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In power systems where opportunities for overt expression are limited, the requirements for recognition and intentionality behind acts of resistance risk overlooking the struggles of individuals who must find unpatterned and creative ways to express desires and discontent. Based on 42 interviews with Chinese hip-hop fans and artists and drawing on Scott's and De Certeau's theories of everyday resistance, this article shows that resistant acts in China can take transient, unintentional, seemingly apolitical forms disguised by a superficial rejection of resistance. This strategy protects resisters from potential consequences of openly challenging power, enabling the quiet expression of individual visions and dissatisfaction with power and contemporary society through hip-hop. Moving beyond dichotomous conceptions of power and resistance, this article advocates for de-emphasising the requirement of expressed, or expressible, intentionality behind acts of resistance and recognises the significance of ordinary actions of everyday resistance in their potential to catalyse change, shape social spaces and transform cultural patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advocates of devolved and market oriented Education reform, point to the benefits from self determination which enhance both teacher and managerial autonomy. Critics refer, on the other hand, to the ways in which running education institutions on business and accounting principles have introduced a new managerialism (Clarke et al, 1994; Pollitt, 1990; Clarke and Newman, 1997), which has driven a wedge between lecturers and senior manager interests. In Further Education, according to Elliott (1996a), this finds expression in conflict between lecturers in defence of professional and pedagogic values, and senior managers promoting the managerial bottom line (Randle and Brady, 1994). The danger in polarising such interests in this way is that it presents a plausible, if not oversimplified, analysis of organisational behaviour as market forces permeate FE. If this paper concurs with many critics on the effects of the new managerialism, it departs company from a prevailing determinism which assumes an over controlled view of the FE workplace (Seddon and Brown, 1997). Despite evidence of widespread casualisation and deprofessionalisation in FE, this paper examines changing managerial cultures in the FE workplace, in this case among academic 'middle' managers, which suggests that managerialism is not as complete or uncontested as is often portrayed. The paper draws on an ESRC research project conducted by the authors (ESRC no. R000236713), looking at Changing Teaching and Managerial Cultures in FE, at a time when the sector is emerging from a series of funding crises associated with redundancies, industrial action, mismanagement and low morale at college level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of new technology on the labour process and labour market position of clerical and administrative workers in The Federal Republic of Germany. Data are drawn from several recent major case studies of such workers by German research teams. The paper's contributions to the 'Labour Process' debate are twofold. Firstly, it examines the position of white-collar workers to show that, contrary to Braverman, their work situation differs crucially in several respects from that of manual workers, despite some convergence in recent decades. Secondly, it shows that variations in the organization of the labour process between capitalist societies are much wider than is commonly recognized. The paper argues that historically evolved social structural and cultural features shape the position of German white-collar workers in the labour process and distinguish it in several respects from that of comparable groups in Anglo-Saxon countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper employs a Bourdieusian conception of class and attempts to illustrate the power of such an approach via an analysis of the contemporary Brazilian case. Initially, the paper describes the main dilemmas and disputes in the field of class analysis in Brazilian sociology. Then, the paper presents an empirical investigation on the role of culture in the shaping of class relations in Brazil, based on the analysis of survey data containing information on social agents' cultural participation and uses of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a conversation between sociologist Bridget Fowler and Les Back. Bridget discusses her life and career in sociology, including her working-class background and exposure to different social perspectives. She also talks about her interest in the sociology of literature and her admiration for scholars like Raymond Williams and Pierre Bourdieu. The conversation emphasizes the importance of social theory and the complexities of sociological research. The text also discusses various topics related to sociology, feminism, and the author's personal experiences, as well as the concept of collective memory and its relevance to obituaries. The author argues for a more democratic and inclusive approach to obituary writing. [Extracted from the article]

