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Despite the decolonial turn among sociologists, we have yet to engage a vast amount of thought produced by anti-colonial movements. The circumvention of much of this thought indexes overly restrictive understandings of what constitutes social theory, and I diagnose three ways in which this plays out. Anti-colonial movement texts provide striking demonstrations of this limitation, and of what is lost as a result. Through a close study of a banned 1970s pamphlet from Pakistan, I show that critically deepening the decolonial project through an engagement with movement texts raises ethical questions about the academy's relationship to political struggle and demands new methodologies of archival retrieval that recognise the scattered, fragmented condition of texts subject to colonial violence. If addressed, southern movement texts reveal counter-infrastructures of knowledge production replete with counter-political vocabularies that challenge homogenising academic definitions of the Global South and enrich our theories of decolonial praxis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dominant position on research methodology and methods among British sociologist has for many years been that of 'methodological pluralism'. However, concerns have lately been expressed about the lack of research involving quantitative methods, not least by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). A study of the four mainstream British journals over two years, tighter with associated sources, demonstrates national patterns of research methods used in published work, the topics tackled and variations between authors in the methods chosen. The findings suggest empirical support for the concerns recently expressed by the ESRC, and an argument, not for less qualitative research, but for more quantitative research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper offers reflections on the author's working experience as an industrial sociologist from the 1960s. It seeks to contextualise this in more general considerations of the part played by industrial sociology in the development of sociology in the UK. This is evidenced in thematic concerns, the importance of historical perspectives as well as the use of case studies and the development of ethnographic work. It discusses the role which industrial sociology has played in bringing issues of power, authority, control and class into sharp focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the first e-special issue for the journal Sociology and its chosen focus is the article ‘The coming crisis of empirical sociology’ by Savage and Burrows (2007). This article challenged sociologists with a variety of questions about the role, relevance and methodological opportunities for sociological research in the 21st century. On publication it stoked the already charged debates on a public sociology (Burawoy, 2004), the role of publicly funded research (ESRC, 2009) and relevance of sociological research in an age of burgeoning social media (Brewer and Hunter, 2006). This e-special provides a reprise of these debates and explores relevant papers in Sociology, as well as alerting readers to recurring themes and new directions on the topic of methods and social research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article focuses on the relationship between the sociology of utopia and Black visions of liberation. Influential figures from Karl Mannheim to Ruth Levitas have effectively demonstrated the value of a utopian perspective for sociology. However, the African American tradition of utopianism has been largely overlooked in this literature. I argue that the Black standpoint forces a rethinking of the sociological understanding of utopia. More specifically, while most sociologists of utopia straightforwardly associate the desire for a better world with the future, the Black tradition proposes a more expansive understanding of utopia's temporality. Building on visions of new worlds advanced by WEB Du Bois and the movement for reparations for slavery, I suggest that Black utopia involves a glance backwards to the past, such that the image of a better future is accompanied by the memory of the catastrophe of slavery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article moves beyond the conventional strictures of the sociology of intellectuals, which is preoccupied with intellectuals' texts, power struggles and institutional trajectories. Instead, I propose to focus on intellectuals' situated performances as a way into analysis of the dynamics of their relations and mutual influences. Drawing on theoretical resources from the Strong Program in cultural sociology, I argue that their performances have both social and cultural impact through disseminating ideas, facilitating the emergence of social ties and the production of new social selves in intellectuals' audiences. I demonstrate the importance of situated intellectual performances in the case of unofficial philosophy in socialist Czechoslovakia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper considers the different ways in which sociologists have studied careers. It examines the various dimensions in careers research which constitute a developing research tradition. It highlights the problems associated with reification in analyses of career which are either implicit in particular models or are addressed in others but in ways which fail to resolve the difficulties. The paper suggests that the analysis of processes of change in career structures and career experiences can best enable researchers to avoid reification in their conceptualizations of career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The account