Search

Critical race theory is growing in popularity in Britain. However, critics and advocates of critical race theory (CRT) in Britain have neglected the racialized social system approach. Through ignoring this approach, critics have thus "missed the target" in their rebuttals of CRT, while advocates of CRT have downplayed the strength of critical race analysis. By contrast, in this paper, I argue that that through the racialized social system approach, critical race theory has the conceptual flexibility to study British society. As a practical social theory, critical race theory provides us with the tools to study the realities and reproduction of racial inequality. To demonstrate this strength of CRT, and to demonstrate its theoretical nature, I discuss the conceptual framework of the racialized social system approach, paying specific attention to the notions of social space, the racial structure and racial interests; the racialized interaction order, racialized emotions, and structure and agency; and racial ideology, racial grammar, and racialized cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central concern of this paper is that there has been a move within British sociology to subsume (or sometimes, even replace) the concept of 'family' within ideas about personal life, intimacy and kinship. It calls attention to what will be lost sight of by this conceptual move: an understanding of the collective whole beyond the aggregation of individuals; the creation of lacunae that will be (partially) filled by other disciplines; and engagement with policy developments and professional practices that focus on 'family' as a core, institutionalized, idea. While repudiating the necessity (and indeed, pointing out the dangers) of providing any definitive answer to definitions of 'family', the paper calls for critical reflection on the implications of these conceptual moves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about tendencies to the subversion of sociology as a discipline. It connects external factors of the wider socio-political environment of higher education in the UK, especially those associated with the audit culture and new systems of governance, with the internal organization of the discipline. While the environment is similar for all social science subjects, the paper argues that there are specific consequences for sociology because of characteristics peculiar to the discipline. The paper discusses these consequences in terms of the changing relationship between sociology and the growing interdisciplinary area of applied social studies as a form of 'mode 2 knowledge'. It argues that while sociology 'exports' concepts, methodologies and personnel it lacks the internal disciplinary integrity of other 'exporter' disciplines, such as economics, political science and anthropology. The consequence is an increasingly blurred distinction between sociology as a discipline and the interdisciplinary area of applied social studies with a potential loss of disciplinary identity. The paper concludes with a discussion of how this loss of identity is associated with a reduced ability to reproduce a critical sensibility within sociology and absorption to the constraints of audit culture with its preferred form of mode 2 knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although globalization has highlighted the danger of conflating state, society and nation, sociologists remain insufficiently alert to such banal nationalism. Newspapers offer a strong test case of the extent of diversity in the construction of state, national and social boundaries, since Billig and Anderson have argued they comprise a special case where their orientation to an audience simultaneously located in a state, society and nation allows them to reproduce a sense of national identity. However, despite the commonsense obviousness of the term, it proves remarkably difficult to define what the ‘British national press’ might comprise. Circulation density of titles varies substantially across different parts of the UK and editorial copy is altered to address diverse ‘national’ readerships. ‘British’ newspapers also circulate in other states, especially the Republic of Ireland. After reviewing how newspapers might be defined as ‘national’ and/or ‘British’, we conclude that both Anderson and Billig over-estimate the congruence, relevance and obviousness of state, society and national boundaries. If the conceptualization of such boundaries is problematic in the case of the press, it follows that it must be still more so for most other objects of sociological analysis, including that of ‘society’ itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the authors' comments on the report by John Westergaard and Ray Pahl to the University Grants Committee (UGC) on the institutional state of sociology in British universities. The paper has its limitations. Both authors were members of the working group of the UGC for the subject review, and so among the signatories of the report. At the time of writing this, the report is still only in the pipeline for publication so there are no reactions yet from sociologists to either argue or agree with the report. Nor can we make we make up for possible bias from inside commitment by offering startling benefit of inside view. Not because our lips are sealed; but because we do not think there is much unexpected to expose. We have no breathtaking revelations to make, for example, about mechanisms or pressures which might have been at work to induce the subject review panel to give the report a shape or direction at odds with some of its members' views. Circumstantial pressures there certainly were; but of a kind needing no special insight to anticipate or detect. The working group's recommendations bear no doubt a clear imprint from awareness of the acute, and politically determined, shortage of funds for higher education.

