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Based on qualitative data of an upper‐secondary school in Sweden's primary elite community, Djursholm, I propose how medical diagnosis of students as dyslexics contributes to consecrating them by offering a short cut to successful performance, while at the same time reproducing differences between social classes. The study suggests how students that do not score top can be labeled dyslexic and the social and moral consequences of that. I introduce the concept of "consecrating medicalization" in order to discriminate between the effects of medical diagnosis of members of different social classes. In this way, this paper contributes to further examining some key problems in medical sociology and the sociology of elites, by offering a framework of synthesis and integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses ethnographic data to engage a critical reflection on the tension between individual responsibility for the environment and inequality. While research has shown that the majority of sustainable consumers are middle and upper class, educated and white individuals, the study explores how the ethical injunction to ecological sustainability is being introduced to lower‐income neighbourhoods in France. It draws on the observation of a national programme which aims at supporting inhabitants of public housing estates in the process of greening their lifestyle in order to fight climate change and fuel poverty. The paper analyses how environmental responsibilization is specific in that it calls upon a responsibility towards others, towards the common good. Using the Foucauldian concept of 'subjectivation', it describes and analyses the moral work implied by such behaviour change programmes. It demonstrates that a negative representation of poor households and a moral framing of the responsibility for the environment lead to a moralization of their lifestyle under the heading of 'eco‐friendly behaviours'. A paradoxical result of such endeavours is that the social group with the least impactful lifestyle on the environment is the one which is moralized in the most intrusive and resolute manner. The article shows, however, that the tenants manage to resist the normalizing discourse on sustainable living, for reasons which are not anti‐environmentalist. This piece thus provides interesting results for sustainability studies as well as for the sociology of the regulation of underprivileged neighbourhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Class relations have been proven to affect various aspects of social life, even in modern individualized societies. However, following claims on individualization and the so‐called ‘death of class’ thesis, studying the subjective dimension of class – that is, the way individuals perceive of class relations and their own position within them – has gone out of style. We argue that even in equalized societies, subjective class perceptions may still influence attitudes and behaviour as they evolve to fit modern class relations. To explore the existence as well as structure and content of perceived social classes, this article investigates how people describe society and social groups in focus group discussions. We find that groups in different positions in terms of education and economy all tend to apply hierarchical class categories to describe Danish society, which is normally seen as one of the most equal societies and political systems in the world. In addition, we find that economic resources serve as a baseline for the hierarchical ordering, often supplemented with notions of education, lifestyle and/or occupational profile. Even though people are somewhat uncomfortable with the notion of class, their descriptions of Danish society and classes are surprisingly similar within and across groups. We conclude that not only do class relations matter; people are also highly aware of the existing classes and able to position themselves and others according to their notion of classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lay perceptions and experiences of social location have been commonly framed with reference to social class. However, complex responses to, and ambivalence over, class categories have raised interesting analytic questions relating to how sociological concepts are operationalized in empirical research. For example, prior researchers have argued that processes of class dis-identification signify moral unease with the nature of classed inequalities, yet dis-identification may also in part reflect a poor fit between 'social class' as a category and the ways in which people accord meaning to, and evaluate, their related experiences of socio-economic inequality. Differently framed questions about social comparison, aligned more closely with people's own terms of reference, offer an interesting alternative avenue for exploring subjective experiences of inequality. This paper explores some of these questions through an analysis of new empirical data, generated in the context of recession. In the analysis reported here, class identification was common. Nevertheless, whether or not people self identified in class terms, class relevant issues were perceived and described in highly diverse ways, and lay views on class revealed it to be a very aggregated as well as multifaceted construct. It is argued that it enables a particular, not general, perspective on social comparison. The paper therefore goes on to examine how study participants compared themselves with familiar others, identified by themselves. The evidence illuminates social positioning in terms of constraint, agency and (for some) movement, and offers insight into very diverse experiences of inequality, through the comparisons that people made. Their comparisons are situated, and pragmatic, accounts of the material contexts in which people live their lives. Linked evaluations are circumscribed and strongly tied to these proximate material contexts.The paper draws out implications for theorizing lay perspectives on class, and subjective experiences of inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author replies to a critique of his work by scholar Ulrich Beck on the concept of risk society, particularly the importance of the use of social class in the development of a critical theory of risk society. The article responds to distinctions made by Beck concerning risk society including risk and catastrophe, individual and systemic risks, and the concept of conflict logic of social classes and global risks. The article also examines economic inequality, wealth distribution, and political and economic power.

