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The article presents a paper that explores ways in which general practitioners make sense of the changing political economy of this relationship. It explains that the interpersonal relationship between doctor and patient is fundamental to general medical practice. However, it is restructured by ideas about the patient as consumer, and as it increasingly constitutes the consultation as a point of interaction that may be intrinsically therapeutic. In particular, ways are explored in which consultation is the site of negotiated power relations between doctor and patient, and is the site of the doctor's negotiation of powerful discourses of professional and institutional identity. It develops some ideas about the relationship between doctors and patients in general practice. It focuses on the ways in which the professional rhetoric of general practice has come to be organized around a very specific view of the possibilities that arise from this relationship.

This paper focuses on ‘normative talk’ about grandparenting. It is based on a secondary analysis of a study involving 46 interviews with grandparents. It identifies two main cultural norms of grandparenting that emerged from the data –‘being there’ and ‘not interfering’. There were very high levels of consensus in the study that these constituted what grandparents ‘should and should not’ do. However, these two norms can be contradictory, and are not easy to reconcile with the everyday realities of grandparenting. The study found that norms of parenting and also of self determination were also very important for the grandparents in the study. They had a keen sense of what being a ‘good parent’ (to their own adult children) should mean – especially in terms of allowing them to be independent – but this could sometimes conflict with their sense of responsibility to descendant generations of grandchildren. Using the concept of ambivalence and drawing on the accounts of grandparents in the study, the paper explores and offers an explanation for both the coexistence and conflict between different sets of norms, as well as for the remarkably high levels of consensus about ‘being there’ and ‘not interfering’. The paper concludes with a discussion of some of the limitations of the data and the analysis, and with suggestions for the development of further work in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the substantive theme is that the presuppositions and data-collection practices of contemporary sociologists engaged in network analysis largely reflect only one of two broad types of social analysis, variously labelled.[10] The emphasis has been on techniques for abstracting structural properties of networks in a static framework and there has been a widespread reliance on survey techniques for data collection. Of the morphological and interactional characteristics of a social network analytically distinguished by Clyde Mitchell and not detailed here, density, a morphological characteristic relating to the problem of linkages in a network, serves to point up the theme of the paper.[11]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the River Danube as a European object that articulates forms of relations which, by linking human and non-humans in highly specific ways, create actor-networks that dispute common societal divisions and (b)orders. By discussing the contested social relevance of the River Danube, this paper visualizes different ways of imagining Europe. Following some of the controversies concerning the River Danube, we outline a process oriented, transnational research agenda for a specific European object with the conceptual explication of human and non-human relations at its core. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the decision to enter into a marriage and/or to conduct a commitment ceremony, this paper explores how same-sex couples negotiate their relationships with both family and friends at the point at which they make decisions about who to invite to their ceremony. The ceremony is argued to be a ‘fateful moment’ at which point lesbians and gay men necessarily take stock of relationships which are meaningful to them. It is argued that the data from the qualitative interviews on which this paper is based add to the on-going debates about the meaning and significance of both (given) families and (chosen) friends for same-sex couples and suggests that it is sociologically important to recognise both the blurring of the boundaries between these categories as well as the meanings that individuals themselves bring to an understanding of the significance of these relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