This paper examines the relationship between cultural socialisation, educational attainment and intergenerational social mobility. Picking up on debates about the transmission of cultural capital and social advantage, we use data from the Taking Part Survey of England to analyse how far socialisation into cultural activities and encouragement play a role in educational attainment, intergenerational mobility and in the reproduction of class. This survey has unprecedented data on whether respondents had been taken to museums/art galleries, theatre/dance/classical music performances, sites of historic interest, and libraries when they were growing up. This is buttressed by information on how much parents or other adults encouraged the respondents to read books or to be creatively active in different domains of the arts, literature and music. Using these rich measures of childhood socialisation, we can show that part of the effect of parental class on educational attainment is due to the transmission of this kind of cultural capital. Moreover, this transmission also has a direct effect on the level of educational attainment. In a similar fashion, respondents who have experienced a higher intensity of cultural socialisation are more likely to be upwardly mobile, and likewise, cultural transmission has a positive effect on the prevention of downward mobility among service class children. These results are discussed in the light of current issues in British mobility research and its treatment of cultural aspects of class and mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The human body has in recent years become a ‘hot’ topic in sociology, not just in empirical research but also in sociological theorizing. In the latter context, the body has been variously a resource for broadening the parameters of traditional sociological thought deriving from the nineteenth century, and for overturning that paradigm and fundamentally reorienting the assumptions and concepts of sociological thinking. Attempts to abandon the old paradigm and foster a new one through the means of thinking about bodies are many and manifold, and in this paper we trace out the intricate history of moves towards a ‘corporeal sociology’. We identify the dilemmas that have attended these developments, especially as concerns the ways in which new modes of thinking sociologically have tended to founder over the classical sociological dichotomy between social structure and social action. Through tracing out the various moves and counter-moves within this field, we identify a central contradiction that affects all contemporary sociological practice, not just that dealing with the body: an oscillation between judging the utility of conceptual tools in terms of criteria derived from the discipline of Cultural Studies, and evaluating the arguments created by those tools on the basis of the incompatible criteria of classical sociology. The paper challenges sociologists to choose one set of’criteria or the other, for sociological practice cannot be based on both such antagonistic paradigms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to present, by means of a case study, a method for the study of cultural phenomena--in particular the drama, It is not concerned with the purposes or functions of the drama in general or of particular dramas, nor is it an enquiry into the ultimate status of the arts in society. The paper is simply concerned to demonstrate how it was that one form of drama was eclipsed and superseded by an entirely new one.
should be recognised that there exist presently close limits to what a sociologist is able to say concerning such phenomena as the drama, dependent upon his particular theoretical posture. A neo-Durkheimian such as J. S. R. Goodlad[1] is, fairly predictably, concerned to demonstrate that the popular drama is a device for the explication of the social structure, the inculcation of morality, the expression of emotion at repressed items in culture (catharsis), and the reproduction and consideration of conflicts inherent in society. The Marxist, Lucien Goldmann[2], however, stresses the determinacy of the class-moment and the status of a valid work as the expression of a world view. 'Simationalisms' of considerably less subtlety than the Lukacs-Goldmann tradition exist, which usually tend toward nominalism.[3]
But whether we take the drama to be pulled into being by the weight of need the social organism has of it, or to be thrust up from the bowels of the substructure, it seems possible to discuss the drama, its form, and the relation of its form to the agencies producing it, in such a way as to be its mechanic rather than its philosopher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the consequences for immigrants in changing from their native land to a rather markedly new environment. The main focus will rest with the adult immigrants. One of the implications of this paper is that adults are continually undergoing the process of socialisation. Most of the identification studies assume that modelling after parents leads a child to resemble one or both parents. These studies usually look at a list of traits or characteristics of the parent and child to determine whether they are similar. If similar, the assumption is that the child used the parent as a model. The possibility exists that where there are similarities the parent and child have both been influenced by some outside source. Thus, the studies do not take into account the changes which occur in the adult. The immigrant does break away from the immigrant subculture in many respects and tends to become a part of the new culture. It seems evident that the theories of delinquency, which base the delinquency on the two-culture hypothesis, need re-examination. The data presented in this article indicate that possible impact of difference between the old and the new culture is diminished by the influences upon the adult in the new cultural system.

