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Sociologists have long been interested in the meaning workers derive from their jobs. The issue has garnered increasing academic and policy attention in recent years with the concept of "meaningful work," yet little is known about how social stratification relates to access to it. This paper addresses this issue by exploring how the meaningfulness of jobs—as rated by their incumbents—is stratified across classes and occupations in a national survey of 14,000 working adults in the United Kingdom. It finds modest differentials between classes, with those in routine and manual occupations reporting the lowest levels of meaningfulness and those in managerial and professional occupations and small employers and own account workers reporting the highest levels. Detailed job attributes (e.g., job complexity and development opportunities) explain much of the differences in meaningfulness between classes and occupations, and much of the overall variance in meaningfulness. The main exception is the specific case of how useful workers perceive their jobs to be for society: A handful of occupations relating to health, social care, and protective services which cut across classes stand out from all other occupations. The paper concludes that the modest stratification between classes and occupations in meaningful work is largely due to disparities in underlying job complexity and development opportunities. The extent to which these aspects of work can be improved, and so meaningfulness, especially in routine and manual occupations, is an open, yet urgent, question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper responds to Nick Gane's "Against a descriptive turn". I argue that descriptive research strategies are more open and inclusive than those which purport to be causal where explanatory adequacy is assessed by expert insiders. I also show how open descriptive strategies can assist a wider explanatory purpose when these are conceived in non‐positivist ways. I argue that epochalist sociology lacks an adequate temporal ontology because it collapses descriptive specificity back into overarching epoch descriptions. Finally, I argue that if the entire range of publications associated with the Great British Class Survey are considered, that it has demonstrated a productive way of recognising the significance of class which has facilitated major research advances in its wake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper ethnographically explores the cultural embedding of atomistic indifference in online, global financial markets: arenas that have been digitally designed according to economic ideals and that demand an extreme form of relational and social dissociation from the partners to exchange and from those affected by the transactions. Its case‐study is lay financial‐trading in Israel, a country undergoing extensive neoliberalization. The study shows that dissociation is embedded in an economic culture marked by constant, multi‐sited declarations that economic‐Others are cold, uncaring and manipulative. It takes shape as traders convert the distrust towards Others into distrust towards portions of the Self that represent links to these Others, namely their own social‐psychology and social concern. Acting atomistically and selfishly in the market thus entails considerable reflexive work. The paper contributes to an ongoing debate on the moral and cultural embeddedness of markets in general and of the expanding financial markets in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on an analysis of qualitative interview data from a study of formalized same‐sex relationships (civil partnerships) this paper examines the enduring significance of marriage and family as social institutions. In doing so, it intervenes in current debates in the sociology of family and personal life about how such institutions are undermined by reflexivity or bolstered by convention. Against the backdrop of dominating sociological frames for understanding the links between the changing nature of marriage and family and same‐sex relationship recognition, the paper analyses the diverse and overlapping ways (including the simple, relational, strategic, ambivalent and critical ways) in which same‐sex partners reflexively constructed and engaged with marriage and family conventions. My analysis suggests that instead of viewing reflexivity and convention as mutually undermining, as some sociologists of family and personal life do, it is insightful to explore how diverse forms of reflexivity and convention interact in everyday life to reconfigure the social institutions of marriage and family, but do not undermine them as such. I argue the case for recognizing the ways in which 'reflexive convention', or reflexive investment in convention, contributes to the continuing significance of marriage and family as social institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robert Fine was among the most original social theorists in Britain of the past 30 years, and the aim of this paper is to offer a first systematic assessment of his intellectual contribution. There are sound intellectual reasons to explore Fine's scholarship. He maintained a problematic relation with mainstream sociology and, against the reduction of sociology to questions of method, culture, or class, he argued that sociologists must continue to ask difficult normative questions as part of the social world they ought to explain. And there are also pressing political concerns that justify a reconsideration of his writings. Global politics is currently marked by a populist wave that decries the very ideas and values that were central to Fine's social theory: the need to uphold the rule of law at home and abroad, the politics of cosmopolitan solidarity, and the significance of antisemitism and its relationships with different forms of authoritarian politics. My main argument is that there is a dialectics of universality that drives forward Fine's intellectual project. By this, I mean that a universalistic idea of humanity—an all‐inclusive conception of all human beings—is the most important normative intuition of modern times. This idea of humanity moves forward in history through a dual process of emancipation and domination: successful forms of social, legal, and political inclusion help make visible previous dynamics of exclusion but may also create or recreate discriminatory practices. Building on the work of French historian Michael Löwy on heterodox Jewish thinkers, I explain the three main tenets of Fine's work: (a) his reconstruction of critical social theory; (b) the notion of cosmopolitan solidarity; and (c) the significance and main features of modern antisemitism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the author's comment on sociologists Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore's paper "Some Principles of Stratification." According to the author, the paper offers some important point but that the argument they advance is contradictory in certain of its implications and therefore defective. The source of the difficulty is to be found in one of the premises of their argument. To state it most simply, the premise asserts, "people desire rewards." This assertion is incontestable, but it is not adequately qualified in their argument. The author shows in the first part of this article how their argument, containing this premise, leads to contradictory implications. Then, in the second part of this article, the author attempts to provide qualifications which he believes will allow Davis and Moore's argument to avoid contradictions and thus give it greater force.