That the modern city should be a purified space of human habitation, a humanist citadel, constructed for, and by humanity alone, was an implicit assumption in urban studies until recently. We might say that urban studies has always been part of this humanist fantasy since it is hard to find a time when non-human elements and actants were not important to the life chances of cities everywhere. Not surprisingly, in 1970 Ray Pahl paid little attention to the non-human world but since then the politics of the ecologically minded and technical city has been populated by more and more instances of our dealings with what Latour calls the 'extended democracy' of other species and things. This paper extends this understanding by showing how many natural forces, species, technologies and materialities became entangled in the social, cultural and political life of contemporary cities. Using illustrations from Asian, European, American and Australasian cities, it shows how environmental and technical forces (such as fire, engineering, theory and flood) become incorporated into the life, subjectivities and structures of modern cities; how animals have become important companions to urbanites whose social bonds have fragmented; how animals and objects have been used to signify contested spaces; how they, together with other material objects and forces, enter into dialectical 'more-than-human' politics, how they form and embody the values and interests of particular city groups and how they become the focus and voice of otherwise difficult political, moral and ethical values. It shows, in other words, how they have disturbed the politics of the city creating new, more-than-human political interests and movements around their 'residency', lines of flight and alliances with humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews certain theories outlined by Taylor, Clarke, Critcher, Dunning et al. which try to set out the relations between professional football and working class culture and which, as part of this, seek to explain football hooliganism as resulting from changes in these relationships. Such theories draw on English evidence and English forms and this paper provides some historical and contemporary evidence, concerning hooliganism and community ties, about a major Scottish club -- Rangers FC -- to indicate that the parallels and causal trajectories these theories suggest do not seem to hold good north of the border.
In conclusion, some additional points are made about English theories and Scottish football in order to argue that a good deal more research is required if we want to understand either the symbolic significance of football in working class culture or football hooliganism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores one dimension of change within technical education, namely the recent growth and influence of technician education upon apprentice relations. Here, some of the underlying factors which affect the social dittereatiation of craft and technician apprentices within Further Education will be examined? The main argument suggests that particular assumptions concerning the apprentices' social rather than technical abilities have marked effect upon their inter-personal relations at both college and work. It is also argued that often inter-union and shop floor antagonisms between craftsmen and technicians not only bear the imprint of certain prior educational experiences associated with training, but also find expression within the social framework of Further Education. In this respect FE cannot be seen as separate from the work situation. Despite criticism of the lack of correspondence between technical courses and the practical skills required 'on the job', it will be argued here that the social rather than the technical connection between FE and industry assumes a role of greater importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The descriptive---and analytical literature on pentecost includes a number of accounts by pentecostals: these consist for the most part of interpretations of history written within a fundamentalist perspective, by which phenomena are recorded as operations of the Holy Spirit, often in fulfillment of prophecy.[1] Standard works of a more scholarly nature include those by Wilson, Calley and Hollenweger: these are principally occupied with the history, theology and social ethics of pentecostals.[2] Interactional studies within pentecostal assemblies include Wilson, and Walker and Atherton.[3] Several sociological studies have been conducted of the functions of performance in glossolalia;[4] examinations of performances by pentecostals in their mother-tongues are, however, scarce: this paper is a contribution towards such literature.[5]
The purpose of the study which this paper reports was to survey the schemes within which interpersonal relations are developed in pentecostal assemblies. Particular attention is given below to the indirectness of interpersonal communication and to taboos affecting the expression of sympathy and appreciation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the research paper by Julienne Ford and Steven Box, published in the November 1, 1967 issue of the Sociological Review, which focused on the formation of a sociological theory of occupational theory. The authors of this paper believe that the progress towards a sociological theory of occupational choice has not been greatly advanced. In fact it is felt that there is a lack of a sociological perspective, indicating an excessively individualistic view of society, in which concepts of role and socialization can be used without reference to social structure while references to empirical work contain inaccuracies and misinterpretations that confuse rather than clarify the issue. The main theoretical weakness lies in the attempt to explain social behavior in terms of an oversimplified functionalist theory that rests on a consensus model of society. Perhaps it is the tendency to think in terms of an overall culture which leads sociologist P.W. Musgrave to describe the need to get or earn a living as a "dominant value" when he simply appears to mean that certain social roles derive from the need to get a living.