The article presents a examination into the history and trajectory of sociology as scholastic discipline in Great Britain, debating the flaws, challenges and possible future of the field. The author heavily cites and responds to a paper by John Holmwood included within the issue discussing the same topic. The author confirms and expands Holmwood's analysis, discussing the divergences which occurred in the discipline between the 1960s and the 1990s. Attention is particularly given to the role of sociology as an interdisciplinary art and the internal fragmentation of the discipline as a result.

The article focuses on the paper "British sociology and public intellectuals: consumer society and imperial decline," by Bryan Turner. Philippe Fontaine reviews the fact that sociologist have failed to document the gradual fall Great Britain from world power status, and discusses R. W. Cornell's views on the connection between empire and sociology. The anti-intellectual sentiment seen by Turner in Great Britain is critiqued, as well as Turner's insistence that social scientists chose certain topics to structure their investigations.

Debates regarding the status of age in social analysis are foundational to the sociology of aging, with scholars continually questioning the role of age as a social force. The contemporary politicization of age in British politics sheds useful light on this debate. During the past decade, age has emerged as a potent predictor of political preference in the United Kingdom, encompassing numerous intertwined political economic developments. At face value, the emergence of age as a key political variable substantiates the status of age in social analysis. However, I argue that it is articulations of age‐stratified politics, as much as the associations themselves, that should be of principle concern for the sociology of aging, because such articulations are reformulating age, aging and intergenerational relations. The sociology of aging should, therefore, engage with the contemporary politicization of age as a new answer to foundational debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a previous paper published in "British Journal of Sociology," the author made the claim that despite decades of intensive investigation, not a single researcher had ever shown that class difference in education was indeed unfair and unjust. It was a charge that was underwritten by a simple, if technical, argument, which drew attention to what, in logic, would have to be shown if such a difference was to be regarded as an inequality, rather than as just another difference in a differentiated society. In this case, it was suggested that, other things being equal, the researcher would have to meet one of two conditions. He would have to show that the different classes were similarly disposed to education or, alternatively, if there were evidence, as in Great Britain, of considerable working-class indifference to education, he would need to demonstrate that such indifference was itself the result of structural or cultural inequality. Only then, it was argued, could the researcher be said to have reasonably shown that class difference in education was unfair; for only then could the researcher be reasonably sure that such a difference was not, after all, just another difference.

Mannheim's 1923 essay 'The Problem of Generations' has often been described as the seminal theoretical treatment of generations as a sociological phenomenon. Yet in practice scant attention has been paid to the sociology of generations by British sociologists. This is despite the notion of generation being widespread in everyday language as a way of understanding differences between age groups and as a means of locating individuals and groups within historical time. This paper aims to raise the profile of the sociology of generations within British sociology. It is shown that Mannheim's essay can be read as a text which contributes to our understanding of key sociological issues, in addition to 'the problem of generations'. These issues include the nature of time, the relationship between biology and the social, and socio-psychological connections of language and knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper poses the issue of distributive justice in terms of the relationship between social class, social mobility and educational attainment, in contemporary Britain. Having discussed various conceptions of justice which might vindicate class inequality, the authors investigate empirically the specifically meritocratic defence, and report survey data suggesting that the effect of class origins on class destinations is only partially mediated by educational achievement. Class privilege can compensate for educational failure. Gender is also significant since women tend to fare worse than men with similar class origins and credentials. This evidence undermines the claim that Britain is a meritocratic society and supports the suggestion that only by political intervention can equality of opportunity be rendered compatible with significant and structured inequality of outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the recent introduction and popularity of professional soccer in United States and Canada, this paper looks at whether the crowd violence which tends to accompany the game in Britain will be a problem in North America. Analysis includes a comparison of the historical development and present day conditions of the game in Britain and in North America. It is concluded that due to differences in the historical development and present day physical and social conditions within which the game is played, soccer in Britain lends itself to crowd violence whereas soccer in North America does not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents news briefs concerning the field of sociology in Great Britain as of December 1952. Initiation of a conference by the British Sociological Association from March 27 to March 29, 1953 at King's College of Household and Social Science in London, England; Information on the Second World Congress of Sociology being organized by the International Sociological Association from August 24 to September 1, 1953; Appearance of the obituary of Professor T. Geiger in the March 1953 issue of the "British Journal of Sociology."