The author suggests that Ulrich Beck's theory of individualization reflects a crude understanding of class and class analysis that undermines his attempt to supersede concepts of class with a "cosmopolitan" perspective. He suggests that Beck forego his hostility to class simply because it is a concept with a long history.

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.

A debate over whether the ‘service class’ is a unitary middle class or is divided between professionals and managers remains unsettled. This qualitative mobility study seeks to elucidate mobility processes of how professional and managerial groups secure their advantages throughout their working lives and over generations. Using data on contemporary Hong Kong, this paper compares the career strategies and intergenerational mobility strategies of forty teachers and thirty managers. Despite employing somewhat different career strategies, managers do not seem less able than teachers to secure their advantages through their work-lives. Using the same intergenerational mobility strategies, teachers and managers exploit economic, cultural, and social resources in a similar way for their children's education. So far as demographic stability over generations is concerned a unified service class is in the making.

This paper studies the impact of social class and education on political orientation. We distinguish the ‘old’ middle class from a new class of social/cultural specialists. However, the difference in their political orientation may especially be related to the level and field of education; the new middle class is more highly educated and often in fields of study that extensively address social competencies, characteristics independently affecting political outcomes. Analyses on Dutch data showed that education is more important in the prediction of ‘cultural’ liberal issues than social class. Economically-oriented issues are more strongly affected by social class. This means that interests of the new middle class are served by liberal standpoints relating to a strong government and income redistribution policies, but not relating to cultural issues.

The connection between class and voting choices has been the subject of controversy in recent years. At one time, most scholars regarded class as the primary basis of political alignments in industrial societies, at least in those not sharply divided by religion or ethnicity. In the 1970s, however, researchers in several countries argued that the connection between class and party was now weakening. Several researchers hold that the political significance of class increases in the early stages of industrialization, but declines in advanced industrial societies. Thus, the leading position of social class was characteristic of a particular stage of society that is now passing. Although this view is widely accepted, it has attracted a number of critics, some argue that political alignments have not actually changed very much in recent years, while others stress the diversity of national experiences. A major reason for the continued disagreement is simply the scarcity of evidence. To measure the association between class and party choice precisely, one must have individual-level data, which are not available for most countries until the 1970s.

This paper examines survey data relating class mobility to satisfaction and dissatisfaction with seven different domains of everyday life among nationally representative samples of men and women living in ten industrialized nations. The evidence is set against competing pessimistic and optimistic accounts of the mobility experience found in earlier literature. Results show that individuals who move from working-class origins to middle-class destinations are no more likely to be systematically satisfied or dissatisfied with life than are the socially immobile or even those downwardly mobile from advantaged backgrounds into the working class. Indeed, in all nations, the overall association between class experience and satisfaction with life is both weak and uneven across the different life-domains. The study also serves to illustrate an important principle of research methodology more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops an analytical framework for the sociological analysis of the clash of economic ideologies. The framework is then used to make sense of the economic debate in South Africa in the 1990s. The argument is that, following Karl Polanyi, we must treat economic life as 'embedded' in social life; that is, economic action is a form of social action. However, the notion of 'embeddedness' must not blind us to the tendency in all economies, especially contemporary market economies, for economic motivations to become differentiated from the rest of our lives. Accordingly, the framework developed through a critique of key assumptions of neoclassical economic theory attends to both the embeddedness and the differentiation of the economic element. Having established a framework of analysis, I apply it to the debate in South Africa about the most relevant frame- work for economic policy in the post-Apartheid economy. The article traces the gradual move of the African National Congress (ANC) away from statist economics to a much more market-oriented policy and shows how this reflects the ANC leaders need to balance the demands of their constituency's (embedded) conception of rationality against the potential investor's more mainstream conception of economic rationality, which is itself embedded in prosperous communities with property and skills. A similar analysis is applied to the development of the economic policy of the ANC's rival, the former ruling National Party (NP). The NP advocates an economic policy framework based on an individual self- reliance and 'free' markets, that is, on an individualistic calculative rationality similar to that of the neoclassical textbooks. However, the NP too has to pursue politics and they, although rather differently from the ANC, have sought to reconcile individual maximizing rationality with the collective rationalities of the oppressed black communities in order to win maximum support. [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]