Sociological debate has dealt with love in a number of different ways. For some, love offers a unique opportunity; it is a path to salvation ( Jackson, 1993; Langford, 1999). Others, however, take a more sceptical approach to love in modern society: for Beck and Beck- Gernsheim (1995) love represents the path to extreme individualization, for Illouz (1997) it is ultimately underpinned by consumerism, and perhaps most extreme, for Bauman (2003) love has been destroyed. Giddens offers a slightly different (and more hopeful) perspective and suggests that with growing choice and freedom, love has become 'confluent' and temporary subject to individuals' needs ( Giddens, 1992). When adult women were asked about love and how they have experienced love in their own lives, however, few of these themes emerged. Instead many women found it difficult to talk about their feelings generally and love in particular. There was an absence of falling in love stories and rather, women explained that they 'drifted' into relationships, or they 'just happened'. The discourses and languages that these women used to explain love and their relationships will be explored in this paper. Love was simultaneously loudly absent and quietly present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on research with the Pakistani Muslim ‘community’ in inner-city Bradford, West Yorkshire, this paper critically engages with relevant debates on social capital and educational aspirations. It examines the processes and mechanisms in the accumulation of social capital within the family and the immediate community, to demonstrate how three sets of interpersonal relationships (parent-child, child–child and between co-ethnic peers) facilitate educational aspirations among a group that has traditionally been portrayed as under-achieving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Living apart together’– that is being in an intimate relationship with a partner who lives somewhere else – is increasingly recognised and accepted as a specific way of being in a couple. On the face of it, this is a far cry from the ‘traditional’ version of couple relationships, where co-residence in marriage was placed at the centre and where living apart from one's partner would be regarded as abnormal, and understandable only as a reaction to severe external constraints. Some commentators regard living apart together as a historically new family form where LATs can pursue a ‘both/and’ solution to partnership – they can experience both the intimacy of being in a couple, and at the same time continue with pre-existing commitments. LATs may even de-prioritize couple relationships and place more importance on friendship. Alternatively, others see LAT as just a ‘stage’ on the way to cohabitation and marriage, where LATs are not radical pioneers moving beyond the family, but are cautious and conservative, and simply show a lack of commitment. Behind these rival interpretations lies the increasingly tarnished spectre of individualisation theory. Is LAT some sort of index for a developing individualisation in practice? In this paper we take this debate further by using information from the 2006 British Social Attitudes Survey. We find that LATs have quite diverse origins and motivations, and while as a category LATs are often among the more liberal in family matters, as a whole they do not show any marked ‘pioneer’ attitudinal position in the sense of leading a radical new way, especially if age is taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we argue that Norbert Elias's concept of survival unit is a distinctive part of the development of his figurational sociology and one of the most consistent contributions to relational thinking. The survival unit is a particular form of figuration which provides security and the material foundations for life such as food and shelter. Every human being is born into a survival unit. This unit is a relational concept which cannot be conceived outside a relationship with other survival units. By introducing the concept of survival unit Elias overcomes one of the key problems in relational sociology: how to demarcate primary social relations. Elias argues that human societies from very early on have been divided into survival units. These survival units are demarcated and constituted in their relationship to other survival units. Consequently, their boundaries are generated in a confrontation with other survival units. This relationship can be peaceful or conflict ridden but in the last resort it can end with violent confrontation. Only the survival unit with the ability to defend a domain of sovereignty will survive. This observation places Elias among the few sociologists with an understanding of the role of warfare in social relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a framework for social capital that highlights the normative structures through which it is manifested. The primary focus is on the ways that norms structure the relationships in which social capital is embedded. To this end, we introduce four types of normative structures which condition social capital: market, bureaucratic, associative, and communal. A field site in Japan is used to illustrate how different aspects of social capital interact. This case analysis also serves to make an important distinction between the availability and use of social capital. The central arguments are that 1) social capital is organized in different ways by the normative structures in which it is embedded; 2) there are important interactions between these different aspects of social capital that are often overlooked by simpler frameworks; 3) a useful distinction can be made between available social capital and used social capital; 4) access to social capital can be used to analyze power relations; and 5) distinguishing different aspects of social capital makes areas visible that are overlooked by other understandings of social capital. We conclude by identifying the utility of our perspective for informing public policy and guiding future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on British data from the 2002 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) module on ‘Family and Changing Gender Roles’, this paper is an exploratory attempt to assess the extent to which newly emerging ‘individualised’ patterns of money management in intimate relationships, are coming to be associated with shifts towards greater equality between partners, in terms of who has the final say over large expenditure decisions, and the implications this has for overall satisfaction with the relationship and happiness with life in general. Our findings show that while in general, keeping money partly separate was associated with a relatively high level of male control, which was more visible to female respondents than male control in other systems, a minority of (sometimes) higher earning, cohabiting women with partly separate finances, were able to make autonomous decisions about spending, possibly by using their own personal spending money. However, the analysis also indicates that when either men or women made autonomous decisions about spending, both male and female respondents were less satisfied with family life, as well as with life in general, than those who made joint decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on interview data, this paper explores the area of child/parent negotiation. Specifically, we examine the increasing significance of the mobile phone in the way teenagers negotiate spatial boundaries with their parents. Utilising theories of time and space, especially Giddens’ concept of‘distanciation’, we show how parents and their children use the mobile phone as a tool for negotiating curfews in public space, thus extending household discussion and negotiation outside of the home. We point out that parents are using the mobile phone to enter their children's time and space as an‘absent Other’, and see this as a means of extending parental authority and control. Children, conversely, see themselves gaining a degree of empowerment from the mobile phone, as parents are more lenient with curfews if they posses one. The mobile phone, then, has become an important facilitator of negotiations between parents and teenagers regarding boundary setting. We conclude that the mobile phone has enabled teenagers to gain increased leverage in their negotiations with their parents, but underline that parents still hold control and authority by‘invading’ their children's space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite developments in the sociology of welfare and in feminism, the examination of young adult mother/daughter relationships has been relatively neglected. Such