presented here is based on the fieldwork collected for a doctorate which comprised a case study of a journalism school for postagraduate journalism students. The research, on occupational socialisation, which was primarily carried out by participant observation took place over one academic year (1984/85) and followed a cohort of students through their training at the school. This paper Looks at the re-socialising function of the first term at journalism school, which because of the demands it makes upon the time and commitment of students is presented as a `Greedy Institution'. During their first term students are expected to discard their lay perspectives on journalism, and also the academic style which characterises their undergraduate education, in favour of the school's version of occupational practice. The paper also takes issue with the ways in which the researcher must fit in with the day-to-day requirements of practice demanded by the school and how, in many ways, her academic and research interests are incompatible with the task of re-socialisation which staff at the journalism school set out to achieve. The paper highlights how greedy institutions may have particular implications for the participant observer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is argued that the discussions of the concept of strategy in papers by Crow (1989) and Morgan (1989) ignore the military origins of strategic thinking, and that more attention needs to be given to its diffusion from military to general social usage, as well as to specifically sociological uses. The paper then outlines a critique of strategic studies derived from the sociology of war. It argues that sociologists can learn, from the problems and current controversies of strategic studies, some of the limitations of strategic analysis as an approach in sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses problems associated with patriarchy. The concept of patriarchy has been both essential and problematic in the development of feminist thought, as the two papers by sociologists Malcolm Waters and S. Walby, published here, argue. In responding to their work, the author sketches the recent history of the concept and discuss a few of the issues raised by a reading of these papers. In the 1960s and 1970s, patriarchy provided the essential focus and the identification of the theoretical object for rapidly developing innovative thinking about the subordination of women. Feminists criticized social theory as inadequate for explaining this widespread phenomenon. Existing theory attributed women's domination by men either to nature or social necessity rather than to social-structural processes, unequal power, or exploitation. Further, theory had been produced from the perspectives of men, usually men associated with ruling classes, to whom women were generally invisible, unimportant, or uninteresting as social actors. Theorizing patriarchy was a first step to reconceptualizing the subordination of women and to correcting flawed social theory, even to achieving a paradigm revolution.

Over recent years a series of 'ankles has appeared, the aim of which has been to demonstrate an unjustifiable neglect of women in social stratification theory and research and, in turn, to level charges of 'intellectual sexism' against sociologists active in this area. The central concern of the present paper is to address certain of the major substantive issues which are raised in this literature, and to argue that they have not so far been adequately treated from either a theoretical or an empirical standpoint. In Pan I of the paper, an attempt is made to distinguish between two lines of theoretical argument on the position of the family within the system of social stratification which, in recent critiques, appear to have been unduly confined. These are the arguments of (i) structural-functionalists of mainly American provenance, and (ii) mainly European exponents of class analysis. In Pan II, empirical data are then presented, by reference to which the stance adopted by the latter can be illuminated and, moreover, substantially supported. In Pan III, an attempt is made to show, on the basis of the foregoing, that certain conceptual and methodological developments that have been proposed in order to adapt class analysis to the increased labour market participation of women, and especially of married women, entail serious difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concern of this paper is to locate certain troubles and contradictions within Lucien Goldinann's avowedly sociological programme for the investigation of culture. It will be seen that these turn, generally, upon Goldmann's insistence on maintaining a central methodological position for the category of the subject and, more particularly, upon his conception of the subject as individual (rather than collective) subject. Part of these methodological troubles is seen to be connected with Goldmann's use of a metaphor connecting Piaget's individual/environment distinction with the distinction between social groups and history. To this degree, the paper is generally concerned with the severance of sociological studies of culture from psychologistic and belletrist preoccupations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is usually presumed that the function of education is that of selection and that this is the most important conception of education of which sociologists should be aware. This paper presents historical and comparative material from two contrasting societies-Graeco-Roman Antiquity and West Africa in the late Middle Ages-which shows that the selective function was relatively unimportant. The paper concludes by suggesting that educational conceptions take