In the paper, we use data from an English study of security consumption, and recent work in the cultural sociology of markets, to illustrate the way in which moral and social commitments shape and often constrain decisions about how, or indeed whether, individuals and organizations enter markets for protection. Three main claims are proffered. We suggest, firstly, that the purchase of security commodities is a mundane, non-conspicuous mode of consumption that typically exists outside of the paraphernalia of consumer culture - a form of grudge spending. Secondly, we demonstrate that security consumption is weighed against other commitments that individuals and organizations have and is often kept in check by these competing considerations. We find, thirdly, that the prospect of consuming security prompts people to consider the relations that obtain between security objects and other things that they morally or aesthetically value, and to reflect on what the buying and selling of security signals about the condition and likely futures of their society. These points are illustrated using the examples of organizational consumption and gated communities. In respect of each case, we tease out the evaluative judgements that condition and constrain the purchase of security among organizations and individuals and argue that they open up some important but neglected questions to do with the moral economy of security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper opens up the issue of how to relate culture to class in the UK. First, problematizing the conflation of class with status - inherent to stratification models like the GBCS - we theorize culture as 'world-making' rather than limit culture to artistic or individual possession. Second, exploring culture in the wake of reforms aimed at local and institutional 'cultures' that are said to hold back economic growth, we examine power relations between class and culture. After clarifying how Weber's analysis of stratification keeps economic relations underpinning class distinct from the cultural mores of status groups, we point to a third dimension in his emphasis on parties - those groupings locked in the struggle for dominance across all levels and modes of life - as the 'house of power'. Contrary to his supposition of homogeneity, however, we suggest legitimation today requires contesting parties, including factions and interest groups, to recruit from across class and status groups. Arguing recruitment to parties is enhanced by a mood of endless reform - in which modernity appears bent on tearing up its own foundations - we indicate how the resulting sense of precariousness is augmented by the stratifying technologies of grading and ranking. The pertinent question is: Who benefits from endless reform? And if the answer is no more than to recognize how benefits are skewed to an 'elite' working on behalf of owners of capital, then it is time to put aside stratification for an analysis of class relations that pointedly attends to wider notions of culture by asking: Who gets the say in world-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines a refinement of the sociological usage of the concept 'civilization' by distinguishing between three different 'faces' of civilization - as the opposite of barbarism, as equivalent to culture, and in Elias's sense as capturing a particular trajectory of socio-historical development. I then illustrate how this distinction between three different faces of civilization can be deployed in relation to the history of the various attempts by the English to civilize the population of Ireland. Finally, I reflect on the centrality of the experience of the colonization of Ireland for the English conception of how 'barbarism' should be understood and opposed to 'civilization' (which was then later mobilized in the colonization of the New World), as well as on the ways in which the colonization of Ireland constituted a binding together of both civilizing and decivilizing processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article, the author presents a response to the article "The body in Sociology," by Alexandra Howson and David Inglis, published in this issue of the journal "The Sociological Review." According to the author, Howson and Inglis' paper is both timely and thought provoking. However, the author's contention is that their argument, made through five claims, is fundamentally flawed. The first two concern the emergence of sociological interest in "the body," which, according to the author, are sound. The third is that the work of M. Merleau-Ponty, which has been central to many forms of "corporeal sociology," lacks an account of social structure and is insufficiently sociological in focus to be of use to sociology. The fourth suggests that the work of Pierre Bourdieu, which might be deemed a corrective to Merleau-Ponty, cannot serve this purpose without generating a form of social structural determinism which would undermine the benefits of Merleau-Ponty's contribution. The fifth speculates on whether cultural studies might not provide a more fruitful avenue for those who wish either to avoid determinism or to rejoin Merleau-Ponty. The author's contention is with the third and fourth of these claims, though his view also necessarily has implications for the fifth.

