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The recent flourishing of visual methods is not mirrored in studies of taste. This paper engages with photo elicitation (PE), which Bourdieu applied in Distinction, but never elaborated on. We conducted systematic photo-interviewing in arts, fiction and architecture. After reviewing the relevant literature, we highlight illustrative findings and discuss the potential of PE. In studies of taste, PE helps in bridging "social worlds", and can unveil class-based repertoires for understanding culture. It provides entry to tacit knowledge, and aids comparisons. Importantly, when two methods, PE and oral interviewing, are used in combination, this significantly helps substantiate our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the logic of neoliberal choice policy is typically blind to considerations of space and place, but inevitably impacts on rural and remote locations in the way that middle-class professionals view the opportunities available in their local educational markets. The paper considers the value of middle-class professionals’ educational capitals in regional communities and their problematic distribution, given that class fraction’s particular investment in choice strategies to ensure their children’s future. It then profiles the educational market in six communities along a transect between a major regional centre and a remote ‘outback’ town, using publicly available data from the Australian Government’s My School website. Comparison of the local markets shows how educational outcomes are distributed across the local markets and how dimensions of ‘choice’ thin out over the transect. Interview data offer insights into how professional families in these localities engage selectively with these local educational markets or plan to transcend them. The discussion reflects on the growing importance of educational choices as a marker of place in the competition between localities to attract and retain professionals to staff vital human services in their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One of the obstacles to understanding the links between social inequality and mental health distress is the reliance on heterogeneous diagnostic categories. In this paper, it is argued that a solution to this problem is to explore more homogenous experiences of distress. This paper investigates one particular form of distress: paranoia. The relationship between social inequality and paranoia is then examined, focusing on two aspects. Firstly, it is argued that social inequality might affect the experience of paranoia itself since the experience of the surveillance encountered in the everyday use of public space may vary depending on one's location in social categories like gender, 'race' and culture and class (these social categories are, of course, themselves stratified by social inequality). Secondly, mental health service users' locations in these categories may influence the way that the plausibility of ostensibly paranoid claims are evaluated by mental health professionals. Within the discussion of each category, links are drawn between community and clinical samples to understand how the experience of paranoia may be influenced by these social categories. The paper concludes with implications for research and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2009 Woodman has recently challenged youth sociologists concerned with inequality to evolve from what he describes as a middling orthodoxy that misrepresents the work of Ulrich Beck in an effort to emphasise the continuing relevance of class. In 2010 Roberts forcefully responds to Woodman, arguing that Beck's own words and empirical evidence contradict his argument. Woodman responds to Roberts, reasserting his position and asks for the debate to move beyond mere 'quote wars'. This paper engages with this debate, taking Woodman's challenge seriously while maintaining that Beck's jettison of class is problematic, and that the concept of class itself is still vital. The paper concludes with suggestions as to what youth sociologists concerned with socio-economic inequality might want to focus upon in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the intersection of gender and class concerning welfare clients with medically unexplained symptoms. The study is conducted in Denmark using qualitative interviews with welfare officers and clients. The paper's focus is on how issues of gender and class intersect in the negotiation of illness among welfare officers and clients. The particular client group in question consists of individuals that are defined by their lack of a bio-medical diagnosis. Their 'lack' of identity accentuates how gender and class become central in the categorisation practices, constructing the ill person as either bio-medically sick or as a person who may be suffering but only from diffuse psychological problems. The paper shows that it is predominantly poorly educated women without a bio-medical diagnosis that welfare officers describe as suffering from psychological problems despite the fact that the women themselves focus on physical ailments in their illness stories. Men and better-educated women are described by the welfare officers as tired and exhausted or truly stressed after a long working life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds upon an earlier analysis presented in this journal. Using official figures for school compositions and for outcomes at KS4 from 1997 to 2007, this paper considers each of the annual cohorts of new Academies in England, from 2002 to 2006. It shows that their level of success in comparison to their predecessors, national averages, their changing compositions and their changing exam entry practices are insubstantial. Of course some schools are gaining higher scores since Academisation, but others are gaining lower scores. Using the most recent results available there is no clear evidence that Academies produce better results than local authority schools with equivalent intakes. The Academies programme therefore presents an opportunity cost for no apparent gain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is primarily concerned with examining how the current re-emergence of psychosocial theory, mainly emanating from sociology, is useful for informing social work theory. Firstly it considers two extended examples of the limitations and/or contradictions in current theory for social work (that of linguistic determinism and postmodern versions of identity), and suggests how psychosocial theory offers ways forward for understanding and practice. The paper then considers two particular strengths in psychosocial theory: the ability to offer a 'rich' conceptualisation of the subject, and the equalising of worker and service user implicit in the theory. A further section looks briefly at the recent application of psychodynamic principles in social work practice, as 'relationship-based practice'. It then briefly considers some further implications for research and 'evidence' for