a variety of forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humour and laughter have been regarded as suitable topics for research in the social sciences, but as methodological principles to be adopted in carrying out and representing the findings of research they have been neglected. Indeed, those scholars who have made use of humour – wit, satire, jokes etc. – risk being regarded as trivial and marginalised from the mainstream. Yet, in literature the idea that comedy can tell us something important about the human condition is widely recognised. This neglect of the potential of humour and laughter represents a serious omission. The purpose of this article is to make a sensible case for the place of humour as a methodology for the social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article responds to Sara Delamont's paper in the February 2000 edition of Sociology which provides an account of the relationship between the sub-discipline, sociology of education, and parent discipline, sociology. Delamont argues that the hooligan is an anomalous beast for sociologists of education, who paradoxically revere him: while the sociology of education is an anomalous beast for the parent discipline, whose practitioners reject and fear it. Essentially, according to the author, the latter part of Delamont's argument amounts to the claim that the wider discipline of sociology has neglected sociology of education. The author notes that in this article, his response is concerned with Delamont's unsatisfactory characterization of British sociology of education. According to Delamont, sociology in Great Britain has two grand narratives, both male--one derived from the political arithmetic tradition is quantitative, empirical and focused on social mobility, and the other discursive and focused on anti-heroes: the portrayal of the rebellion or resistance of the hooligan. Delamont has attempted to characterize British ethnographic studies, which include some reference to anti-school/delinquent boys, and which have been conducted by male sociologists, as falling into the same category.

The past two decades have seen rapid changes in the ways in which sociologists think about children, and a growing cross-fertilisation of ideas between researchers in a variety of social science disciplines. This paper builds upon these developments by exploring what three inter-related ways of thinking about spatiality might contribute to the new social studies of childhood. Specifically, we identify the importance of progressive understandings of place in overcoming the split between global and local approaches to childhood; we discuss the ways in which children's identities are constituted in and through particular spaces; and we examine the ways in which our understandings of childhood can shape the meaning of spaces and places. These ideas are illustrated by reference to our current research on children's use of the internet as well as a range of wider studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper was originally delivered as a British Sociological Association Presidential Address at the end of the Annual Conference at the University of Surrey in April 1990. In the style of Presidential Addresses it was written as a lecture that would cover a range of issues and themes. In revising it for publication I have tried to keep much of the style of the lecture as well as the range of contemporary themes that were covered: training for `practising' sociologists, employment questions, and the role of the British Sociological Association in debates about research training. It is intended to illustrate some of the major concerns of British sociologists at the start of the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes up the debate on strategy initiated by Crow (Sociology 23). It argues that the concept of strategy has been uncritically appropriated by sociology. It has been treated as though it were an unproblematic concept, whereas in fact it is embedded within specific discourses and has particular social effects. In particular, Crow fails to consider the explicit use of the concept of strategy in two key areas of social life - the military and business organisation. Had he considered these areas, he would have noted that the concept of strategy needs understanding in terms of its role in reproducing specific sets of hierarchically organised social relations. We argue that utilising the concept of strategy in other areas of social life has similar power effects. In our view, strategy must be treated as a topic of sociological analysis, not as a resource for explaining social life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between domestic life and employment, clearly of great importance for women, has received little attention from sociologists as far as men are concerned. The paper investigates one aspect of this, namely the relationship between family formation and unemployment among young men. Using longitudinal data from the National Child Development Study, it provides evidence for the existence of direct causal links between family formation events and unemployment. After controlling for a variety of factors, marriage appears to reduce the probability of unemployment, and this is true even if the husband is in his teens when he marries. In contrast, marital breakdown and fathering one child raises the chances of unemployment. However fathers of two or more children have a higher probability of unemployment than childless men even before their first child is born, and this is even more marked for men with three or more children. This implies that by no means all of the correlation between family size and unemployment is explained by the fact that welfare benefits are