The article focuses on the sociology in and of China. In the general history of social sciences it is assumed that the marriage between sociology and anthropology comes late, having been preceded by a long courtship. China does not fit this pattern. Almost as soon as social sciences were established there anthropology and sociology were intertwined, to be disentangled in a strange way when Communists arrived. To avoid a tedious recitation of evidence just one witness is called upon, a scholar whose later career in the U.S. makes his testimony underline the Chinese paradox. Writing in China in 1944 Francis L.K. Hsu has said in this paper that the word sociology is used synonymously with the term social anthropology. It is customary to date the beginning of sociology in China by the publication of Yen Fu's translation of two chapters of "The Study of Sociology" in 1898. Later a few original works were produced in Chinese and courses of instruction were introduced in universities, it was not until about the 1920s that sociological investigations of any great weight began to be made.

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.

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]

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 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.

How relevant are figures from the classical sociological canon for present day efforts to found cosmopolitan forms of sociological thought? According to the critique of Ulrich Beck, the classical sociologists remain far too wedded to nation-state-centred ways of thinking to play an important role in the development of cosmopolitan sociology. This paper argues that such a critique fails to account for the ways in which certain classical sociologists were attuned to the emerging cosmopolitical conditions of their own time, were not wholly wedded to nation-state-based conceptualizations, and thus can function as both groundings of, and inspirations for, cosmopolitan sociological endeavours. The apparently unpromising case of Tönnies is focused on, the paper showing how he outlined an account of how and why a planet-spanning condition of Gesellschaft developed a position which diverges from and counterpoints Marx's analysis of similar phenomena in important ways. The stereotype of Tönnies as an arch-conservative is also dissolved, allowing him to be considered as one of the most important antecedents of contemporary cosmopolitan sociological practice and a canonical figure still relevant for present-day purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article responds to M. Bittman and J. Pixley's paper "Equality and Gender, Divided Versus Multiple Subjectivity: A Response to Allon J. Uhlmann's The Sociology of Subjectivity, and Subjectivity of Sociologists" in volume 55, issue number 3 of the "British Journal of Sociology." The criticism of Bittman and Pixley's book "The Double Life of the Family" focused on a number of selected texts in order to expose some of the analytical dynamics that prevail in the sociology of the Australian family. The book served as an example of a class-unconscious discussion of the family. It was argued that the book overlook systemic differences in subjectivity across class and gender, and did not consider the sociological significance of the variation in the contexts in which members of different classes lead their lives. Bittman and Pixley's response skirts the main issues which have been the focus of the critique.

The concept of 'identity' is central to much contemporary sociology, reflecting a crisis that manifests itself in two ways. Firstly, there is a view that identity is both vital and problematic in this period of high modernity. Secondly, while this awareness is reflected in sociology, its accounts of identity are inconsistent, under-theorized and incapable of bearing the analytical load required. As a result, there is an inherent contradiction between a valuing of identity as so fundamental as to be crucial to personal well-being, and a theorization of 'identity' that sees it as something constructed, fluid, multiple, impermanent and fragmentary. The contemporary crisis of identity thus expresses itself as both a crisis of society, and a crisis of theory. This paper explores the diverse ways in which 'identity' is deployed before turning to case-studies of its use by Anthony Giddens and Manuel Castells. This strategy demonstrates the widespread and diverse concern with identity before exploring how problematic it has become, even in the work of two of the world's leading sociologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues that sociologists have constructed their accounts exclusive of nature. This pre-ecological sociology is critically examined and explained. It has resulted from disciplinary specialization and revulsion at biological determinism, with the trend away from systems sociology to human-agency sociology being an aggravating factor. Sociology as if nature did not matter has also been influenced by the assumption prevailing in modern societies of the plasticity of the relationship of humans to their natural environment. This sociology has been the sociological expression of modern societies careless of nature. The growing awareness that social constructions unleash dynamic processes of nature - processes beyond human control that bear on social action - has the potential of radically transforming such sociology. The paper proposes the reconstruction of sociology in which nature matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents John Goldthorpe's response to several comments about his paper which analyzed the uses of history in sociology. According to Goldthorpe, his main concern was to show that history and sociology necessarily differed in the nature of the evidence that they used or, more precisely, in the ways in which this evidence came into being. He claims that in his paper, he emphasizes that historians cannot hope to produce descriptions that are free of general ideas about social action, process and structure. His argument concerning the differences in evidence available to historians and sociologists is that the latter have the possibility of engaging in research that itself generates evidence, over and above, not as distinct from, that of exploiting relics. Goldthorpe clarifies the argument with which his paper began was that (i) pace Abrams and Giddens, history and sociology are not the same thing; (ii) that one important way in which they differ is the nature of the evidence on which historians and sociologists draw; and (iii) that sociologists, in being able to generate their own data in the present, rather than being restricted to the relics of the past, are in a position of advantage that should be recognized and not given up without good reason.