relationships are still popularly seen as 'very close', although studies such as Brannen and Collard's (1982) have shown that they are not intimate. In this paper the content and quality of such mother/daughter relationships is examined using a small scale intensive study of sixty married or cohabiting women randomly selected from medical records in north London. Their relationships with their mothers were typically characterised by high levels of visual contact, felt attachment and identity enhancement. The majority of the women did not see their relationships with their mother as very close. Furthermore, even those who did see them in this way, did not have relationships characterised by high levels of practical help, dependency or intimacy. In arguing that mother/daughter relationships are neither universally nor uniquely close, such relationships are juxtaposed with relationships with sisters who were identified as very close. Finally it is argued that the continued popular perception of mother/daughter relationships as very close reflects current definitions of feminity; the idealization of the mother role and an equation between closeness and tending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Age identities are a product of negotiation between acquaintances and intimates. The negotiation takes place against a background of assumptions about appropriate ways of moving through the life span. This study of ageing in the context of an English church shows how organisational needs must be taken into account in understanding the ageing strategies of participants. The paper is based on fieldwork conducted in the south of England in 1985-6. The analysis draws on the literature of social gerontology which is mainly American. It is part of a larger ESRC-funded study of the social construction of old age in Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the tasks for a critical social psychology is to describe the contradictory social matrix of intimacy in capitalist societies. That is particularly necessary in order to understand the social experiences of women, since they continue to have the principal responsibility for expressive functions. The present paper is concerned with the structuration of intimacy through the giving of gifts. It is suggested that this is a useful vantage point from which to explore thc extent of the autonomy of the private family. Gift giving is described as a means through which individuals communicate the values which they assign to their significant others. It is suggested that the intersubjective signs of value employed in gift transactions are affected by the characteristics of an industrial capitalist society. The symbolic process therefore demonstrates the limits to the autonomy of familial culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists have paid relatively little attention to friendship, for a variety of reasons. This paper, based on an intensive study of a small group of middle-class, middle-aged English women, describes the basis of their attraction for each other, the activities they pursue together and the norms governing their interaction. Friendship emerges as a source of social integration. Friends are seen to play an important part in the creation and maintenance of social reality. Friendship offers relief from the strains of other role performance and provides a vehicle for the expression of feminine and status attributes. In this connection, attention is drawn to the role of women in the maintenance of the family's social position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I contend that gender is of crucial importance, not only in assigning people to 'places' in the division of labour, but also in the very definition of occupations, and thereby in shaping the division of labour as a whole. The social relations of gender[2] are central to the labour process. As such, gender must be included as a central feature of any analysis of social stratification, whether it is concerned with the social characteristics of people in particular occupations or whether it seeks to analyse the social relations in which they engage. The present discussion will be confined to the realm of paid work, although (as I have argued elsewhere) the scope of stratification studies must eventually be broadened to include unpaid work also, before the sexual division of labour and the social relations of gender can be given due importance.[3]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to compare the theories of religion held by Comte and Durkheim. My thesis is that, despite a number of differences on specific points, both theories share some significant perspectives with respect to the rle of religious beliefs and institutions in the evolution of humanity, and that these perspectives are founded upon similar assumptions concerning human nature and the characteristic features of primitive social behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recurrent theme in the literature on small firms is that workers in such firms escape many of the deprivations experienced by workers in larger enterprises. In the small firm, social relations both between workers themselves and between workers and their employers are frequently seen as mutually satisfying and conflict free. This view is argued in sociological' and non-sociological[2] discussions alike. The present paper examines these views and sociological research held to support them and, on the basis of findings from a recent study of small and large firm workers in the printing and electronics industries, argues that they are highly questionable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to examine the professional-professional association relationship, and refers to a study of the characteristics, attitudes and behavior of members of the Institute of Personnel Management. The investigation, carried out in 1971, examined a number of features of the professionalization process and attempted to provide a coherent picture of personnel r1es in work organizations, the background, experience and qualifications of people filling such r1es, the degree of commitment shown by personnel specialists to the personnel function, and to their occupational association. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hungarian industry has more or less overcome the difficulties caused by large scale labour turnover. However, the nationwide social debate on the subject has not so far resulted in a systematic clarification of the phenomenon seen as a special but certainly not unique and isolated type of behaviour. We have not yet managed to see it as a dialectical system of relationships in which every element can be considered as a motive, every indirect and direct relationship having its place and weight.
It is no longer the social problem of labour turnover which primarily justifies our attention to the subject, but precisely the feeling of inadequacy experienced in the face of evaluations and measures related to the phenomenon. What we lack is systematic analysis and concepts which could have come from the debate over this critical phenomenon. We lack this because in addition to needing an evaluation of large scale floating from one working place to another, we also lack a starting point to handle and analyse other difficulties still appearing in industry, as for example problems related to the organization of labour and workshop discipline. In this paper we use organizational sociology to seek to contribute to an overdue, but still necessary, systematic account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The success or failure of any programme aimed at effecting closer co-operative links between home and school depends not only upon the quality of the relationships established between parents and the staff of the school, but more fundamentally upon the purposes which bring these two groups of people together. One may seek to understand such successes and failures in school-parent co-operation in a variety of ways. One fruitful approach is through the use of concepts from role theory. This paper focuses upon one particular member of the school staff, the headteacher, for it is be who occupies a position which most often serves as a point of articulation between the home and the school. "Role conceptions" refers simply to the beliefs that headteachers hold about what they should or should not do as holders of the headteacher-position. Knowledge of their beliefs is important in understanding the form and the scope of the links that may be instituted between home and school. For a variety of reasons, head- teachers possess considerable authority in connection with the internal and external affairs of their schools.