In this paper we outline a critique of 'decorative sociology' as a trend in contemporary sociology where 'culture' has eclipsed the 'social' and where literary interpretation has marginalized sociological methods. By the term 'decorative sociology' we mean a branch of modernist aesthetics which is devoted to a politicized, textual reading of society and culture. Although we acknowledge slippage between the textual and material levels of cultural analysis, notably in the output of the Birmingham School, we propose that the intellectual roots of cultural studies inevitably mean that the textual level is pre-eminent. In emphasizing the aesthetic dimension we seek to challenge the political self-image of decorative sociology as a contribution to political intervention. We argue that while the cultural turn has contributed to revising approaches to the relationships between identity and power, race and class, ideology and representation, it has done so chiefly at an aesthetic level. Following Davies (1993), we submit that the greatest achievement of the cultural turn has been to teach students to 'read politically'. The effect of this upon concrete political action is an empirical question. Without wishing to minimize the political importance of cultural studies, our hypothesis is that, what might be called the 'aestheticization of life' has not translated fully into the politicization of culture. We argue that an adequate cultural sociology would have to be driven by an empirical research agenda, embrace an historical and comparative framework, and have a genuinely sociological focus, that is, a focus on the changing balance of power in Western capitalism. We reject the attempt to submerge the social in the cultural and outline the development of an alternative, integrated perspective on body, self and society. We conclude by briefly commenting on three sociological contributions to the comparative and historical study of cultural institutions which approximate... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tech industry profoundly impacts our lives and has gained great economic and political influence. Yet, we know little about the people inside tech firms, whose actions and decisions shape technological progress and its impact on society. What is of particular relevance is their opinions and beliefs about the proper order of society and the societal role of tech firms – that is to say, their political ideologies. The few existing studies on this topic mainly concentrate on tech leaders. Our study shifts attention to the workers who develop the technology. Numerous works highlight their influence on the affordances of technology and decisions taken by their firms. Our quantitative analysis of campaign contributions shows that American tech workers exhibit a unique combination of left-wing (liberal) and anti-establishment attitudes. Moreover, we expose a substantial ideological divide between tech workers and their leaders. We discuss these findings in relation to the development of new technologies, employee activism, and tech workers as a distinct class fraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the way in which ideas about deviance and thus moral judgements are ultimately grounded within native culture. Through focusing on underage drinking and soft drug use in the Western Isles of Scotland an analysis is presented which seeks to unfold the relationship between tradition, morality and belonging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on recent studies of colonial science and of the social function of science in the underdeveloped world to analyse the social development of science in Ireland and, subsequently, the Irish Republic. It is suggested that after the Act of Union scientific activity in Ireland became prized as a cultural practice, largely isolated from its local context and potential local applications. Because of governmental priorities in the new state and because of the Anglo-Irish character of much of the scientific culture, this isolation persisted after Partition. The recent history of science in the Irish Republic is interpreted in terms of this isolation or marginality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a theoretical argument about the relationships between people and architectural space. Customarily, arguments of this type focus on the functional, the instrumental character of these relations. In so doing, they posit causal links between space and behaviour; they treat the former as active and the latter as passive facets of a determinate relationship. We suggest an alternative perspective---one that emphasizes human agency. We contend that people actively endow aspects of their physical environments with meanings; meanings on which they and others may, indeed do act. That is, we stress the symbolic as well as the functional utility of architectural space.
The explanatory potential of this approach is illustrated in two contexts. First, we examine data about the spatial distribution of residents in Homes for old people. These data are analysed with respect to the status--gender and mental designation--of residents and their customary locations in the sitting spaces and the sleeping and dining areas of the Homes. Second, we consider the allocation of space to personnel in office settings. These data are analysed with respect to the hierarchical status distinctions found in the settings and the correspondingly different meanings that status groups attribute to their spatial environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals primarily with Australian aboriginal society and culture, and compares these with the society and culture of white Australia in the special realm of the family. It assumes that white Australia is a complex but fundamentally coherent whole, and that aboriginal Australia can also be viewed as a coherent whole, irrespective of regional variations, for comparative purposes. The major distinction between the aboriginal family and the white family is a significant difference in the relationship between social structure and culture in the context of family. The only differentiations in modes of livelihood in an aboriginal tribe were the obvious ones based on age and sex. The familial cultures of aboriginal Australia exhibited a remarkable uniformity, even from tribe to tribe, compared with the diversity of familial cultures in white Australia, but the reverse is true of family structure. Earlier works on the aborigines had over-stressed "group marriage" to such an extent that the presence of some monogamists in the tribe was ignored. A typical aboriginal family consists of a man aged 50 years old or above, two wives, and children. Each family, whether polygynous or monogamous, constituted a separate camping unit with its own shelter and fire.

In school choice literature, class-based strategies for social reproduction of the middle classes are often the central explanatory framework. While race, ethnicity and other social categories are increasingly included in the analysis, they are often treated as secondary to class. Drawing on interviews from a racially and socio-culturally mixed sample of middle-class parents in Pretoria and Amsterdam, this study aims to contribute to existing theories on school choice and social reproduction through a comparison of contrasting cases. It takes the dominant theoretical framework of middle-class strategizing as a starting point to explain parental practices of school choice. The comparative analysis finds some remarkable homologies of school choice in Pretoria and Amsterdam, but also points to specific local and historical complexity and specificity of parents' motivations. In both contexts, parents call on intersecting aspects of their identity beyond their classed position. While we acknowledge the relevance of social class, we suggest that middle-class parents' school choice should be understood as 'strategies of action' emanating from classed and racial (dis)positions but also cultural and religious repertoires rooted in a multidimensional tool-kit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To add to the sociology of religion and the sociology of work, to name but two more long-standing specialisms, sociologists now make regular and often aggressive incursions into the fields of aesthetics, emotions, entertainment, food, media, museums, prisons, shopping, space, sport, tourism, urban planning and what has become known as bio-science. Whereas the I production i of sociology as a discipline centred previously on the "building" of general theories - in a process of "abstracting" the groundwater of social life - sociology today might be better characterised in terms of its attempts to chart the eddies and currents of the everyday. Any picture of expansion can mask internal conflict, in which it becomes hard to keep separate the "politics of sociology" (disputes among ourselves about how we conduct research and how we report it) from the "sociology of politics" (broadly understood as a focus on others and how they conduct their conflicted affairs). Sociology is re-creating itself into one of the most diverse fields of modern study. [Extracted from the article]