This paper discusses the reasons why Edward Westermarck's reputation as a sociologist began to decline in the 1920s. It begins with some personal recollections of Westermarck, who was the author's great-uncle. Then follows an account of how Westermarck in both The History of Human Marriage and The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas made original contributions to the discussion concerning several issues, which were at that time regarded as central in the sociological debate. Although Westermarck and Durkheim held very similar ideas concerning some of these problems, they disagreed on other important points. Of particular consequence for the subsequent development of sociology was Durkheim's utter rejection of Westermarck's and the other comparativists' method of quoting examples from various societies which were detached from their context as support for their theories. During the inter-war decades Durkheim's ideas were taken up and championed by Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski, with the effect that Westermarck's comparative method was definitely regarded as passé when he died in 1939. Also other factors, which are discussed in some detail in sections V and VI of the paper contributed to this development. The paper ends with the conclusion that Westermarck's magna opera are today mainly of historical interest, whereas his Moroccan monographs and his Ethical Relativity will retain their value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The corpus of Alfred Schutz's methodological writings is directed at creating a scientific method which does not subjugate a meaning-endowing actor to objective, impersonal causal laws. Given the nature of this task, it is surprising that the list of Schutz's published writings is so small. It consists, in fact, of only one full-length book and numerous articles which have been compiled into a three-volume anthology. This relative paucity of published writings is partly due to the extreme care and meticulousness Schutz exhibits in writing and re-writing each work, and partly the result of a Jekyll-Hyde type of life in which days are spent pursuing money and success in the business world, leaving only nights to teach and write. In this paper I shall summarily describe Schutz's efforts and see if his phenomenologically defined notion of subjectivity is reasonably incorporated into a valid scientific method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over recent years, sociologists have devoted considerable attention to the comparative analysis of industrialized societies. Perhaps the major impetus for such interest has been the discussion the so-called "thesis of convergence" has generated. Although this thesis tends to focus upon "structural" features of societies, there have been other arguments which have suggested that such developments are related to changes of a more "cultural" kind. Researcher A. Inkeles has put forward the view that industrial modes of production particularly of the large-scale bureaucratic kind, generate structural environments and institutional features which lead to relatively consistent patterns of attitudinal responses. This paper is an attempt to re-examine Inkeles' thesis in the light of empirical data for two industrial societies, namely England and Sweden. More particularly, the emphasis is upon the perceptions of various aspects of social stratification. In order to test Inkeles' thesis, the findings of a number of empirical studies have been synthesized. But it is important to stress the problems of comparability. The studies have been conducted at various points of time; different research designs have been utilized; and the objectives of the studies have often been quite different.

This article discusses the book "Readings in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences," edited by May Brodbeck. The author gives attention to three topics discussed in this anthology. The first is the controversy over whether the account of explanation given by sociologist Hempel is applicable in the human as well as in the natural sciences. The second theme in the anthology obviously relevant to sociologist is that of methodological individualism versus holism. Many of the papers in this anthology characterize at one level the alternatives confronting a scientist whose theorizing confronts either empirical or conceptual difficulties. Just because actions are informed by intentions and purposes, and intentions and purposes presuppose beliefs, so a social role-which specifies and prescribes or permits certain courses of action for certain types of person presupposes certain beliefs. The matter of the philosophy of science may not only be regulative as regards the form of our theories and the lessons to be learnt here may well be one that the sociologist now feels have been conveyed to him almost too often-but suggestive as to their content.