The article focuses on family life in London, England suburb. The material presented in this paper was collected in the course of a study of an urban general practice made by the Social Medicine Research Unit of the Medical Research Council during 1950-52. It relates to the way of life, and the family and social relationships, of a group of families within that practice, and it is the kind of material that often lies unused in research flies. It also provided a basis for assessing the characteristics of the group; characteristics which cannot be left out of account if any attempt is to be made to understand the factors which influence the behavior of patients in health and illness. The young wife of a man who had recently set up in business on his own volunteered the information that she and her husband could talk about everything and anything together, she thought that modern girls were not afraid of their husbands, as the older generation hat been, and so they could be companions for each other and do things together.

In this paper, the theoretical approach to the concept of lone motherhood is adopted from ‘new’ family sociology where families are understood to be dynamic processes constituted by webs of relationships. I analyse life stories written by lone mothers in order to examine the meanings that they give to their lone motherhood in relation to their larger family context. This approach reveals that, along with the concept ‘family’, the category ‘lone motherhood’ can be questioned. The life stories show that as with all families, the representations of ‘the lone mother family’ vary. Lone motherhood emerges less as a distinct family form and more as an experience coloured by the lone mother's position in a web of family relationships, as well as her place in her broader personal, social and historical context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intimacy is usually thought to require physical proximity as a prerequisite, so how are intimate relationships maintained when partners do not live their daily lives in the same place? Couples who are frequently apart are not an entirely new phenomenon, but the dual-career, dual-household couples examined in this pilot study of contemporary distance relationships illustrate new ways of relating. This paper will explore these new ways of relating in terms of debates about the impact of individualisation processes on intimacy. It is argued that the extension of such processes to women has been limited. Ways of being intimate at a distance may offer alternative formulations of gender and power, but the rationalised timetabling necessary to maintain such relationships imposes new gendered constraints with bodily and emotional consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on social attempts to classify and contain illegitimacy in Great Britain. Epidemics of teenage pregnancy and amazing rises in illegitimacy are part of a recurrent moral panic about the social implications of sexual nonconformity. Simultaneously, major social surveys attempt to provide empirical assessments of actual sexual behavior. In the 1850s when statistics first ruptured the cosy notion that rural Scotland was the home of all that was virtuous and that vice inhabited the cities, perplexed clerics and reformers set about creating convenient fictions to explain high levels of bastardy in farming districts. Their conclusions reveal more about middle-class suppositions about sexual attitudes than they do about the motives of those that they purported to be investigating. Thus explanation of rural sexual behavior needs to be sought in ways that reach beyond the ideology of social concern. This paper explores, first, the vocabularies of motive informing social investigation and, secondly, the local contexts in which women conceived, bore and reared their children, and the roles of poor relief, the churches, grandparents and fathers.