related to the number of children: part at least appears to be due to prior unobserved factors which explain both high fertility and a raised probability of unemployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its frequent use by sociologists there has been relatively little discussion of the practical difficulties involved in operationalizing the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS) system of social class allocation. Using social class coding data from a national study of child development this paper examines one problem which occurs when using the OPCS scheme - illegal combinations of employment status and occupational codes. Attention is only focused on occupations falling into Social Class I and for these professional occupations it is shown that illegal combinations are the result of the OPCS conceptualization of the professions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medical sociologists who suggest that some form of interactional control can be seen to operate in medical consultations frequently relate 'control' to the doctor's use of strategies which resist challenges to his professional authority and prevent patients from increasing their influence on decisions affecting treatment and disposal. This paper argues that much of the interactional 'work' discernable in the encounter is concerned less with the management of conflict than with accomplishing the production of orderly and topically relevant sequences of talk in a situation in which one co-participant has only limited competence in relating talk to a body of specialist knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents comments on sociologists D.C. Anderson and W.W. Sharrock's paper "Biasing the News: Technical Issues in Media Studies," in which they describe as a general critique of radical media/cultural studies treatment of news texts. Unlike other sociologists, Anderson and Sharrock demonstrated commitment to the non-evaluative reading. Their writings focuses less on themselves but more on the news texts to be read. Their work displays the basis for their ability to produce a critically evaluative reading. They claim that any legitimate reading can only take place under the legislative guidance of the writer. Further, the claim that the media are biased, it can only be assessed relative to the claims which the media themselves actually make concerning impartiality. For the reader of news, bias appears as a lack. The significance and extent of bias are produced by media scholars, rather than by the media themselves. Significant bias is not, then, to be found by identifying some under-represented viewpoint.

This paper considers the advantages and disadvantages of using official statistics - from administrative sources, vital registration, population censuses and government social surveys in sociological inquiry. In recent years influential critiques of such data by Cicourel, J. D. Douglas, Hindess and other have come to hold powerful sway in sociology. Yet their criticisms have been exaggerated, overdrawn and extended illegitimately far beyond fields such as suicide and crime in which they were originally developed. The advantages of such official data are here reasserted, by means of examples drawn from the study of health, wealth, occupation, social class and race and ethnicity. Significant and meaningful empirical regularities have been shown using such data. Facts do not speak for themselves, but neither does theory speak for itself. The conceptual difficulties are not so intractable as critics of the use of official data tend to suggest. Traditions of the use of official statistics in social science stemming from the works of Ernest Burgess, William F. Ogburn, S. R. Steinmetz and Oscar Morgenstern are discussed. The past achievements and future potential of research using such data are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses various concepts and ideas concerned with patterns of owner- ship and control in industry. It is concluded that Maurice Zeitlin's discussion is the most sophisticated and the most useful for empirical research. Some of Zeitlin's ideas are related to the structure of ownership and control in Scotland. It is argued that sociologists, unlike economists and political scientists, have paid insufficient attention to the relative autonomy of Scotland as a region within British society. The 248 Scottish registered public companies are analysed and it is concluded that there is strong evidence in favour of the view that companies can be seen as units in a class-controlled system. Considerable doubt is thrown upon the `managerial' view of the corporation. It is argued that a particularly important role is played by groups of investment trusts in controlling the network of Scottish companies the ownership of Burmah Oil and other Scottish companies is discussed to illustrate this. Finally it is argued that further research must construct a typology of directors and relate this to the position of Scotland in the international economic system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to examine what is involved when language is treated as a phenomenon of theoretic concern for the sociologist. The approach to `meaning' suggested by Wittgenstem is outlined and counterposed to formalized representations of the `semantics' of natural languages. The critical issue of rules of correct use' of language symbols is discussed, and some theoretical problems m describing linguistic competence are raised. Some of these problems are located also in a sociological domain where cultural grammars are theoretical goals of research. It is suggested that since linguistic knowledge is practical knowledge, codifications of it in rule-like form can