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This paper advances the position that sociology needs to develop an approach to research which focuses on fundamental social problems. In doing so it shares many of the intellectual values and goals of political arithmetic while seeking to move methodologically beyond it. Since such problems are complex they will require, typically, interdisciplinary input and a concomitant approach to the development and appraisal of theories. We are not, therefore, advocating the primacy of sociology but arguing that it has a distinctive part to play in addressing the fundamental problems of the twenty-first century. However, a policy-oriented sociology has also to take up the task, so clearly defined by the tradition of political arithmetic, which is to hold governments to account. Consequently a central principle of a new policy science is that it should contribute to democratic debate about policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article aims to understand the meaning of the inaugural address, The Application of Social Research, given by sociologist David Glass in order to reassert the potential of sociology as political arithmetic, to comment on progress or the lack of it, since he died in 1978, and to illustrate from the example of British higher education just as Glass did for urban planning at that time. The contemporary search for improved accountability derives more or less from the world of innocence in which, after World War II, Glass gave his inaugural address and the Welfare State was born. It was a world of common consensual goals. By general consent, a world fit for heroes and cripples was to be created, giving civilized substance to peace and justifying the sacrifices of war. Guaranteed public provision of health, education, and welfare were agreed as aims, and the means were thought possible. In Britain this meant a benign state, an uncorrupt bureaucracy and public-spirited professions. Government enjoyed remarkable credence. Political democracy rested on enthusiastic support, and belief was widespread that the will of the majority could be translated faithfully through the chain of democracy from the electorate through Parliament to the executive, and finally, to action.

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 presents the question of social class differences in measured intelligence as an illustration of the more general problem of the relation between social structure and the distribution of genetic characteristics in populations. Though innate intelligence may legitimately be inferred from available evidence, the evidence is also strong that it is determined not by one gene but polygenically. On these assumptions a genetic model may be constructed which, when relevant variations in social structure are taken into account, throws considerable doubt on the possibility that mean differences between classes in measured intelligence are innate. When a caste society is transformed into a class society the classes, may still be seen as gene pools but with migration between them. The question now becomes one of determining the relation between social mobility and genic migration. On the evidence, especially of correlation coefficients derived from studies of twins, siblings and foster children, it may be concluded that there is a genetic component in the intelligence test performance of individuals.

This article analyzes the cohort of boys entering secondary schools in the Educational Division of South-West Hertfordshire in England 1952, 1953 and 1954. The occupations followed by the fathers of boys entering in 1952 were obtained by interview with their parents as part of the wider inquiry already referred to, and in the same connection the authority kindly supplied the intelligence quotient of the boys based on their performance in the Moray House 37 intelligence test, administered under their auspices as part of the selection procedure. With the co-operation of the Heads concerned, the same test was administered under our auspices in the schools to entrants in 1953 and 1954 and a brief statement of his father's occupation was obtained from each boy, so that the social and intellectual composition of the entry could be compared for these three years. The information as to the father's occupation in 1953 and 1954 was necessarily less reliable than in 1952 and the proportion of unclassifiable cases was higher. To ensure that any error in the analysis would be in the right direction, all doubtful or unclassifiable cases were added to the working-class group. The occupational classification used is a modification of that used by the Government Social Survey.

Material collected from 700 London secondary schoolboys suggests that, despite the changes introduced into secondary education by the Education Act of 1944, it remains the case that a boy has a greater chance of entering a Grammar School if he comes from a middle-class rather than a working-class home. The difference in social composition between Grammar and Modem Schools cannot be completely explained by reference to the crucial role played by intelligence tests in the selection procedure, for at the borderline range of intelligence the chances of allocation to a Grammar School are closely related to social class. Nor can the distribution of intelligence explain the greater proportion of boys from small families found in the Grammar Schools since only in the working-class group is this a distinguishing characteristic of Grammar as opposed to Modem School boys. It would seem rather that some of the factors which were known to reduce the chances of entry to a Grammar School as the holder of a free or special place still continue to exercise their effect. Success in the Grammar School itself follows the same pattern. Working-class children, especially those from large families, appear on the whole to fit less easily into the life of a Grammar School than boys from middle-class homes and smaller families. The length of school life preferred by the boy, and (according to him) by his parents, is shorter the lower his social level and the larger his family. Middle-class boys tend to have superior academic records despite the fact that, as a group, they do not differ in measured intelligence from working-class boys in the same school. The latter, especially those from larger families, seem to have less aspiration and parental pressure towards achievement. They tend to be rated by their masters on personality traits such as industriousness and sense of responsibility at a lower level than middleclass boys, and they confess less interest in extra-curricula activities organized by the school. The evidence would suggest that the middle-class boy rather than the working-class boy, and the boy from a small family rather than a large family is better equipped in his attitudes and family background to take full advantage of education in a Grammar School and thus to set out on a career leading to an occupation of high social prestige. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the views of adolescent boys on some aspects of the social class structure in England. Information was sought on the following topics: What meaning do young adolescents attach to the term social class? How many social classes do they think exist and how do they describe them? To what degree are they aware of certain outward symbols of social status, and how far does their prestige ranking of occupations resemble that of adults? It was found that 60 percent of the sample did not understand the concept of social class. The lower working-class boys tended to be least familiar with the term, a difference which further analysis showed to be independent of differences in intelligence. It was also found that boys, when ranking individuals along some kind of social status scale, referred to them as important or not so important.