High-profile claims about the problem of the 'Baby Boomer' generation, made in media and policy circles in recent years, have contributed to an awakened interest in the sociology of generations. While many claims focus on resource issues arising from the existence of a relatively large cohort (for example, pensions and healthcare), they contain an implicit moral critique of the generation associated with the postwar 'boom' of the Sixties. This article examines the development of the cultural script of the Baby Boomer problem in British newspapers over a 26-year period, to examine how shifts in the discourse about the Boomer generation relate to wider social, economic, cultural and political trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The career experience of men and women in British university sociology since 1950 is compared, using published data for the whole group and fresh data from a sample of departments. It is shown that, when like is compared with like, the outcomes for men and for women have not been as different as is often suggested; family reasons were more salient in women's careers, but in the end have not made much difference to their destinations. But the proportions of women recruited have varied over time, and the experience of both sexes has been strongly influenced by historical factors affecting different periods. Within the constraints which those have imposed, individuals have not all made the same choices, and that too has affected the outcomes.

Positivism has been declared dead in sociological theory circles, yet questions remain as to its viabilily among researchers. The authors present diagnostic evidence ahout positivism in sociological practice through a content analysis of journal articles published in the late 1960s and the late 1980s in the sociological journals of the USA and Britain. Using an index based on seven elements of positivism that were characteristic of the 'theory construction' movement of the late 1960s, the authors find evidence of the effects of time and nation on the use of positivism. Disaggregation of the index reveals that most of the observed change is associated with the elements of 'instrumental' positivism, parlicularly statistics. The results raise questions about the relationship between theory and research and about sociologists' philosophies of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents the list of authors of the December 1989 issue of the British Journal of Sociology.

This section presents the articles published in the December 1989 issue of the British Journal of Sociology.

This article focuses on ethnomethodology in Great Britain. Immediately on publication in 1967, Harold Garfinkel's Studies in Ethnomethodology made a strong and controversial impact on British sociology, which attracted attention than was altogether beneficial to the longer term health of the enterprise within the British concept. Initial interest and misplaced enthusiasm quickly faded, sometimes replaced by a resentment that ethnomethodology had not lived up to the image rather arbitrarily created for it. Other fashions came along, and the volume of comment expanded, especially the gratuitous and negative kind. The number who have remained well disposed to ethnomethodology through the period is small, a substantial proportion of them being linked through the Sociology Department at Manchester University in England. Studies of a more or less ethnomethodological sort have covered a range of substantive topics including the formulation of arguments in sociology texts, the analysis of newspaper headlines and stories, courtroom proceedings, interviews, interrogations, educational and business simulations, classroom organization, doctor-patient encounters, moral categories and political speeches, among others.

This article argues that contemporary British historical sociology is cognitively high-powered and of immense importance for sociology as a whole. A novelty of the exposition that is more or less dictated by such a claim is the specification of intellectual advance. Contemporary historical sociology is not another research program promising to deliver the goods at some future date, instead it is actually possible to point to sustained achievements which have implications for core concerns of the discipline. The term historical sociology is used broadly to include comparative as well as historical studies. A distinction will be made between a general sense of the past and the practice of historical sociology. One obvious way to underline the difference is by insisting that all sociologists, though with greater or lesser degrees of self-consciousness, posses the former. If historical sociology is a discrete speciality, it has a unique capacity to speak to fundamental presuppositions of most practicing sociologists. It must also be admitted that it is not always possible to separate British historical sociology from developments elsewhere. It has been pointed out that sociology was created by the emergence of modern societies whose precise physiognomy has thereafter been the central preoccupation of the subject.