The argument of this paper is firstly, that public opinion is a complex process that cannot properly be measured by an arbitrary cross-section of opinions. Secondly, that pollsters adopt a different definition of public opinion that makes certain value assumptions and thirdly, that-even on the pollsters own definition, measures of opinion on controversial issues offered by commercial polls cannot readily be validated and are as practical guides to public opinion of doubtful value. The practice of public opinion polling implicitly treats public opinion as opinions of all members of a defined universe, such as the electorate, as measured by means of standard questions presented to an appropriate sample. It is a sign of the influence of the polls that current discussion of public opinion tends to take this definition for granted. Criticism there certainly is, on both technical and constitutional grounds. But few people challenge the implied definition of public opinion. Political scientists and sociologists have given systematic expression to the view that public opinion derives from activities of restricted numbers of people, typically organized in groups.

The purpose of this short paper is to review the present the position of industrial sociology as an academic discipline as of September 1959. It will focus therefore on its approach, its field of inquiry, the selection of problems for study, methods used and the present provision for its pursuit. The treatment given to the article is analytical rather than descriptive, since it can be assumed that most sociologists will have some knowledge of particular developments and various researches in this field, and only passing reference will therefore be made to them. There is still a tendency to use the term industrial sociology compendiously, to refer to all developments in the study of social relations in industry, in a manner which is reminiscent of the way in which the role of sociology itself was seen at one time simply as synoptic. This tendency of course is indicative of the developmental stage of the subject, but is quite illegitimate and emphasizes the need for clarification of the special position of industrial sociology.

This article is an attempt to evaluate the contribution of the late Erving Goffman to the field of Sociology. In doing so I have attempted to document some of the main commentaries upon Coffman's work — especially those of A. Dawe and A.W. Gouldner — and to evaluate their validity. This paper is presented within the framework of a general overview of Goffman's work and an elaboration of some of the salient themes within it. The intention of the author is to free Goffman from some of the crude overgeneralizations that his colleagues have used in evaluating his writings. In particular, I have attempted to show, in general terms, how Goffman's work is sensitive to ‘structural’ as well as ‘situational’ concerns and also to class, hierarchy and power. It is argued that Goffman's importance has been underestimated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Upon his death in 1920, at the age of 56, sociologist Max Weber left behind a huge and untidy mass of personal papers and scholarly manuscripts, some of the latter in the process of being edited for publication by Weber himself, others intended for intensive reworking, others yet superseded drafts. The intended characteristics of the book "Max Weber Gesamtausgabe," in the first of the publications listed below: they are those of a critical-historical edition, intended not to replace the several collections of Weber's writings currently available for the use of students, but rather to serve the needs of scholars, including the editors of such future collections. The edition is to include three sections: Writings and Speeches; Manuscripts of and notes from lecture courses. In the first section, the arrangement of material will embody a compromise between chronological and thematic grouping; that is, the numbering of volumes will reflect the shifts in the prevailing concerns of Weber's scholarly and publicistic activity, but each volume may contain again, in chronological sequence writings and speeches. From a number of years in so far as they bear on its chief theme. Each volume will contain editorial material which elucidates the circumstances of each piece of writing or speech, indicates the state of the relative sources and eventual discrepancies among them, and clarifies or corrects such parts or points in the text as might baffle or mislead even a relatively informed contemporary reader.