Abstract The paper addresses the problem of the conceptualisation of morality in sociology. The traditional sociological conception of morality was based upon the acceptance of a fact/value dichotomy, implying that sociology portrays the factual nature of morality, which thereby becomes equivalent to group conformity The opposition of fact and value was brought into question by trends of thought that followed from, respectively, Alfred Schutz and Ludwig Wittgenstein. The line from Schutz's ideas led towards their reformulation by Harold Garfinkel, who to large extent integrated the ‘moral’ with the ‘cognitive’. Wittgenstein's influence, through, especially Peter Winch, John W. Cook and Alfred Louch undercut the idea that sociological descriptions were themselves purely factual, rather than integrally evaluative. A third stream is represented by Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor, who adopt the idea that morality must be understood in its social and historical context, and explicitly reject the separation of fact and value in moral inquiry. The fact/value distinction is the source of chronic problems for the sociology of morality. Specifically, a sociological account of morality, that would define the correct understanding of the nature of morality – ie identify what substantive character and content is appropriate to it – is not possible. The disintegration of the fact/value dichotomy also means that the idea that the social context can itself be described independently of normative considerations is an illusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with whether a 'culture of cosmopolitanism' is currently emerging out of massively wide-ranging 'global' processes. The authors develop certain theoretical components of such a culture, they consider ongoing research concerned with belongingness to different geographical entities including the 'world as a whole', and they present their own empirical research findings. From their media research they show that there is something that could be called a 'banal globalism', from focus group research they show that there is a wide awareness of the 'global' but that this is combined in complex ways with notions of the local and grounded, and from media interviews they demonstrate that there is a reflexive awareness of a culture of the cosmopolitan, On the basis of their data from the UK, they conclude that a 'publicly screened' cosmopolitan culture is emergent and likely to orchestrate much of social and political life in future decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developments in the sociology of music during the 1980s have brought the sub-field more firmly in to the center of sociological concerns. The worlds concept, and the concern with music and social status have helped to ground and specify links between music and society. Meanwhile however, questions concerning music's social content have been sidelined. This paper explores music as an active ingredient in the constitution of lived experience. As with other cultural/technical forms, music provides a resource for the articulation of thought and activity. Bodily conduct and movement, the experience of time, and social character within opera are used to illustrate this point. Recent developments in feminist music analysis have been suggestive for the ways in which music metaphorizes social processes and categories of being. These developments can enrich the sociology of music. However, as with all attempts to `read' music's social content, they should be conceived as claims made by analysts who are them- selves engaged in social projects. Analytical readings of music have no a priori claim of privilege. A constructivist sociology of music should therefore be devoted to the question of how specific music users forge links between musical significance and social life. A sociology of the construction and deployment of musical realities is capable of avoiding the naive positivism otherwise implicit in attempts to `read' music's social content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social and technical are commonly defined in opposition to each other. Yet technology practitioners are often quite comfortable with the idea that the technical is constitutively social. Drawing on an ethnographic study of a computerised information systems development project, this paper examines various usages of notions of `technical'. Attempts to situate the study at the `technical core' of the project were met with a series of rebuffs. `Technical' talk is to be understood as a catego rising device which does boundary work. Technical talk invokes and performs a disjunction between networks of social relationships and stipulates a moral order with associated norms for acceptance and transition. The difficulty of penetrating the intelligibility of technical talk is understandable as a struggle in familiarising oneself with the routine social actions of a separate community. In addition, the private sphere of the technical is often distanced in time. The costs involved in journeying into the future are analogous to those of penetrating alien cultures. Ideas of progress and advance are often associated with the invocation of `the technical'. These connote a notion of timing which reinforces the distance and difference of - and hence depicts the costs involved in penetrating - removed sets of social relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the books "On Social Psychology," by George Herbert and "On Culture and Social Change," by William Ogburn. George Herbert Mead's influence on social psychological thinking has been so great that much of what was genuinely original in his contribution has become the common property of social thinking. The book "On Culture and Social Change," is not only useful to the historian sociology (there is a good though incomplete bibliography of Ogburn's works) but also some of the essays in it are lucidly basic enough for the beginner student, especially, the early papers on culture.