This article does not aim to be a systematic review of women's studies and its ramifications in British sociology; rather it aims to present some of the key themes and areas attended to, and in the process reach some assessment of the extent to which the exercise of doing sociology has been in any way transformed by the feminist impetus. Three prior remarks are called for: one is that, since, by its very nature, women's studies is an interdisciplinary activity, restriction of the field of vision of sociology per se is not always possible or desirable. In particular, work done in the fields of social policy, social psychology, and social anthropology has fed into the concern of women's studies in sociology over this period. A cross-cultural perspective was especially important in the early years, when concern with the origin and meaning of observable social differences between men and women was high on the agenda. A second preliminary qualification relates to the exercise of locating women's studies within the academic domain. There are those who argue that this is, itself, improper; that, insofar as feminism is concerned with political action, the introduction of women into the academic syllabus is inappropriate and may even lead to political stasis.

This articles provides an overview of the topics on British sociology discussed in the September 1989 issue of The British Journal of Sociology. Pahl and Westergaard's reports to the University Grants Council on the institutional state of sociology in the British universities, represents a sociography of the sociological establishment at the last moment of a constitution of more or less autonomous universities which is not to pass to national management by the Universities' Funding Council. While Albrow's view of the nature of sociology offers illuminating contrast with the view taken by W. G. Runciman. Runciman dismissed some other fashionable explanations and went on to put forward his own terms of the nature of the subject. The significance of education in the political economy of modern society differs sharply in liberal and Marxist theory. For liberal it is central to the determination of both production and distribution. For Marxists it is a dependent variable about which Marx himself wrote little. In more recent writing the contrast continues, mainly because of opposed interpretations of the changes in the structure of employment and the incidence of the changes in the structure of employment and the incidence of social mobility both of which entail theories of the relation between education and employment.

This article talks about the sociology of hair. It attempts to describe developments in hair symbolism in North America and Great Britain. Hair is perhaps our most powerful symbol of individual and group identity. Powerful, because it is physical and therefore extremely personal, and because, although personal, it is also public rather than private. Furthermore, hair symbolism is usually voluntary rather than imposed or given. Finally, hair is malleable, in various ways, and therefore singularly apt to symbolize both differentiations between, and changes in, individual and group identities. The immense social significance of hair is indicated by economics. The hair industry is worth $2.5 billion in the U.S. as of September 1987. Hair symbolism has been extensively researched by anthropologists, particularly in initiation, marriage and mourning rituals, and in magic on a pars pro toto basis. The theory of hair developed in the article can be called the theory of opposites, since symbolic practice can be summarized in three propositions such as opposite sexes have opposite hair, head hair and body hair are opposite and opposite ideologies have opposite hair. This pattern of triple oppositions indicates the complexity and subtlety of hair symbolism and this complexity is possible for two distinct reasons. First, although hair grows all over the body, in terms of body symbolism there are only three zones of social significance: head hair, facial hair and body hair. Second, hair can be modified in four principal ways. Length can be changed. Colors and styles can also be changed and even the quantity of hair can be changed with the use of false or artificial hair.

The participant-observer study of the Cheshire Home in Great Britain which is described in this article was intended to bring some fieldwork evidence to bear on popular speculations in the field of the sociology of knowledge. These speculations are best known through the writing of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, which draws heavily on the work of Alfred Schutz. Berber's sociology of knowledge draws heavily on notions of socialization which are derived from Goffman's studies of institutional life and from a too simple interpretation of G. H. Mead. This article therefore examines a Cheshire Home as a marginal world which perhaps gave a base for a counter reality and a cluster of counter identities by focusing on processes of resocialization. In view of the great weight given by Berger and Luckmann to temporality as a constituent of reality, special attention was given to the temporal framework within which inmates apprehended both daily agenda and personal biographies. The picture that emerges is of a remarkably tenacious normality. The Cheshire Home was not a base for a counter reality. The three categories which give shape and meaning to the lives of most adults held firm and were still prime categories for interpreting their lives and the world and for structuring relationships.

