with their local community and their structural position within that community. Understanding the nature of these relationships suggests the question of trust is of greater value in highlighting who is and who is not afraid of crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a very simple theme in sociology. It is so simple that it has tended either to be accepted or neglected but very rarely, it seems, critically reviewed. The sociology of crime and deviance concentrates on the problematics of ruling, rule-enforcement and rule-observance, and one of the neo-Durkheimian tenets held by many of its practitioners is that rules are reinforced and revealed in the boundary-defining work of institutions of social control, and in the work of the law courts above all. it is that tenet which is discussed here, principally by examining its empirical claims. It appears that little or no good empirical evidence is available to support the thesis, and that there are major methodological obstacles to its production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vigorous growth of Cultural Studies has in part come about through an insistence on strong contrasts with sociology. Unlike sociology, the theoretical orientations of Cultural Studies are often held to be postmodern and discursive in character. This paper questions the usefulness of such contrasts by examining the work of Stuart Hall, focusing in particular on the problem of hegemony. I argue that Hall's approach slides ambiguously between reading hegemony as either con- centrated state domination or free-wheeling discourse. Consequently, Hall cannot resist and indeed in some ways reinforces the discursive turn in contemporary Cultural Studies, despite his own explicit criticisms of this development. I track the instability of Hall's approach to an abstract logic of articulation that fragments social relations and subordinates them to political association. Hall's predicament suggests that social life must be theorized as something more than a pliant diversity of sites. The problem of hegemony calls for an account of cultural and group formation as distinct from their political and ideological construction. I thus conclude that Cultural Studies stands in need of a sociological re-orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the application of Foucauldian perspectives within sociology. While Foucault's epistemology has generated novel historical and philosophical interpretations, when transposed to sociology, problems arise. The first of these concerns the association of knowledge and power, and the concept of 'discourse'. Foucault suggested that there are 'rules' of discursive formation which are extraneous to the 'non-discursive' realm of 'reality'. This formulation is consequently both deterministic and incapable of supplying explanations of why some practices become discursive which others do not. This determinism is reflected in some sociological analyses of embodiment, offering a model of the 'body' which is passive, and incapable of resisting power/knowledge. Secondly, Foucault's notion of the 'self' moves to the other extreme, inadequately addressing the constraints which affect the fabrication of subjectivity. Sociological accounts do not always recognize the ambiguities which consequently result from efforts to use Foucauldian positions. It is argued that post-structuralists other than Foucault may offer more to sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parental role models are often put forward as an explanation for the choice of gender-atypical educational routes. This paper aims to test such explanations by examining the impact of family background variables like parental education and occupation, on choice of educational programme at upper secondary school. Using a sample of around 73,000 Swedish teenagers born between 1972 and 1976, girls' and boys' gender-atypical as well as gender-typical educational choices are analysed by means of logistic regression. Parents working or educated within a specific field increase the probability that a child will make a similar choice of educational programme at upper secondary school. This same-sector effect appeared to be somewhat stronger for fathers and sons, while no such same-sex influence was confirmed for girls. No evidence was found that, in addition to a same-sector effect, it matters whether parents' occupations represent gender- traditional or non-traditional models. Parents of the service classes or highly educated parents - expected to be the most gender egalitarian in attitudes and behaviours - have a positive influence upon children's choice of gender-atypical education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]