In this paper it is argued that materiality and sociality are produced together. In order to explore the implications of this suggestion, three metaphors are developed through a series of note-like stories. The first is that of semiotics. This suggests that materials are relational effects. The second is that of strategy. Here it is suggested that strategy is recursively and reflexively implicated in the performance of materiality. And the third is that of the patchwork. This is a way of exploring the possibility that though material and social relations might be matters of local performance, they may not add up to form an overall pattern or structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports some impressions gained in an ongoing research project being carried out in three purpose-built local authority residential homes for old people in a South Wales town. Providing opportunity for social contacts with neighbors appears to be a criterion affecting site selection for institutional buildings such as Homes for old people. It is expected that social isolation can be avoided or minimized by a planning or administrative decision of this nature. It concerns the almost total absence of social contacts between the Homes' residents and neighbors in the surrounding areas. In so doing, planning theory assumptions about expected links between planning decisions and the social behavior of building users are brought into question. Observations drawn from investigation in three Homes administered by a single local authority Welfare Department can only present suggestive inferences which require testing in adequately sampled survey studies, and preferably by interdisciplinary investigation.

The article provides key arguments on logic of the social sciences. It is postulated that social sciences differ from the natural sciences based on three arguments covering history and science, organization of the material for intellect and the stage of comprehension. In some spheres of knowledge, there is a close relationship between laws and comprehensive concepts governing human behavior and social interactions. The social sciences are concerned with human beings in their various interpersonal relations. Their aim is to study or observe these relations and to state them if possible in a manner, which will service as a frame of reference into which can be fitted further observable phenomena. All factors which influence society or social process in any way and which are not traceable to the individuals who constitute society indicate the principle of impersonal causation. According to the author, all the units of society are alike in some respects and all are different in others. It is the combination of likeness and difference, which makes society the variegated structure it is. It is the likeness, which makes society comprehensible. But it is the differences, which make society valuable. Any conclusion about society must therefore be difficult, tentative, and lacking in the clarity and definitive character of the sciences.

What is the significance of caring for thinking and knowing? Thinking and knowing are essentially relational processes. Grounded on a relational conception of ontology the essay argues that 'thinking with care' is a vital requisite of collective thinking in interdependent worlds, but also one that necessitates a thick vision of caring. A speculative exploration of forms of thinking with care unfolds through a rereading of Donna Haraway's work, specifically of its take on feminist discussions on the situated character of knowledge. The notion of thinking with care is articulated through a series of concrete moves: thinking-with, dissenting-within and thinking-for. While weaving Haraway's thinking and writing practices with the trope of care offers a particular understanding of this author's knowledge politics, the task of caring also appears in a different light. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commensality is eating with others, and marriages are among the most significant commensal relationships. We collected qualitative data about commensality and entry into marriage from twenty couples using two in-depth interviews, the first at about the time couples entered marriage and the second about one year later. Commensal eating was an important component of the courtship process. Entry into marriage marked a transformation in people's commensal careers in which their marital relationship became their primary commensal unit. Meal commensality varied across the daily cycle: Many spouses skipped breakfast or ate breakfast separately, most ate lunch at work, and dinner was the main commensal meal. Greater marital commensality occurred on weekends than weekdays. Partners managed involvement in extra-marital commensal circles by combining their former eating networks. Kin were major participants in commensal circles, with friends, coworkers, and neighbors also included as eating partners. Overall, commensality was an important component of the way people 'do marriage'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Popular commentators on marriage and the family often interpret the increase in heterosexual couples living together without marrying as reduced willingness to create and honour life-long partnerships. Survey and in-depth interviews with samples of 20-29 year olds living in an urban area of Scotland finds little support for the postulated link between growing cohabitation and a weakened sense of commitment to long-term arrangements. Most of the cohabiting couples strongly stressed their 'commitment'. Socially acceptable vocabularies of motive undoubtedly influenced answers but interviews helped to explore deeper meanings. Many respondents' views were consistent with previous research predictions of a weakening sense of any added value of marriage. At the same time, some respondents continued to stress the social significance of the distinction between marriage and cohabitation, consistent with research interpreting cohabitation as a 'try and see' strategy part-way to the perceived full commitment of marriage. The notion that 'marriage is better for children' continued to have support among respondents. While, on average, cohabiting couples had lower incomes and poorer employment situations than married couples, only very extreme adverse circumstances were presented as making marriage 'too risky'. Pregnancy-provoked cohabitation was not always in this category. Cohabitation was maintained because marriage would 'make no difference' or because they 'had not yet got round to' marriage. Most respondents were more wary of attempting to schedule or plan in their personal life than in other domains and cohabitees' attitudes to partnership, including their generally 'committed' approach, do not explain the known greater vulnerability of this group to dissolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on men, power and caring relationships. Power is a controversial subject. In this article the authors reject the notion that power is simply a matter of the exercise of control over others. Instead, they posit the view that power is a complex phenomenon which is constantly negotiated and renegotiated between social actors. They examine this idea by looking at men working as carers and consider how power is used in caring relationships through the use of case materials. The analysis reveals that no one party to an interaction is either all powerful or all powerless. Taking this idea through into empowering practice means that carers need to create spaces in which people can exercise a greater sense of agency through their interaction with others. Power is an important part of caring relationships. However, it is not simply a matter of the carer exercising "power over" the cared-for. Rather, power becomes a fluid entity which is constantly (re)created and (re)negotiated through interaction.