The correlation between class and delinquency often observed in areal studies and assumed in prominent sociological theories is elusive in studies of individuals commonly used to test these theories. A restricted conceptualization of class in terms of parental origins and the concentration of self-report survey designs on adolescents in school have removed from this area of research street youth who were once central to classic studies of delinquency. We argue that street youth experience current class conditions that cause serious delinquency, and that life on the street is an important intervening variable that transmits indirect effects of control and strain theory variables, including parental class origins. Data gathered from nearly 1000 Toronto school and street youth are analyzed with important implications for the conceptualization of class and delinquency, testing and integrating sociological theories of delinquency, the measurement of delinquency, and the use of cross-sectional and longitudinal research designs. Our findings especially encourage incorporation of street-based samples into research on class-based aspects of theories of delinquency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Marxian theory of social class has always been troubled by the fact that the coalitions that individuals form have not, by and large, been consistent with the pattern of asset ownership. The purpose of this paper is to add another dimension to some of the existing approaches to this 'goodness-of-fit' problem. This is done by using n-person game theory to examine the coalitions that individuals would be expected to form in a struggle over division of the surplus. This provides a partial analysis of fragmentation within the working class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two quite different approaches to the problem of class formation were examined. Implicit in the first, used primarily by social historians, is the notion that the presence or absence of a predisposition to radicalism is the main determinant of organized working-class behavior. Here, class formation involves the development of revolutionary class consciousness. The second, used primarily by political scientists, employs deductive models to analyze class formation as a routine problem in collective organization. By placing the insights provided by the social history perspective into a rational choice framework, the existence of contrasting modes of class formation is hypothesized. Differences in labor militancy serve as the key intervening variable between more particularistic and more universalistic labor movements. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century aggregate cross-sectional data from 14 capitalist democracies is used to examine the relationship between contemporary labor militancy and particular historical structural conditions. Distinct modes of class formation are the product of specific structural characteristics. Labor movement particularism, as represented by higher strike rates in recent years, is strongest where the lag between democratization and industrialization is minimal and industrialization commenced relatively early,, while greater time between democratization and industrialization and late industrialization are associated with low militancy and solidaristic labor movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study follows the development of the class structure in Israel from statehood to the 1980s through three sub-periods, the first from 1948 to the beginning of the 1960s, the second from then till the early 1970s and lastly to the mid-1980s. It is suggested that class is primarily an effect of structure. The elucidation of class structure in Israel is based on the scheme constructed and examined by Wright and others in both capitalist and non-capitalist societies. The study concludes that Israel underwent a process of emerging capitalism after statehood and thus, the class structure was determined by the predominant mode. In the 1980s, Israel's class structure was rapidly approaching those of capitalist societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A long history of grading studies in Britain and the USA has failed to reveal significant difficulties among respondents asked to rank or grade men's occupations. In two small scale studies reported here, we found that when people are asked to grade women's work, a number of difficulties arise. The level of information given to respondents asked to grade men's occupations is seen as insufficient when people are asked to grade women's work. Not surprisingly, grading the job title 'housewife' is seen as particularly problematic, as is distinguishing between full and part-time workers. As well as revealing the difficulties respondents have in grading women's work, we feel that aspects of our study cast some doubt on the apparent ease with which subjects have graded men's work in the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper recognizes the contribution made by Robert Miles to marxist scholarship on 'race' and class in Britain but it suggests that his central thesis is flawed in that a consideration of gender and community should be as central to the analysis as that of social class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using as a case study the 1914 report of the government inquiry into the pay and working conditions of the Royal Irish Constabulary, this paper will address two issues in Max Weber's writings on class and status. The first concerns the recent claim by Barbalet that market situations are ultimately rooted in actors' subjective orientations and cognitions, something which has been taken for granted with respect to social status but which runs counter to previous interpretations of Weber's work on class. Certain implications for the way Weber's notion of class is conceived follow from this, which are supported by the case study. The second issue concerns Parkin's criticism of Weber for ignoring the role of the state, and his related observation that any consideration of class and status must address how the state functions to uphold or reshape structures of inequality. The deliberations and recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry afford an opportunity in microcosm to document some of the motivations the state has for endorsing social closure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note is a contribution to an important on-going debate in British sociology on the operationalisation of class. A comprehensive framework is proposed based on three interrelated choices. All three choices have both theoretical and empirical elements. First, researchers must choose which conceptual scheme to employ--conventional occupational class or neo-Marxist social class categories. Second, what is to be the unit of analysis--the respondent or the household? Third, what is to be the degree of coverage? -- whether or not to include the economically inactive. Consideration of all three choices is followed by a discussion of their interrelations and consequences. We suggest an extended version of Erikson's solution which incorporates not only the unit of analysis decision but also the degree of coverage decision. Thus a respondent based measure covering the economically active only is appropriate for studies of production behaviour and attitudes (work position).Alternatively, a household based measure inclusive of the economically inactive is appropriate for studies of consumption behaviour and attitudes (market or class position). Acceptance of the extended Erikson solution leaves only the choice of conceptual scheme. Our indicated preference is for social class on both theoretical and empirical grounds. Finally, we recommend several ways of improving the quality of datasets with regard to the problem of operationalising class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares vertical mobility in Dublin and England and Wales as displayed in mobility tables using the seven class categories developed by Goldthorpe (1980). A model is developed which demonstrates the pattern of vertical mobility in each country and also allows us to measure the extent of class inheritance as distinct from class self-recruitment. The data are used to test the FJH thesis, and some differences between Dublin and England and Wales — in their degree of ‘openness’ and in the relative standings of the different classes — are examined. Patterns of relative mobility are found to differ quite strongly between the two with Dublin being considerably less open than England and Wales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different categories of drinking houses, it is claimed, are historically related to different kinds of users and usages. Industrialism, however, entrenched the ubiquitous pub amidst the song, sin and insobriety of the poor and the new working-class urban proletariat. The public house thus became a focus of social freedoms and sexual licence, as well as a locus of more formal elements of rational recreation. Yet the public house was subject to social controls of a ferocious kind and not simply licensing constraints, and some discussion is developed in examining the class basis of recreation and leisure controls. Attention finally turns to viewing the public house as an intermediate context in a relational sense, in an historical sense and in a time sense, and one deserving further sociological attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobility data from the National Survey of Health and Development, deriving from the occupations in 1977 of the male survey members, are presented. Multiplicative models of the intergenerational mobility table, developed by Goodman, are described and fitted to the National Survey data. The models include parameters which measure the extent of upward and downward mobility, crossings between adjacent classes, and distance moved. The results suggest that the concept of barriers between adjacent classes may be less appropriate than distance moved. The best fitting model provides a simple description of mobility where the main impediment to movement is the distance involved. When disaggregated, the model shows higher levels of upward than downward mobility and a barrier to medium and long range downward movement. The crossings parameter model is characterized by barriers at either end of the class structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been argued by Gerth and Mills, Coser, and others, that Weber departs from verstehen sociology in his analysis of class by applying a social-structural account of stratification. The argument below demonstrates that Weber's treatment of class and status conforms entirely to his methodological principles of social action and ideal-type analysis. It is also shown that a social-structural interpretation of Weber's theory of stratification is incoherent. Only as an account of cultural structure, of the way in which social differentiation is perceived in the social consciousness, is Weber's theory of stratification formally coherent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares social radicalism in the French and British working classes. When stratification theorists began to edge out of the parochialism that had pervaded their work in the 1950s and the 1960s, the culture and patterns of action of the French working class structure became increasingly central to speculation about the determinants of working class radicalism. In different ways some sociologists counterposed the French working class to that of Great Britain as bearing a fundamentally different form of consciousness, and turned the explanation of such differences into a significant theme of textbooks. The attraction of France for stratification theorists was understandable. The second most powerful, and certainly the most ideologically rigid and pro-Soviet, of the major Western communist parties had proved capable of maintaining its electoral support despite the development of a prosperous and highly industrialized economy. The crisis of May 1968, when for three weeks the French economy and machinery of state lay paralyzed by the most powerful strike movement since the war, seemed the best approximation yet to a revolutionary situation produced by their direct action of the working class in an advanced industrial society.