This paper is an analysis of the role of language in historical class formation in light of the recent developments in postmodern social theory and historiography. Revisionists from within this perspective have questioned if not abandoned E. P. Thompson's class struggle analysis, arguing that he fails to account for the constitutive character of language in the construction of collective identities. They oppose his account of the making of the English working class with alternative histories emphasizing populist and other non-class identities. Drawing on the Bakhtin Circle of literary studies, and returning to Thompson's own writings, I argue that we can incorporate language into class struggle analysis as a critical mediating force. I maintain that class struggle occurs largely within a hegemonic discursive formation, and that class consciousness and identity thus in part are formed through counter-hegemonic strategies of resistance to ideological domination. To illustrate this theory I analyse the role of language in the class struggles of the silk weavers of the Spitalfields district in London in the 1820s. I analyse how the silk weavers articulated a class consciousness through their counter-hegemonic struggles with the large capitalists and the language of political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dorfman is eulogized as the creator and curator of the definitive account of Veblen's life and work. He argued that Veblen was the archetypal marginal man and that this explains his dissenting contribution. Dissemination of Dorfman's pathography of Veblen led to its hegemony - until now. Andrew Veblen was the first to challenge Dorfman's portrait of his younger brother's life in the mid 1920s. He asserted that his family were not linguistically, socially or economically deprived. However, it was not until Dorfman's private papers became publicly available in the 1990s, that his flawed view of Veblen became more widely and comprehensively contested. An alternative appreciation of Veblen is advanced with reference to his experiences in general and the works of Bellamy, Morris and Ibsen in particular. Data sources include Dorfman's original tome, Andrew Veblen's extensive correspondence with Dorfman, and Veblen's own writings. It is concluded that Veblen's radical views are entirely congruent with his life experiences during an era of capitalist transformation. The moral of this saga is that a dose of Veblenian scepticism is essential to intellectual health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to reassess Norbert Elias's central theme of the `civilizing process' with reference to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. My argument is that the process of `civilization' must be seen as thoroughly ambivalent, following Zygmunt Bauman's use of the latter term to denote the possibility of assigning an object or event to more than one category. The practice of naming and classifying social behaviours or processes as `civilized' or `barbarous' is am- bivalent, because they can never be placed so unequivocably in one or the other category - certainly not in a social scientific way. I then trace out ambivalences in the three central features of the `civilizing' process as Elias conceives it - the monopolization of means of violence, the removal of physical violence `behind the scenes', and the lengthening chains of interdependence between people. I shall argue that these ambivalent features are as much potential forces of destruction as they are of internal pacification and `civilization'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a critique of the increasingly fashionable view that what actors say about their motives and intentions cannot be used by sociologists to explain that behaviour. The Millsian 'vocabularies of motives' position and the more recent attempts of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis to produce a sociology that does not make inferences about actors' intentions are examined. We argue that Mills adds little or nothing to the conventional view, of motives and that, while claiming to do otherwise, ethnomethodology and conversation analysis do, in fact, make considerable use of intuited inferences about actors' intentions. We intend, with these criticisms, to rescue and rehabilitate the conventional uses of actors' talk as a key to their motivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent discussions in the philosophy of the social sciences exhibit a remarkable agreement about what has become one of the most urgent problems for sociological methodology. The situation may be summarized thus: ethnomethodological developments in interpretative sociology have shown that there can be no firm and certain basis on which to ground truth claims for our propositions. The conclusion drawn from this is that the traditional aspirations of conventional sociology — to be objective and scientific — cannot be attained. However, the programme of work promised by those who have developed ethnomethodology as a critique of ‘conventional sociology’ itself contains certain difficulties. Thus, the problem addressed by those writing in the philosophy of social science is this: given the contradictions in sociology as traditionally practiced, and given the problems in the programme offered by those largely responsible for discrediting it, whither sociology now? The purpose of my paper is to show that the question may be unnecessary. This is not so much because interpretative sociologists are mistaken in their understanding of the conditions in which research is undertaken, but rather because the positivist epistemological assumptions taken to be necessary for an objective scientific sociology, are not required for this and indeed are erroneous. I shall argue specifically that a Popperian account of (objective) science is wholly compatible with the understanding contemporary interpretative sociologists have of the research context, and indeed that there are striking similarities between this and Popper's ideas, most especially those developed in recent years. Thus, I shall go on to suggest that, by adopting a Popperian epistemology we may thereby recognize the validity of the fundamentals of the ethnomethodological position without being forced to abandon the effort to be objective and scientific; we may also sidestep the particular dif... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper compares one aspect of Max Weber's explicit conception of ‘interpretive sociology’ with his actual practices in his substantive investigations. It shows that Weber's overt emphasis on the importance of meanings and motives in causal explanation of social action does not correspond adequately with the true mode of explanation involved in his comparative-historical studies of the world religions. Rather, the ultimate level of causal explanation in Weber's substantive writings is that of the social-structural conditions under which certain forms of meaning and motivation can achieve historical efficacy. A model is developed to represent the actual nature of ‘Weberian sociology’. It is proposed that this internal comparative analysis and interpretation can have useful implications for contemporary sociological debates and approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a comment on a previous article that appeared in the September 1996 issue of the British Journal of Sociology. According to the author, the more interesting issues raised by sociologist Andre Beteille's paper have less to do with the mismatch between class and status than with the question of how two conceptions of status, the one focusing on unequal social esteem and the other on the equal rights of citizenship should be related to each other in a general theory of social stratification since it is not unreasonable to anticipate some difficulty when the same general concept is used to describe a major aspect of inequality and also an antidote to it. The common feature of status relations in all societies is that they are exhibited fundamentally through acts of defense, acceptance and derogation. But such interactions vary according to how they are sanctioned and maintained, and the kinds of privileges and disabilities with which they are associated. No one would wish to deny that within the limits set by the rights of citizenship, inequalities of esteem, and more particularly the social networks in which they are grounded, continue to exert their influence for the reasons Beteille so well adduces.