only be for practical purposes. An alternative approach to the analysis of members' speech practices is proposed wherein the theorist investigates members' methods for resolving the indexical properties of communicative interaction, and treats `rules' and other order-assembly devices as elements of practical reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Controversy about the process of secularization has consituted the centrepiece of the sociology of religion in recent years. It is argued that this controversy is a particularly important and illuminating site upon which the redirection of the sociological enterprise is being wrought. The major sections of the paper are concerned with the explication of the terms in which the secularization controversy has developed among sociologists and sociologically-inclined theologians. Various relationships between sociological and religious perspectives are explored, the discussion of these being linked in the concluding section with the development of critical sociology and the sociology of the possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though sociologists have been interested in how temporal patterns of sociability vary in urban contexts, the study of city-level dynamics at short timescales has been challenging historically. Social media and new computational methods provide a solution. Our study clusters cities using sociality as a metric. We collected three months of social media data to investigate variation in the temporal structure of sociability across American cities. We find that cities cluster into three distinct types ('Coastal', 'Transitional' and 'Heartland') and that geographic proximity together with race, education and language associate with this clustering. Specifically, we found that clusters of Blacker cities tend to tweet more per capita, but also that more highly educated cities tend to tweet less per capita. These findings provide evidence that social media may be facilitating new opportunities to empower traditionally marginalized urban groups, a conclusion relevant to #BlackLivesMatter, the George Floyd protests and other social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While accepting that there is no 'accurate' or permanent all-embracing nomenclature to describe minority ethnic groups in Britain, I argue in this paper that both the term 'black' (a relatively long-standing radical formulation) and 'black and ethnic minority' (the emerging sociological orthodoxy?) are problematic conceptually, sociologically and politically. In making an alternative suggestion, I invite comments for improvement. Implicit in my argument is the suggestion that whatever phrase or term is used, sociologists have a responsibility to explain the assumptions on which any particular categorisation rests. Since I believe in the desirability of ethnic self-definition, I particularly welcome comments from members of groups oppressed on racial grounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New and emerging forms of data, including posts harvested from social media sites such as Twitter, have become part of the sociologist’s data diet. In particular, some researchers see an advantage in the perceived ‘public’ nature of Twitter posts, representing them in publications without seeking informed consent. While such practice may not be at odds with Twitter’s terms of service, we argue there is a need to interpret these through the lens of social science research methods that imply a more reflexive ethical approach than provided in ‘legal’ accounts of the permissible use of these data in research publications. To challenge some existing practice in Twitter-based research, this article brings to the fore: (1) views of Twitter users through analysis of online survey data; (2) the effect of context collapse and online disinhibition on the behaviours of users; and (3) the publication of identifiable sensitive classifications derived from algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have seen persistent tension between proponents of big data analytics, using new forms of digital data to make computational and statistical claims about ‘the social’, and many sociologists sceptical about the value of big data, its associated methods and claims to knowledge. We seek to move beyond this, taking inspiration from a mode of argumentation pursued by Piketty, Putnam and Wilkinson and Pickett that we label ‘symphonic social science’. This bears both striking similarities and significant differences to the big data paradigm and – as such – offers the potential to do big data analytics differently. This offers value to those already working with big data – for whom the difficulties of making useful and sustainable claims about the social are increasingly apparent – and to sociologists, offering a mode of practice that might shape big data analytics for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article makes the case for a sociological engagement with kindness. Although virtually ignored by sociologists, we tend to know kindness when we see it and to feel its absence keenly. We suggest there are at least four features of ‘ordinary’ kindness which render it sociologically relevant: its infrastructural quality; its unobligated character; its micro or inter-personal focus and its atmospheric potential. This latter quality is not the ‘maelstrom of affect’ associated with urban living but can subtly alter how we feel and what we do. We illustrate these features through a study of everyday help and support. In doing so, we argue that – as much as Simmel’s blasé outlook – small acts of kindness are part of how we can understand city living and that, despite the cultural trope of randomness, a sociologically