A good deal of research and theory construction in the sociology of knowledge relies on the ‘dominant ideology thesis’. This thesis suggests that there is in most societies a set of beliefs which dominates all others and which, through its incorporation in the consciousness of subordinate classes, tends to inhibit the development of radical political dissent. In this article we propose a number of reinterpretations of this thesis which at present systematically ignores the effect of the dominant ideology on the dominant class. There is good evidence that the subordinate classes are not incorporated into the dominant ideology and that, by contrast, the dominant classes are deeply penetrated by and incorporated within the dominant belief system. In most societies the apparatus of transmission of the dominant ideology is not very efficient and, in any event, is typically directed at the dominant rather than the subordinate class. We conclude that there is no well marked dominant ideology in the later phases of capitalism. Thus, the dominant ideology has the function of maintaining the dominant class's control over property in feudalism and early capitalism. In late capitalism, however, the changing nature of the dominant class in terms of a partial divorce between ownership and control means that the dominant ideology ceases to be crucial for the coherence of the dominant class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of the paper is to examines sociological ramifications of the philosophy of T. H. Green. The main arguments of the paper flow from the opening critical remarks on M. Richter's account of Green in The Politics of Conscience. (I) Green was innovative in respect of this Kantian philosophy of duty, philosophy similar to which were subsequently common at Oxford, rather than in respect of his Hegelianism, and (2) although Green had reformist intentions, the Kantian philosophy of duty was harnessed by others to the pre-emption of utilitarian reform: this is shown through an analysis of the direction of change prior to Green, and of the strategy of those who promoted his mode of thought. Senses in which this analysis substantiates conceptions of the peculiarly British pattern of pre-emption of middle class revolution by the aristocracy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about the nature and determinants of downward mobility. It has been suggested that downward movement implies the extension of meritocratic norms of selection and rejection. Alternatively, those who fall are seen as social casualties. A third explanation, that most middle-mass downward mobility represents a two generation process of status consolidation, is proposed here. Data for a sample of downwardly mobile urban British males and their fathers provide strong support for the status consolidation explanation. These data indicate that in the middle-mass there is, in fact, very little genuine downward mobility. Rather, most men who 'fall' come from risen working-class families, those which because of the upward mobility of one or both parents are peripheral rather than core members of the middle class. Sons were encouraged towards what fathers viewed as the less ambivalent status provided by skilled trades. In moving 'downwards' into these occupations sons were, in effect, fulfilling status and occupational aspirations of their fathers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paternalism and patronage are two relationships which have received little systematic attention or rigorous analysis in the sociological literature. The categorization of phenomena as examples of paternalism or patronage is often unsystematic and slipshod as a result, and there have been instances of the two being confused with each other. One consequence has been the failure to develop an analytical framework which identifies the formal characteristics of the two relationships in such a way that diverse examples of each can be categorized. A second consequence has been an inadequate appreciation of how widespread the relationships of paternalism and patronage are, and of the extent to which they are to be found in a wide variety of cultural settings and historical epochs. This article undertakes the classification of the formal properties of the relationships on a number of dimensions, in order to highlight their points of similarity and difference. The article also considers a variety of empirical evidence drawn from different cultures, in order to demonstrate the substantive usefulness of the typology for comparative sociology and the real significance of the two relationships. This comparative approach involves some specifications of the conditions under which the two occur.