social work. The paper's final section offers a discussion of two potential limitations in applying psychosocial theory in practice, before concluding that overall psychosocial theory is both productive, useful and appropriate for social work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework for exploring the ways in which class and gender interact in occupational fields. In recent years, very little research has been specifically concerned with the relationship between gender and class. Much of the literature which grapples with the question of how gender and class interact contains theoretical limitations which appear to stem from a reliance on categorical theories of both class and gender. In this paper it is proposed that, when used in conjunction, the approaches of Bourdieu and Butler provide a framework for exploring class and gender in terms of embodied practice. In order to illustrate the possibilities enabled by 'appropriating Bourdieu and adding Butler', the paper suggests ways in which this conceptual framework makes possible the examination of the complex relations between gender and class within one particular area of 'women's work': the field of nursing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The roots of the political-economy-of-youth perspective can be traced to the neo-Marxist attempts to account for the youth movements and countercultures of the 1960s and to argue that youth constitute a potentially revolutionary ‘class’. Although this perspective influenced subcultural views of youth, since the 1980s sociological and cultural studies approaches to youth studies have tended to focus on the disadvantaged and working class rather than the entire youth segment of the population, while becoming increasingly preoccupied with subjectivities rather than the material conditions. Although these approaches to class divisions within the youth segment are useful, there is recent evidence of a systemic proletarianisation of the entire youth population in many countries, raising again materialist concerns and the issue of youth-as-class. Evidence for class-relations between youth and adults with respect to reduced earning power and education-to-work prospects is presented, followed by a critique of current youth-studies approaches that do not provide explanations of the root causes of youth proletarianisation. The paper ends with a call for a revival of the political-economy-of-youth perspective that is capable of generating ideas about solutions to this proletarianisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to understand the way in which social capital resources are incorporated, appropriated and distributed by different social classes in Europe. Its main goal is to produce a conceptual framework by linking the concepts of social capital with the different theoretical assessments made by the sociology of social classes. We use multivariate analysis to work a set of quantitative indicators from the European Social Survey 2008 in order to assess the relationship between these concepts. Our methodological approach combines transnational levels, i.e., it is not an international comparison between European countries but an analysis of individual people and their belonging to social classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preventing disease is by definition a valuable objective, and most debates have revolved around improving the effectiveness of prevention. In this discussion, I explore the latent functions - the unintended consequences - of what I call the 'project of prevention'. Although many latent functions are welcome, some have undesirable effects, and it is therefore important to instigate a rich exchange between innovative theory and rigorous research to minimise such effects. I argue that the hazards are particularly acute in the absence of a reflexive and critical awareness of the political environment and the cultural economy within which prevention occurs. In the paper, I sketch the challenges to mobilising that awareness, show some of the limitations of the conventional theoretical approaches to prevention, and point to directions for developing more fruitful perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore how ‘ability’ is currently conceptualised in physical education and with what effects for different groups of young people. We interrogate approaches to theorising ability in physical education that draw on sociological and phenomenological ‘foundations’ together with notions of ability as ‘physical’ and ‘cultural capital’ drawn from the work of Bourdieu. We also look to data we and others have collected across a number of empirical projects to ask: where do we find talk about what we might identify as ‘ability’ in the context of physical education and sport; how is it talked about? And in what ways might this further our thinking of the meaning of ‘ability’ in physical education and school based sport? Our findings suggest that physical ability is far from a neutral concept and that how it is understood has important consequences for young people in relation to gender, race and social class. We argue that ongoing discussions around what we mean by ability, how we use it, and in relation to whom, are crucial in physical education where organised sport, recreation and exercise remain privileged over other constituents of physical culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares class patterns of ‘conformism’ in four Western countries, taking as its point of departure arguments, which suggest that conformism/authoritarianism is more prevalent in the working class than other classes. Data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) are used in order to compare class attitudes towards sexual behaviour and civil rights/liberties, in Britain, Germany, Sweden and the United States. This study finds that class patterns in attitudes differ little between the countries in question, although aggregated levels vary quite substantially. It is also concluded that class differences in attitudes towards civil rights/liberties are almost exclusively a result from different levels of education, while significant class differences in attitudes towards sexual activities remain also after taking education levels into account. The implications of the results for social stratification and political articulation are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Spring 1998 (56(1): 47-57) and Fall 1998 (56(3): 295-306, 307-310) issues of this review, Howard Sherman and Geoffrey Hodgson debated, inter alia, the extent to which Veblen-Ayres institutionalism is compatible with Marx and recent Marxist work. This paper argues that the differences between Hodgson and Sherman"s positions do not rely on assumptions of "illogical" behavior, individualist arguments or structural conceptions of the individual. Instead, the debate turns on the authors' respective conceptions of the formation and role of the human mind in what it is to be a social individual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]