In this article the author identifies the dichotomous nature of a government approach which insists on autonomy. Exhortations to communities to be independent while fostering dependent relations lead to a kind of paralysis that inhibits people's abilities to progress. These insights were gained in Salford, UK in a former working class community fatigued by government intervention. As part of an academic project focused on supporting local people's ideas, new ways of engaging were explored. However the researchers' role as project directors and the status of the university also had impacts on fostering selfdetermination. The author proposes that a reflexive strategy identifying and ameliorating the multiple points of government interventions in low-income communities would go far in nurturing people's productivity. This includes working with local intermediaries who have an intimate knowledge of the communities they serve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary research into the field of body pedagogics has produced a growing number of studies concerned with the embodied character of cultural transmission, experience, reproduction and change. This article advances this sociological development by reinterpreting recent writings on situated epistemic relations (SER) and practical epistemological analysis (PEA) as complementary, methodological, techniques that can enhance these investigations. After outlining existing explorations into the body pedagogics of occupational, sporting, religious, educational and other cultures, the author demonstrates how the interlinked approaches to learning made possible by systematizing SER and PEA can be developed into a new approach that increases the effectiveness with which the theoretical and empirical concerns of studies into embodied acculturation are harnessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking a Waddingtonian system approach, I discuss some of the implications of recent epigenetic research for the study of social systems. A growing number of investigations show that life-style changes resulting from nutritional, toxicological, and psychological stresses are reflected in changes in the epigenetic profile of individuals, and that learning and memory have epigenetic correlates. Moreover, various types of epigenetic changes can be inherited and affect the characters of descendants. Studying epigenetics can forge new experimental and conceptual bridges between biology, the social sciences and the humanities. For example, new techniques that allow the deciphering of methylation patterns in ancient DNA could be used to study the epigenetics of human cultures in long-gone historical periods, thus enriching and extending our knowledge of human history. Conceptually, an epigenetic perspective blurs traditional distinctions such as those between nature and nurture, plasticity and evolvability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores and extends the idea that material objects lie at the heart of many of our social, and specifically workplace, interactions. The site of exploration is an ethnography of a British farm animal veterinary surgery. Drawing upon traditional cultural studies approaches alongside contemporary sociological understandings about the place of materials in social life, the article analyses how objects function to track and structure the ways that people of different professional status experience work at a veterinary surgery. It is argued that the power of the veterinary elite in this setting is best understood by paying close attention to 'mundane' artefacts. The article argues that such objects, having almost no meaning on their own, can become potent cultural symbols if actors have the necessary social capital to 'transform' them. Here, Latimer's concept of 'strong moves' (2004) is extended to consider how the reinterpretation of objects might constitute a form of 'cultural magic'. This article seeks to uncover some of the practical scenarios in which such 'magical' transformations play out and describes, through a series of tales from the field ( Van Maanen, 1985), the ways in which vets control and regulate their interactions with those outside the professional elite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1970s, social scientists have argued that general pro-environmental attitudes have diffused throughout American society, rendering socio-demographics largely irrelevant in predicting support for such issues. The public reaction to the issue of climate change, however, is an exception to this narrative. While media bias, ideological framing, and business influence are often invoked to explain public apathy, I argue that ignoring class and culture in determining why climate change is so divisive is a potentially significant oversight. Using the cultural theory of Bourdieu, I examine how the conception of and reaction to climate change varies with economic and cultural capital using data from 40 interviews of Boston-area respondents. The results suggest that climate change may indeed be a 'classed' issue - both in how the respondents conceive of it in the first place, and how they speak of social class in the context of it. The results suggest that social scientists should go beyond rational-choice and media framing explanations, to take two prolific examples, in exploring how disagreements on the importance of climate change persist in the US. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of cultural change requires a dialectical theory of culture that does not reduce vectors of change to extra-cultural forces. Despite changes in expert technology that included the uses of ethnographic film to aid the carvers of Melanesian funerary sculptures, which are named malanggan, the carvers typically present their sculpture to either ritual or secular publics who are incredulous at the brief display, but with a difference in either case. This description of the visual shifts in the making and display of malanggan sculpture can be analyzed as a movement from ontological concerns about how people live in relationships, to epistemological concerns with how to communicate about who they are. These shifts in expert visual technique and its relationship to public culture are wholly cultural processes generating cultural change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the relationship between automobile driving and human social relations. Particular focus is given to the social and existential aspects of the concepts of motility and automobility. According to the authors, human beings' incorporation into the social system of the car affects their relationships with people and objects which are not cars. It is suggested that while the car system does not replace other social systems, it does penetrate into and affect them. Topics discussed include culture and the relationship between the automobile and the body of the driver.