Abstract: Economists and sociologists of religion have claimed that religious establishment dampens religious vitality, leading to lower recruitment efforts, low attendance, declining membership within established congregations, and the ‘crowding out’ of non‐established congregations. Conversely, these authors have told us, disestablishment will lead to more religious vitality. Remarkably, even though these claims rest on the connection between establishment and the organizational and membership behaviour of local religious congregations, no research has directly examined that connection. We use the 2008 Swiss National Congregations Study as well as historical data to assess the effect of different levels of religious establishment on both established and non‐established congregations. We find that established congregations do indeed show less religious vitality than non‐established congregations. Contrary to the claims of the economic literature, however, these covariations are not caused by differences in religious establishment on the cantonal level. Both our quantitative and historical analyses show that disestablishment has not led to religious vitality for either established or non‐established congregations. The only clear effect of disestablishment is a dramatic decrease of income for established congregations. Based on quantitative and historical evidence, we suggest that differences between established and non‐established congregations are produced by differences in religious tradition and immigration flows, not by differences in levels of establishment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Those students who were among the first sociology graduates in the UK barely feature in standard histories of the discipline, which all have an intellectual and institutional focus. This article remedies this neglect by researching the social backgrounds and later careers of sociology graduates from the London School of Economics and Political Science [LSE] and Bedford College for Women from the first such graduate in 1907 until those graduating in the 1930s. Data for this exercise were compiled from a variety of sources. The more important are: UK censuses, especially that of 1911; various civil registration records; archived student files; and, for the graduates who entered university teaching, issues of the Yearbook of the Universities of the Empire [later the Commonwealth Universities' Yearbook]. The dataset includes all identified graduates in the BSc(Econ), Special Subject Sociology, degree from 1907 to 1935 and all in the BA (Honours) in Sociology degree from 1925 to 1939. LSE sociology graduates tended to be older and to have more cosmopolitan backgrounds, with fathers more likely than for Bedford College graduates to come from commercial rather than professional backgrounds. Both institutions' graduates' careers tended to the Civil Service and local government. LSE graduates gravitated to education, especially to higher education if male, whilst those of Bedford College went into welfare work, countering a stereotype from some previous literature that especially women graduates were heavily constrained to follow careers in schoolteaching. The article also gives comparisons with the social-class profile and career destinations of several cohorts of postwar sociology graduates, noting a number of similarities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents updates on the British Sociological Association in 1955. It was decided at the Annual General Meeting in March 1955 that the office of the president should be created so that it might be possible to invite an eminent sociologist to become associated in this way with the association. The president would hold office for one year and would be eligible for re-election. This decision was endorsed by the majority of the members voting by postal ballot and the constitution has been amended accordingly. Professor Morris Ginsberg has been invited to be the first holder of the office for the remainder of the current year and has been pleased to accept. On October 14, 1955 the association will hold a meeting on problems of social change and causation at the University of London in England. Meanwhile, the Urban Sociology Study Group and the Industrial Sociology Study Group will resume their monthly meetings in October 1955. The possibility is being investigated of forming a third study group for examining the territory on which the interests of psychiatrists, psychologists and sociologists meet. Furthermore, the association welcomes applications for membership from younger sociologists and others whose disciplines are related to sociology. It offers student membership for those occupied in full-time study at an institution of higher learning. Student members have all the advantages of full membership except the power to vote and make nominations. Subscriptions for 1955 will be waived for all members whose applications are accepted between now and the end of the year. Particulars will be sent on application to all those interested.

In this essay I want to address two question marks which arose during my reading of Michael Burawoy's inspiring piece. First, sharing his spirit of recreating the sociological enlightenment by differentiating between different types of public sociologies, I do not share his optimism that sociology can easily become an integral part of public discourse and practice. Second, I don’t think that mainstream sociology is really prepared for this adventure. My argument points in the opposite direction: all the different forms of public and non-public sociology are in danger of becoming museum pieces. Thus, sociology not only needs a public voice, it also needs to be reinvented first – in order to have a public voice at all! [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on Michael Burawoy's article "For Public Sociology," in volume 56, issue number 2, of the "British Journal of Sociology." Michael Burawoy has presented 11 theses on public sociology. Some of his main claims can be summarized in three statements: public sociology is part of a four-fold bundle of disciplinary activities; public sociology is important and should be made stronger and developed as an integrated part of the discipline; and public sociology requires well functioning publics. Comments are made on: academic institutions as bundles of activities; the nature of public sociology; and why and how dissemination and public discourse should be made stronger.

This article comments on Michael Burawoy's article "For Public Sociology," in volume 56, issue number 2, of the "British Journal of Sociology." Focus is made on two aspects of Burawoy's arguments which would be inaccurate if they were directed to the international community of sociologists: the division of social labor or functional differentiation among the four sociologies; and the nature of the friction among them. Thus, while Michael Burawoy's challenge to sociologists to think constructively and critically about sociology is timely and welcome, his ideas should be discussed in the context of the geographical breadth of the discipline.