adequate account of kindness needs to recognise the ways in which it is socially embedded and differentiated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers an outline of a pragmatic sociology of the book. Whilst ubiquitous, books have received relatively little attention from sociologists. I propose to remedy this situation by drawing upon the ideas of GH Mead, namely his neo-Hegelian theory of the subject–object relationship. Mead’s chief insight is that objects such as books are first social and only then physical entities. They have agency not because of their thing-ness, so to speak, but because of their sociality. After reviewing the existing literature on the book, I discuss Mead’s most relevant contributions. In the proposal for a pragmatic sociology of the book that follows, I combine pragmatism’s focus upon the materiality of meaning-production with genealogy’s concern with power and violence. I conclude with an illustration of the approach: the simultaneous decanonization of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America among sociologists today and its canonization in political science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the lives and works of many sociologists have now been well documented, numerous sociologists at the ‘coal face’ of social research remain ignored. Consequently, beyond the contributions of those more ‘well-known’ scholars, considerably more needs to be done to examine the history of our discipline and reassess the significant contributions made by ‘other’ researchers so that we may reappraise what can be learnt from these ‘pioneer scholars’. In this article we focus on Pearl Jephcott (1900–1980), who in a research career spanning 40 years, but now largely forgotten, was at the forefront of methodological innovation in the 1960s. We offer an introduction to her work, focusing on questions such as why were her methods innovative and why is she now ignored within sociology? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Few sociologists dissent from the notion that the mid- to late 1970s witnessed a shift in capitalism’s modus operandi. Its association with a rapid increase of social and material inequality is beyond dispute. This article opens with a brief summation of contemporary British trends in economic inequalities, and finds an echo of these trends in health inequalities. It is suggested that the sociology of health inequalities in Britain lacks an analysis of agency, and that such an analysis is crucial. A case is made that the recent critical realist contribution of Margaret Archer on ‘internal conversations’ lends itself to an understanding of agency that is salient here. The article develops her typology of internal conversations to present characterizations of the ‘focused autonomous reflexives’ whose mind-sets are causally efficacious for producing and reproducing inequalities, and the ‘dedicated meta-reflexives’ whose casts of mind might yet predispose them to mobilize resistance to inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article defends the claim that human rights is a legitimate subject of inquiry for sociologists, and proceeds to present the case for a particular application of sociological theory to the understanding of gross human rights violations. Sociology, it claims, is equipped to study the dynamics of social institutions – socially constructed language-structures within which social action is framed – and since the mid-20th century, human rights has become such an institution. The article advocates an intellectual project for the sociology of rights, drawing on a diverse range of sources, that recognises how human rights abuses are made possible when the very concept of the ‘human’ is subtly redefined through these language-structures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the 'canonical' status achieved in recent British sociology by four writers: Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck, Pierre Bourdieu and Anthony Giddens. Along with other key thinkers of the later 20th century such as Foucault and Habermas, these four sociologists, from different geographical and theoretical bases, transformed the shape of British sociology and its relation to social theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The acquisition of a sociological identity during the process of PhD supervision is reported, drawing on detailed analysis of selected observations of the supervision sessions, written communications and other aspects of interaction over the period of a single case study supervision which involved the authors as participants.The transition from an 'applied' identity (in nursing) to a 'pure' or 'professional' identity in sociology is documented, identifying the precise interactional mechanisms for encouraging and achieving this transition. These include 'bracketing' out of common-sense interpretations of behaviour that draw on the old identity and 'distancing' from the normative judgements of professionals inhabiting a dispreferred, non-sociological position. Taking place in a context of enthusiastic, directive and insistent exhortation and presenting a particular and somewhat locally determined version of adequate sociological work, the study shows both supervisor and student collaborating in the social construction of a sociologist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a number of references to research fatigue and over-researching in the literature, the concepts have yet to be empirically investigated within qualitative contexts. This article, therefore, seeks to explore how researchers understand and account for research fatigue and over-researching. Using the results generated from a grounded analysis, a number of precursors