This article is concerned with relationships between adult kin following divorce, and especially those relationships between former in-laws. Questions are raised about the circumstances under which these continue, the extent to which they provide the basis for practical assistance, and how far the continuation of such relationships after divorce is seen as normatively appropriate. Data from a study of family obligations are used to discuss these questions. The authors conclude that the continuation of close supportive relationships can happen, but that this is both rare and unpredictable. Where it does occur, it is as much a product of the history of the relationships between the individuals concerned, as of their genealogical locations in relation to each other. Therefore it cannot be assumed that ex in-law relationships could represent a reliable basis for practical support. However, where supportive relationships do continue they are welcomed by the participants and the situation is widely approved of at a normative level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reveals that the industrial sociology provides an interesting case study for the question of the relevance, application and practice of sociology. Many sociologists, even today, view industrial sociology as having developed from human relations theory, and as essentially a "plant sociology." Thus, despite the obvious concern of general sociology with questions of industrialization, and the centrality of economic life to society, industrial sociology has not been accorded a major role during the great growth of and increasing specialization within sociology in the past twenty years. Some major authors in industrial sociology, have made their contributions as spin-offs from more general projects or have "left"' the area for more theoretical and general concerns. Any reappraisal of industrial sociology must begin with a consideration of it "in practice" in both senses of the term, that is it must consider both its application and its reality. One of the most important features of the human relations theory was its attempt to negotiate with economics and it is this dimension of industrial sociology which is neglected in most accounts.

However, modern sociology has not remained unaffected by the moral outrage C. Wright Mills directed at human relations in industry and what he termed the new illiberal practicality. The tendency to dismiss human relations as just so much manipulation is probably nowhere more pronounced than among students of the social sciences themselves. Since such techniques are manipulative, or at least intended to be so, this response is justified. The question is, however, whether the charge of manipulation is by itself a sufficient one, whatever the moral justification that lies behind it. And clearly the answer must be that it is not. It constitutes a gut reaction only, tells people nothing of why the new human relations is popular now, nothing about its likely consequences, intended or otherwise. It is the great virtue of a very different, and persuasive, view that is now gaining wider currency in Marxist circles that it does address itself to both these questions. In this view, which has been notably advanced by a sociologist, modern human relations techniques-especially participation and job enrichment are taken to represent attempts by managements to socialise capitalist production. That is, in as much as they aim actively to involve workers and to enlarge the scope of their decisions, they are seen to constitute attempts, made from within the capitalist mode of production, to soothe the sores that now threaten to plague the capitalist mode of production itself: strikes, absenteeism, sabotage and so on.