This article seeks to trace the origins and prototypes of the themed restaurant to provide a typology of theming devices and to offer an analysis of theming strategies. However, the broader purpose is to use the themed restaurant as a device to open up a wider debate about the character of contemporary consumer experiences. The themed restaurant is an example of a process of theming which is characteristic of many of the leisure experiences of contemporary society. The various perspectives on theming as a cultural device have been discussed, and the concept of quasification is introduced in order to advance the present theoretical understanding of the theming process in its broader cultural context. Specifically, it has been argued that the techniques of quasification entail the active and knowing involvement of both those who engineer themed settings and those who purchase participation in them. Late modernity, it has been argued, has an unprecedented capacity for creating quasified experiences as antidotes to the tedium of its mundane everyday settings.

Both the nature of philosophical and sociological discourses are undergoing a profound change, attuned to the gradual substitution of the postmodern sensibility for the cultural climate dominant during the modern age. In particular, philosophy sustained by legislative reason recedes, replaced by a philosophical style informed by interpretative reason; a movement in many respects reminiscent of the Pyrrhonian Crisis of the 16th-17th centuries. The passage from the orthodox consensus of modern sociology to a postmodern sociological strategy parallels this transformation. The present change, however, affects the very relationship between philosophy and sociology. From the search for the foundations of cognitive certainty, the outspoken domain of philosophy guided by the legislative reason, epistemological concerns move to the communicative problems of communally founded cognitive systems - the acknowledged realm of sociological investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the works of the sociologists, Max Weber and Georg Simmel, and their contribution in the field of sociology. Both Weber and Simmel were fascinated by the stirrings of modern culture, by what might be called "the specific characteristics of the modern" or even the "metaphysics of modernity." Reading Marianne Weber's biography of her husband, one is led to see this fascination as the major aspect of their personal interactions, from discussions about aesthetics and the circle of poets around Stefan George to a shared interest in music. Simmel, like Weber became disturbed by substitution of prophetic for poetic impulses. The question of women's rights and the larger issues of feminism came early to the attention of both Simmel and Weber. Simmel's first essay on the subject appeared in 1890, simultaneously with "On Social Differentiation." By applying socio-psychological categories from the latter work it attempted to argue for woman's "unique being" or gender-determined "difference" on the rather unpromising ground of a relative "lack of differentiation in the feminine life of the spirit."

In Britain, as in many other western countries, there emerged in the mid-1970s a variety of business associations, policy and research institutes and political leagues, committed not only to the restoration of a Conservative government, but also to a much broader refurbishing of conservatism. A network of organizations, individuals and ideas grew up that became identified as the New Right.
The New Right, which clearly has an international character, was generated by economic and political crises, but it was nurtured by a variety of resentments and discontents whose roots lay in structural and cultural changes that had developed over the whole post-war period. Drawing, in part, upon interviews with leaders of the organisations that did most to mobilize opinion behind the New Right in Britain, the article examines the major changes - particularly those in class structure and in culture - to which the new conservatives were reacting.
It explores the major ideological strands - libertarian, neo-liberal and conservative - and looks at the attempts by the New Right to use these to produce changes not only in economic policy but in the cultural and moral fabric of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the idea of a 'culture of poverty' has gained widespread acceptance among social scientists. However, sociologists and social anthropologists have not subjected the postulated relationship of poverty and culture to serious examination. In this article, I discuss some or the conceptual and logical problems of the concept of a culture of poverty, as it has been put forward by Oscar Lewis. Secondly, I criticise the way this concept has been applied in a study of a Trinidadian village and thirdly, after summarising the conclusion of my own study of another Trinidadian village, I suggest how sociologists and social anthropologists engaged in community studies can avoid ethnocentricism and overemphasis on 'research problems' and thus further their understanding of the cultures and subcultures they are studying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various theories related with post-industrial society. Analytically and descriptively, the building blocks of the post-industrial idea have been raised from a very diverse range of recent sociological work, much of which cuts across traditional groupings of geography, culture and ideology. The concept of post- industrialism forces one to reconsider the whole picture of the industrial society and the process of industrialization. It asserts that modern societies are entering a new stage, or a new phase, of their history and that there is a real discontinuity between the past of these societies and their present and future. There must therefore be entailed a particular model or image of the industrial society, and the process of its making. The article comments on Daniel Bell's book "The Coming of Post-Industrial Society" for detailed discussion on the subject. Bell asserts that the industrial societies are entering a new phase of their evolution. This phase, provisionally entitled post-industrial, is as different from the industrial as that was from the pre-industrial.