This article points out that Michael Burawoy's call for a renewal of commitment to a public sociology has had a massive impact. Writing in the tradition of C. Wright Mills's clarion call, Burawoy seeks to defend the critical and reflexive role of the sociologist through his or her autonomous engagement in the public sphere of political decision. His argument has had a mixed reception in the United States. For the most part his views have been welcomed as re-emphasizing an important dimension of sociological activity that has, perhaps, been lost or submerged in the current political and financial climate of conservatism and retrenchment. Within the universities, many have found it easier to keep their heads down and get on with purely academic work, lest political involvement bring unwanted attention. Burawoy has been seen as re-asserting the political legitimacy of public participation. In some quarters, however, his views have met with a more negative reaction and have been seen as a scarcely concealed attempt to abandon impartiality and to advocate a leftist radicalism. This mixed reception was, perhaps, inevitable, given the political context in which Burawoy has intervened. He is, necessarily, critical of sociologists, other social scientists, the universities and the other institutions for which sociologists work, and also the wider structures of power in which these are enmeshed.

This article responds to Craig Calhoun and other critics of the author by defending the seriousness and coherence of public sociology as a distinct realm within a national and global disciplinary division of sociological labor, and as an antidote to external subversion. Two visions of the public sociologist are two visions of social change; the one riding on the claimed universality of intellectuals, the other riding on the organization of subaltern groups. For the traditional public sociologist the privileged site is the university, while civil society is the locus of misrecognized suffering; for the organic public sociologist civil society is the source of insight into what is and what could be, insight excavated and elaborated by the sociologist. This gives two divergent visions and divisions of sociology as a field of power. In the conception of traditional public sociology the danger comes from the invading forces of mass media, consultantships, technocracy, commodification and politicization of the university, refracted within the field of sociology as the subjugation of the academic to the extraacademic. In the conception of the organic public sociology domination appears as rationalization. Here the danger comes from science itself, such as neoliberal economics that imposes a singular model on all, precisely because it does not acknowledge the critique of its theoretical foundations or the lived experience of the people its theorizes.

Sociologist Catherine Hakim argues that two problems undermine author's critical assessment of preference theory. First, that the longitudinal study of first-time mothers upon which author base that assessment does not provide a valid test of preference theory; and second, that the results of that study generally support preference theory. A key issue over which Hakim and the author appear to have few differences is the role or purpose of theories that is, to explain something of interest. They also agree that theories can be judged by their fruitfulness--their ability to give rise to new ideas or testable hypotheses; and by their robustness when tested empirically. It is not clear whether they agree that theories can he mistaken. Although in her new work on models of the family Hakim states that theory is not right or wrong, it is either useful or not useful, she goes on to say that human capital theory is clearly wrong in its treatment of educational qualifications. It seems likely that Hakim accepts that theories succeed, and can fail, on the basis of accumulated evidence.

The issue of morality has lost its position of importance within the discipline, yet a growing number of sociologists interested in the ambivalent character of (post)modernity have returned to this subject in recent years. This article examines the revival of interest in morality and suggests it would benefit by engaging creatively with Durkheim's writings on homo duplex, collective effervescence, and the social construction of moral orders. After examining this relatively neglected part of Durkheim's work, developed most fully in his (1995 [1912]) The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, we focus on two of the most influential contemporary commentators on morality, Bauman and Giddens. Having evaluated the limitations of their respective approaches (which associate the sources of morality respectively with a methodologically individualistic bodily impulse of `being for the other', and with an increasingly global cognitive reflexivity), we analyse recent writings which have attempted to transcend such difficulties by engaging with some of the tensions in Durkheim's account of sacred moral. orders. These high- light those features of Durkheim's work which continue to offer a productive basis on which to develop further a thoroughly sociological appreciation of morality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Piaget's sociological theory is not widely discussed among sociologists, partly because much of it is contained in untranslated French works. In this article I summarize several aspects of Piaget's sociological views, especially his social exchange theory, and briefly indicate its relevance to several current theories in sociology and social psychology. Rejecting both Durkheim's sociological holism and Tarde's individualism, Piaget advances a sociological relativism (relationalism) in which all social facts are reducible to social relations and these, in turn, are reducible to rules, values, and signs. Piaget's theory of social values takes the form of a social exchange theory characterized first in an abstract, logical way -- its structural aspect -- and second its developmental aspects. Piaget claims social exchange requires normative principles of reciprocity and that individual social development results in such an equilibrium because rationality itself is social in nature and based upon social co-operation. These views, in turn, derive from his orthogenetic view concerning the course of evolution: development can be characterized as an increase in equilibrium manifested both in individual action and in social interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to understand the relationship between sociology and history by examining of material relating to the position and development of sociology in Yugoslavia with the hope the distinctive nature of the position of sociology in society will be thrown into comparative relief. It must be made clear that in discussions of the relationship between history and sociology, one is dealing with highly organized professional groups, with a high level of articulate self-awareness. These groups tend to be relatively self-sufficient intellectually, and there is little cross-recruitment between them. One makes a career, in other words, as either a historian or as a sociologist. Under these circumstances the discussion about the relationship between sociology and history reads like a kind of academic diplomacy. But, like all diplomacy, it is dependent upon a highly specific set of political circumstances. One does not negotiate treaties to cover all circumstances, but only certain foreseen circumstances. A brief consideration of the position of sociology in Yugoslavia will serve to highlight just how specific and peculiar are the circumstances which govern our current understanding of the relationship between sociology and history.