Human reproductive behaviour, like other types of social behaviour, is a complex of many factors. In order to reduce the bewilderment resulting from the complexity of human behaviour, the analyst often holds some of the factors constant or overlooks them, and in so doing he usually does not provide an account of what the real situation will be when all the diverse factors that have been excluded are simultaneously in play. In other words, although the exclusion of certain variables may be statistically expedient, it is not sociologically enlightening. For there are some seemingly minor and accidental factors which sometimes have far-reaching practical importance. It is, therefore, futile to attempt to find a particular social factor which can be labelled as the cause of any social phenomenon. The fact is that there is a two-way relationship between social factors. This is also true of the relationship between socio-cultural factors and population. Consequently, causal explanation on the basis of a single factor or a limited set of specific factors is often a hazardous undertaking.

In this article, an analysis is offered of some approaches, which have been made to the study of play as a form of social behavior, and the relationship of play to leisure is discussed. Moral value is commonly attached to different types of play, and may be attached to play as a whole. The developments which have given rise to extended leisure for virtually all groups in the population, have also brought about considerable ideological ambiguity between values which are oriented towards stressing the value of work and those which emphasize the potential satisfactions of play. People in those occupations-the professions, for example, where the division between work and leisure is not stringently defined, may be in an indeterminate position between values oriented towards work and others directed towards play. Values, which have stressed the central importance of work in life have, of course, gone hand in hand with a comparative lack of interest in the analysis of leisure in general. But the ever-decreasing length of the average working day suggests that problems of leisure will increasingly come into the forefront of both theoretical and practical interest.

The article attempts to examine the concept of authority in relation to social casework. The possibility of applying sociological concepts to social casework for the purpose of building up a systematic and acceptable body of theory have not been fully explored. There have been dissidents, particularly within Great Britain, who have exposed the weaknesses inherent in the psychoanalytic approach. Much criticism centers upon the concept of the unconscious, a pivot of Freudian based casework theory, the logical corollary of which is a denial of the possibilities of making rational and responsible choices. An outcome of the development of these ideas is that casework is now frequently regarded as arising entirely out of the relationship between the client and the worker. Other criticisms hinge upon the adoption by caseworkers of an attitude of moral neutrality that is concomitant with a belief that "adjustment" to established social norms, social relationships and economic circumstances is the objective of "treatment." It has been hoped to show that the solution of a client's problem may well depend upon a renunciation of, or a change in, the norms of his own sub-culture, the more skilful management of personal relationships, or the alleviation of other environmental pressures, all of which involves both the making of value judgments and the assumption that the client is capable of rational behavior.

In this article the author comments on the research that was carried out at Berkeley, California to study personal susceptibility to ideological appeals. The author undertook to measure, by means of Likert-type scales, anti-Semitism, ethnocentricism, political-economic conservatism, and finally, potential fascism in the personality. He studied the interrelations among these measures, and their relations to factors in the individual's background and history, his personality and his contemporary situation, particularly his membership in groups. A major finding here was that anti-Semitism tends to be highly generalized, in the sense that an individual who has one kind of negative opinion or hostile attitude respecting Jews is likely to have a variety of others as well. The original scale for measuring embraced color prejudice, hostility and the tendency to over-esthnate and ethnocentrism to various other out-groups, to glorify the in-group. The author remarks that although one may believe that in a given society in a particular phase of history, ethnocentrism or prejudiced modes of thought most commonly accompany hostility towards certain groups rather than others, it is very important to note that the forms of ethnocentric thinking are relatively independent of their content.

This article is concerned with the role of personality in producing social change and with the effects upon the individual of changes in the groups and communities of which one is a part. According to the author, the social changes to which his article refers include such practical matters as the decrease in the output of research and in the quality of teaching, such formal organizational matters as changes in routes of communication and in the occupancy of such roles as committee chairmanships, such impersonal social matters as the splitting of the community first into two groups, then into several groups and finally into numerous splinter groups. Social and political forces present in the society influence individual and social change in a community with references to history and existing conditions and events. Each individual and each personality are major factors in stimulating social change in the groups and communities of which each is part. Social changes include such practical matters as the decrease in the output of research and in the quality of teaching, organizational matters such as changes in the routes of communication and in the occupancy of roles as committee chairmanships and leadership positions indicating the practice of social science principles.