The influence of work on other spheres of an individual's life is well documented, and few would dispute that it is important to consider the way in which membership of a particular occupational prestige permeates other attitudes and behavior. Numerous writers have proclaimed the latter half of the twentieth century as an age of leisure, in which themes of play, recreation and amusement are dominant. Changes in technology, which have facilitated a high level of production, independent of human energy, have released an increasing proportion of the population from the need to engage in arduous work. Conflicting opinion exists as to whether the displacement of work by leisure as a central life interest is restricted mainly to manual and semi-skilled occupations or extends to white collar and professional areas as well. The social pressure to maintain a high level promotes leisure. as a central life interest and importance formerly reserved for work. However, there do appear to be certain differences in the availability of leisure and the use to which it is put by people in different cultures.

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.

The article discusses the cultural conformity in urban areas. Although the knowledge of the lives of the deviants, the misfits and the delinquents who come to the notice of the social services is constantly increasing, still very little is known about the many millions of ordinary people who live in the great conurbations. An interdepartmental team from Liverpool University composed of sociologists, economists and architects with specific interest in civic design and planning, has considered the diverse problems presented by the imminent task of rebuilding parts of the inner residential zone of the city. The area chosen for the study was "Crown Street" in Liverpool. Economic decline is observable in the decreased value of the locality to the local authority in terms of rate able values and in the greatly reduced numbers of shops and other business premises. Social decline is observable in many parts but it is by no means universal. Not only are the workers of Crown Street predominantly manual but there are comparatively fewer semi-skilled workers there than in other parts of the city. Households are still, despite the existence of a large rooming house district, mainly made up of single families occupying one address.

Geographical mobility has the effect of breaking the control of the community over the individual. In a static society the individual is firmly embedded in the cultural tradition and institutional structure of the community. Religion in a Durkheimian sense both reflects and legitimates the socio-cultural system, and in such a society religion is to be seen as a communal activity; men participate in religious activities because these are prescribed by the community. mobile society. The geographically mobile on the other hand are removed from a community and from the social control that such a group can assert. Time is required for their integration into a new community and the 'frequent movers' may indeed never become fully integrated into a new community. With regard to belief, since there is a close relationship between belief and practices in the British socio-cultural environment, one should not be surprised to find that both dimensions are similarly related to geographical mobility.

This article examines current practices in sociology and anthropology concerned with analyzing social structures as meaningful human products, and will consider in particular the work of the phenomenologists and ethnoscientists. The human sciences are not purged of common-sense rationalities by virtue of their scientism. Models of man are to be found informing much theoretical work, and debates about appropriate assumptions still consume space in the journals. Further, as sociological models have generally neglected or assumed away common-sense situations of practical choice in everyday life, and the issue of how such situations are managed, they are all implicated in implicit reification. The search to break out of this reifying model-construction has taken two distinct directions. The first is concerned with seeking out definitive answers to the epistemologically posed 'problem of meaning', the second with focusing upon formal structures of practical actions. Clearly the notion that one can discern a realm that could be called a culture's or natives' cognitive system, is akin to the old idea that language has an existence 'out there', fundamentally independent of its myriad usages, contexts, and criteria of applicability, all of which are abused, debated and so on at some stage of the conduct of everyday life.

The article discusses the development of the Western model of economic development and its application to the analysis of the modernization of Nigeria. Relative to the Western model, it is assumed that there has been a transformation in the structural prerequisites for economic development, a transformation in structural priority from the economy to the polity and a transformation towards structural de-differentiation. The transition in the structural prerequisites for economic development has been suggested quite clearly by sociologist Talcott Parsons. According to Parsons, development in the West could not occur until a certain degree of structural differentiation had been attained. This is because of ascriptive factors contained in the kinship, religious, arid political structures. Nigeria is composed of three major cultural groups, namely the Hausa of the Northern Region, the Yoruba of the Western Region, and the Ibo of the Eastern Region. Among these three groups, the article notes the greater adaptation to industrialization by the Ibo, and suggests that the Ibo success can be explained in terms of a high achievement orientation.