are identified and discussed. These include lack of perceptible change attributable to engagement, increasing apathy and indifference toward engagement, and practical causes such as cost, time, and organization. It is suggested that marked levels of research fatigue are likely to occur where the mechanisms that challenge research engagement increase and the supporting mechanisms decrease. Furthermore, claims of over-researching are likely to be reported in contexts where repeated engagements do not lead to any experience of change or where the engagement comes into conflict with the primary aims and interests of the research group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that in an age of knowing capitalism, sociologists have not adequately thought about the challenges posed to their expertise by the proliferation of 'social' transactional data which are now routinely collected, processed and analysed by a wide variety of private and public institutions. Drawing on British examples, we argue that whereas over the past 40 years sociologists championed innovative methodological resources, notably the sample survey and the in-depth interviews, which reasonably allowed them to claim distinctive expertise to access the 'social' in powerful ways, such claims are now much less secure. We argue that both the sample survey and the in-depth interview are increasingly dated research methods, which are unlikely to provide a robust base for the jurisdiction of empirical sociologists in coming decades. We conclude by speculating how sociology might respond to this coming crisis through taking up new interests in the 'politics of method'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jews have played a decisive role in the history of sociological theory. Paradoxically, Israeli sociologists - who came from similar Jewish social backgrounds, and shared the same intellectual traditions - have not left a mark on general sociological discourse. This study sets out to solve this paradox and explain why Israeli sociologists have had a negligible impact on the development of general sociological theories. Israeli sociologists have proved to play no significant role in the development of general sociological theory because they exhibited a specific mode of thought: (a) their theoretical questions were contextual; (b) their cognitive interest was to solve practical problems; (c) their theoretical perspective reflected national priorities; and (d) they exhibited a fragmented mode of thought. The article argues that the extreme local position of Israeli sociologists in the collective Zionist project propelled them to adopt the aforementioned intellectual features and therefore marginalized their contribution to general sociological theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a response to sociologist Geoff Payne's argument on methodological pluralism and the British Sociology. The argument that whilst a general commitment to methodological pluralism is common amongst British sociologists, empirical research drawing on qualitative methods seems to be over-represented in practice. It is not clear whether this shift to qualitative methods really does represent an explicit rejection of quantitative analysis, or whether it represents something more pragmatic. It may not matter, for the argument is that this methodological shift damages the prospects of the whole discipline and denies junior colleagues opportunities. Payne's research note is important because it combines anxiety about methodology with some empirical data. They rightly argue that we need to interpret this data cautiously. It is certainly the case that British general sociological journals have a very different methodological character to those that represent other national or regional sociological communities.

Earlier treatments of moderatum generalization (e.g. Williams, 2000a) explicitly addressed interpretivist sociology. This article extends that earlier argument by examining some of its implications for a wider range of qualitative research methods. It first adopts an empirical approach, providing concrete illustrations from the most recent volume of Sociology of what sociologists actually do when describing the meaning of their findings. In the light of this, we reconsider the significance of moderatum generalization for research practice and the status of sociological knowledge, in particular making the case that research design should plan for anticipated generalizations, and that generalization be more explicitly formulated within a context of supporting evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contact-recontact (aka 'mark-recapture') methods offer sociologists a potentially economical and effective means of estimating the size of range of different populations, but also face a number of difficulties-ethical identification of matches, sample independence, population movement, population definition, and sample heterogeneity. Drawing on three recent studies for illustration (the prevalence of injecting drug use across Wales, the local prevalence of problem drinking, and the prevalence of 'roflessness' in Scotland), it is argued that the first three of these problems can be readily addressed, while the last two are only open to partial resolution. Population definition may be partly addressed by careful selection of datasets or by combining contact-recontact methods with a screening instrument. Sample heterogeneity may be partly addressed by separate modelling of different constituent sub-populations. However, some of these 'solutions' may themselves generate further problems: the value of such methods is great in potential but uncertain in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]