American sociology is distinguished from British and continental European sociology by, among other things, a lack of interest in identifying and measuring social class, as distinct from social status. Indices of occupational prestige ratings have served as indices of social status. This article explicates the most popular American scale of occupational prestige ratings, and concludes that this index is not a plausible index either of the relative prestige of occupations or of social status, and furthermore, that such an index in principle is not obtainable. The errors of proponents of the scale lie in an idealistic theory of the social order and repetition of the classic mistake once committed, but now long avoided, by economists: aggregation of subjective evaluations. A well-known characteristic feature of American sociology, in contrast to British and continental European sociology, has been the absence of serious attempts to establish numerical indices of social class. Yet there have been a number of attempts to establish indices of what is variously known as social status or socio-economic status, mainly by means of polled verbal evaluations of occupations.

Marxism is still the main ideological issue nowadays. The past few decades witnessed a growing interest for scientific research in the Social Sciences and its institutionalization as a legitimate field of academic inquiry in several Western countries. These very decades also witnessed the transformation of Marxism from a sociological and economic theory into the official ideology in several countries and into the prevalent socioeconomic doctrine in certain academic subcultures in Western countries as well. As a result of circumstances over which social scientists have limited or no control, the controversy about Marxism went from theoretical and academic grounds to political and ideological ones. Ironically, this transition took place when the Social Sciences first began to develop instruments and coherent theoretical frameworks capable of settling the dispute on academic terms. Many Western social scientists unconsciously played an important ideological role by taking Marxism as a scientific theory. The scientific analysis of Marxism had negative consequences for Marxism itself. Several specific Marxist predictions, as the ones dealing with increasing misery, the proletarization of the middle classes, the end of social mobility and the growing revolutionary activities as consequences of industrialization under capitalism, all were mercilessly turned down by subsequent historical events and modern Social Science.

The article presents a paper on the theory of working-class Conservatism. In any study of voting behavior in industrial society, social class would figure prominently as a predictor of party choice and political loyalty. Whilst it is obvious that other influences are brought to bear upon individuals which help to shape their political commitments, such as religious, historical, ethnic, regional factors, and so forth, social class membership has proved to be one of the most reliable single indices of voting behavior. This theory of working-class conservatism would make the notions of deference and class perception unnecessary, in so far as it seeks to encompass both of these within its explanatory orbit. These two concepts differ from the ones employed here in that they are essentially socio-psychological in character, in the sense that they focus upon individual attitudes and perceptions as a means of explaining political behavior.

This article ought to begin with the parable of the righteous and the un-righteous students. The latter was a young man in a sociology seminar at London School of Economics in England who appeared to enjoy no righteous indignation about the social structure of Great Britain, as of December 1, 1966. He came from the Catholic working class and intended to make money as an accountant. The earnest and the left-wing found him odd, but never so much as in his attitude to the fact of working class conservatism. They assumed that the Tory working class created a problem to be explained, but to him there was no difficulty. Voting Conservative was evident good sense which the working class possessed in as good measure as anybody else. The more he persisted in rejecting the problem as defined the more it became difficult to establish criteria for showing what should count as problematic and what natural. Like all genuine parables this one has a single point. Sociology as practiced in this country is based on certain assumptions which come more naturally to students from some groups than others.

The article presents comments of the author on his article "Profiting from a Comprehensive School," published in the "British Journal of Sociology," to draw attention to the sociological study of comprehensive schools. Author defends his article on two grounds presentation and analysis, and conclusions. Any inadequacies on presentation are probably determined by the limitations of the article-intended as a research note and not a fully developed paper. The criticism in conclusions seems largely directed at presentation. The conclusions are in fact valid on the basis of the findings of the research itself. The same applies to statistical techniques employed. In short it would seem that no valid critique of the conclusions themselves is presented. However, here is a point-by-point reply. The tables present the most outstanding deviations in keeping with the summary nature of the article. They are condensations of tables in the thesis. Thus class categories are included or omitted in accordance with the importance of variations.