In this article the author focuses on the sociological career in Great Britain. The author remarks that as a student he knew nothing of working-class life, and the great industrial north was a nightmare land of smoke and grime through which one had to travel to get from London to the Lake District. At Cambridge he read history, which was at that time, with a few exceptions, very badly taught. The experience was not, on the whole, either attractive or enlightening. Nevertheless his whole outlook on life changed very rapidly. Although, history was in general badly taught at Cambridge in the years just before the First World War, there were two teachers who not only taught the author a lot but also left their mark on his subsequent career. The author says that if only he had been a sociologist then, what an opportunity this would have given him to study, by participant observation and any other survey method not requiring a computer, the emergence of a structured society from a miscellaneous collection of individuals flung together by chance in a confined space and its subsequent fortunes.

For the great majority of British citizens electoral behavior consists almost entirely of voting for a party candidate or not voting at all at a Parliamentary General Election, and it is with this form of behavior that this study is mainly concerned. Official statistics show the total turnout for all contested constituencies, but for anything more revealing than this one is dependent upon the findings of sample surveys. From these, however, the turnout rate for various sections of the electorate is established with a fair degree of reliability. It is seen that within the total figures there are considerable and politically important variations. Both political parties have been slow to see and to accept these changes, although one party has been much slower than the other. Their procrastination has been encouraged by the fact that voting behavior, based as it is largely on early socialization and a sense of duty, has not, so far, been affected sharply by changing political attitudes. However, the gap between political attitudes and voting behavior is steadily hardening and even politicians are coming to realize that complex changes in the class structure of post-war British society threatens in the not too distant future to end the old ideological simplifications about politics.

In Great Britain today, more married women are going out to work, first of all because of earlier marriage and, secondly, because of smaller families. Assuming that these trends continue, managers will find that more of their women workers will be married, and probably that their average age will be higher. Married women owe their first duty to their home and family. They therefore constitute a risk from managements point of view since they are liable to go absent or to leave altogether at very short notice in response to their family needs. However, the study presented in the article shows that in a factory which has become mainly dependent on such workers, latitude is allowed. If it were not, the firm would not survive. In a world in which more married women are ready to work and more employers need them, this is likely to be the principal lesson which managers will have to learn.

In a much discussed book, sociologist R. Pedley puts forward the view that the sixth forms of maintained grammar schools are the weakest link in the English education system. Their inefficiency is a result of their small size. Sociologist R.C. Oldfield has produced statistical evidence to show that small schools actually do significantly better than big ones. He shows that, although large schools naturally tend to get more awards than small, when the size of school is taken into account there is a significant tendency for small schools to obtain more awards per 1,000 boys than large schools. This article presents a study to examine the relation between educational achievement and school size. Findings of he study seem to show that Pedley is right in his view that the small schools are not producing such good results as the large. They show also that this tendency becomes more marked with higher levels of academic attainment. The better achievements of large schools are most evident in university awards and are markedly present in distinctions at advanced level. In passes and failures at advanced and ordinary levels the differences are less striking. However, it is not at all obvious from the results that Pedley is right in attributing the superiority of the big school to its large sixth form as such.

This article discusses matters related to the British Sociological Association as of December 1954. The Executive Committee was impressed by the variety of interesting subjects for study groups suggested in reply to the referendum circulated some time ago. An analysis shows that the predominating topics are Town Planning and Housing, and Industrial Sociology. The Executive Committee will sponsor such a group or groups, provided that the initiative is forthcoming from members. Any members who would be willing to join a study group in London on one of the above subjects should get into touch with me. Accommodation would be made available in the evenings at Skepper House and the distribution of notices, etc., would be undertaken by the Association. In certain areas outside London it appears that members are already effectively organized. Members in Bristol or Oxford may care to be put into touch with existing groups in their areas. Those living elsewhere who are prepared to take the initiative should let me know, and if there is adequate local support will receive similar help from the Association. Professor Simey has tendered his resignation from the office of Honorary Treasurer. Professor Simey has been Honorary Treasurer of the Association since its inauguration in 1951 and his departure from office will he keenly felt. Professor W. J. H. Sprott, of the University of Nottingham, has been invited to fill the office and has kindly accepted.