The article presents information on the factors related to the urban sociology in an urban society. Some of the factors are the intellectual crisis that confronts urban sociologists, the direction taken by British urban sociology, and the statement of metropolitan dominance. All these factors led to the uneven development of metropolitan centre and provincial satellites. Factors like residence, occupation, religion, politics, legal and military obligation can be considered for the total social experience and for the social structure that extends beyond the urban area. There has been a growing public concern with the changes in cities.

This article reflects on the social philosophy of Karl Popper. Karl Popper is a widely influential writer on the methodology of the social sciences. To many sociologists, scientific method means Popper's account of scientific method. Yet Popper does not believe that sociology should be value-free. He believes that a commitment to scientific sociology, far from clearing us from making value-judgments about utopian thought, requires us to denounce it. Thus Poppers, supports the orthodox view that utopian thought is objectionable, but it is unusual in deriving this value-judgment from his conception of scientific method. Popper developed his views on the methodology of the social sciences and his social philosophy in the course of his critique of something he calls historicism. Popper defines historicism as an approach to the social sciences which assumes that historical prediction is their principal aim, and which assumes that this aim is attainable by discovering the rhythms or the patterns, the laws or the trends that underlie the evolution of history. With characteristic vigor, Popper denounces historicism as logically defective, false, sterile and murderous. Poppers critique of historicism is linked with his analysis of utopianism. The connection is mainly made by a third villain: holism. Holism is the doctrine that events must be understood in the context of the social whole of which they form a part.

In education, as in other respects, Ghana's position has been a lodestar from which other emerging nations chart their course. This pioneer status has attracted many eminent scholars to scrutinize the system at close quarters, and to examine the origins of Ghanaian students. Thus, within three years of the University of Ghana's inception Gustav Jahoda found that 66 per cent of its students came from the top 7 per cent of the working population, while farmers and manual workers were poorly represented. Subsequent scholars have reached similar results, although some have preferred to emphasize long-term trend toward a student body more representative of the population as a whole. Unfortunately, such optimism proves to have been somewhat premature. The debate has also illuminated the variety of interpretations of social stratification. Sociologists take the observed, inequality of life chances as axiomatic evidence of the existence of class differences. They replied that class has a psychological as well as a structural connotation, and he suggests that relative consensus over the value of education itself indicates the classlessness of Ghanaian society.

This article presents a note stating that the Max Weber Centennial Commission has been established in order to mark the year 1964 as the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of the German social scientist Max Weber by focusing attention on Weber's impact on the social sciences. The Commission is designed to co-ordinate the efforts of co-operating institutions of higher learning and academic organizations by arranging visiting professorships, exchange lectureships, seminars, and institutes. The activities of the commission will culminate into a symposium to be held in April 1964 in Kansas City.

The article focuses on various sociologists. There were a number of sociologists who were rather bemused and puzzled seeing Sorokin being idolized by the radical students and young faculty members. It seemed to them that Sorokin, who had condemned violence and revolutionary activity ever since the Revolution, was being worshipped by the wrong people. Some of the famous scholars are Pitirim A. Sorokin, Nicholas S. Timasheff and Georges Gurvitch. Timasheff, Sorokin and Gurvitch have succeeded, each in his own way, in becoming internationally famous scholars. The paths they each chose to follow seem to have been determined to a significant degree by their respective family backgrounds, as well as by the Revolution. Timasheff's approach in his sociological writings was historical and analytical. Sorokin's work and style represent a marked contrast to Timasheff's. While Timasheff used historical data as empirical facts, Sorokin used the data as means for conforming his personal apocalyptic vision. Gurvitch's ideas were also formed under the direct impact of the Revolution.

This article discusses the problem of social control among sociologists which raises fundamental questions about the nature and organization of human societies. One important tradition of sociological thought, influenced by sociologist E. Durkheim has exa