This article examines the concept of collectivism. In a pluralist democracy, which maintains itself and renews its internal balance through a constant process of social conflict, the chief taboo perhaps is placed upon the recognition of such conflicts as involving more than the push and pull of sectional interests all legitimate and capable of being harmonized. Collectivists have good reason to occupy themselves with the problem of such a discipline. It is after all their cause which is at stake when the relevance of sociology is under discussion, for unless there is a science of society one does not see how collectivism can be made to work. It is difficult to escape the impression that sociology and collectivism are inherently related to each other. The tendencies making for a collectivist order also make for an attempt to elucidate the functioning of such an order. In other words they encourage the growth of sociology. The notion that society groups itself into classes with significant social aims inevitably entails the thought that the intelligentsia must at some stage define its relationship to the working-class which, in a planned economy, it will have to direct. For in the end the sociology of politics comes down to the simple question of who makes the relevant decisions, and in what form.

The article attempts to combine in a synthesis the sociology which is based on the ideas of Karl Marx and that which derives from the ideas of Vilfredo Pareto and from that outline ideas on the evolution of modern societies. For a Marxist, the determining factor is the opposition between the owners of the means of production and workers who hire out their labour. The origin of the alienation of the workers is the origin of all social ills, the opposition between the classes the root of all human conflicts. For Pareto and his followers, on the other hand, the exercise of power by a minority is a constant factor in any social order. The constitution and character of governing minorities, or, to use the usual term, the elites, change; the privileged are replaced by others. These two views of historical philosophy--on the one hand a dialectical process tending towards a classless society and, on the other, a permanent division between the masses and the elite--are reflected in the two most influential political ideologies of our time, Communism and Fascism. The refusal of the Marxists to take into account the political hierarchy which existed before, and survives, the division of society into classes is an attempt to mystify, and is disclosed as such by sociological analysis. The refusal of the Fascists to take into account social differentiation is a similar or contrasting attempt to mystify, and is also so discovered by scientific analysis. When the true nature of the ideologies have thus been disclosed, however, there is still ground for the two conflicting revolutionary desires. Sociology shows men what they truly desire and what will be the probable results of their actions; it never indicates to them what they ought to desire.

This article discusses several critiques of some of the aspects of the sociology of education in Great Britain. According to J. Murphy, the proponents of the first school must, or just do, assume that there is no such difference between working class and middle class young in their perception of the positive value of education. However, Raymond Boudon would certainly agree that there are differences between the classes. He would also agree that there are certain cultural or value differences, to which other sociologists have drawn attention, which are attributed to class inequality. The important difference, according to Boudon, is the way in which the middle and working class young appraise the costs and benefits of educational achievement. It could be argued that Boudon's micro-sociological explanation of the connection between social class and educational achievement assumes that the demand for the labor of the working class young is buoyant. The critique of Murphy is a comment on omission rather than on the full substance of his account. The covering theory of such view was that education reform could not, in itself, weaken the causal link between class and educational achievement.

The article presents a comparison of influentials in contemporary American and British sociology. It is impossible to check how far such factors may have affected researcher Mary Jay Oromaner's findings, since he does not list the articles which fell into his sample. The conventions of academic footnoting dictate exhaustiveness, for most topics there are some citations which can hardly be avoided, whether or not they have much bearing on the main argument of the article, simply because the works exist. It follows that, especially in a small sample, the citations picked up might reflect the topics of the articles as much as the judgments of their authors about the value of the works cited. Here the author approaches broader issues about the whole genre of citation studies, for which there is no space here. Other things being equal, a larger class of works will get more citations than a smaller class, obviously there are more works extant by American than by British sociologists. Oromaner predicts the increasing Americanization of sociology, but it would follow from the author's point that as other national sociologies develop they should have a proportionate influence on American sociology. It is surely desirable to make the distinction between influence attributable to weight of numbers and to qualitative judgments.