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Identifying, locating and interpreting both what is present and what is not present in theory and data lies at the core of scientific practice. Most experienced researchers know that social reality and psychological phenomena cannot always be apprehended directly, and that the forces that shape them must often be inferred rather than positively demonstrated. Yet, the important analytical problems raised by "absence" have rarely occupied the centre stage in professional journals. The aim of this paper is to sensitise researchers to the problem of absence. It considers the various guises in which absences may appear, their repercussions in the research process, and the solutions that researchers have used to render absences visible. The paper focuses on the issue of absence as it appears in theory and research on social representations. A typology of absence, structured in terms of the research process, is proposed. The typology is intended purely as a heuristic tool. It identifies and discusses forms of theoretical, methodological, empirical and analytical/interpretive absences. This typology is used to explore forms of absence and their interrelationships throughout the research process in three studies on social representations. The discussion as a whole contributes to reaffirming the radical character of the theory of social representations by stressing how the latter locates the space of explanation at the interface between individual and collective representations, between social and cognitive processes, between intentional and non-conscious dynamics, and between material and symbolic realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the concept of “sociology” and the logical limits which, it is argued, are imposed upon its practice by the nature of the subject matter it investigates. This thesis is developed, first, by examining Michael Oakeshott’s distinction between “technical” and “practical” knowledge, and his concept of “abridgment”. The view of human action which follows from this is then applied to sociological practice in order to show how the latter involves a unique sort of abridgment. Then, drawing on Ludwig Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy, it is argued that sociological inquiry has its own form of investigation which is most accurately termed “description”. Finally, Harvey Sacks' notion of “primitive, natural science” is critically examined as an account of social science which approximates most closely to the one being articulated here. The weakness of Sacks’ account, it is suggested, can be explained by his failure to appreciate the Oakeshottian insights about human action with which the argument began. The paper concludes by drawing out some implications of the proposed thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on a qualitative research study, Children, Parents and Risk. This study looks at the ways in which risks to children are understood and managed by children and parents. The paper focuses on two areas of the research—gaining access and interviewing—in order to show how the research process itself has constituted an important source of data on childhood and risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to provide an overview of ethical issues related to social research with children. It sets the discussion in the context of current debates about researching children in the UK, and explores the extent to which children should be regarded as similar to, or different from, adults in social research, focusing on how children are positioned as vulnerable, incompetent and relatively powerless in society in general, and how this conceptualisation of children needs to be taken into account in social research. The paper concludes with some practical and methodological suggestions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's comment on the paper "Planned Development via Project," by Dirk van Dusseldorp published in this issue of the journal "Sociologia Ruralis." The author welcomes Van Dusseldorp's concern for a more productive approach to planned development via projects. However he disagrees reasoning by which this argument is backed up. According to the author, the paper provides an inadequate theoretical background for the practical proposals which the writer advocates at the end and which are well worth consideration. The theoretical model of planning processes as 'linking loops' is unspecific. It is clearly an adaptation of economic and psychological theories of rational choice or decision-making. Even more sophisticated sociological models often remain extremely formal and tend to concentrate on the question of means of reaching and implementing decisions.

This paper introduces the contributions to the World Congress special issue on 'Agricultural Change: Class, State, Technology, and International Food Regimes in the Late 1980s'. The papers are placed in the context of recent trends in the literature in the sociology and political economy of agriculture. Trends highlighted are the decreased dominance of deductive theories and the increased attention given to commodity systems and rural social structures, to international food and agricultural regimes and international commodity complexes, to the sociology of agricultural science and technological change, to the dynamics of agricultural crisis, and to understanding the relations between production and circulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are witnessing the emergence of a 'new nursing'. In part, this has been associated with the adoption of a 'holistic' model of health and a commitment to a holistic curriculum within nurse education. The role of sociology within the nursing enterprise has been the subject of much debate. This paper seeks to further this debate by arguing that sociology is invaluable to nursing for many reasons but that its value may be undermined as a consequence of being overly constrained within the nursing arena, at the mutual expense of both sociology and the long term interests of nursing itself. This paper will suggest that central to an understanding of how this 'surplus constraint' of sociology occurs is an understanding of the manner in which the holistic model has been adopted in much of nursing and nurse education. The 'indeterminacy' of the holistic model is such that it has empowered a questionable eclecticism, marginalized philosophical controversies within nursing theory, disguised difficult epistemological and ontological conflicts associated with competing claims to truth and facilitated the operation of a form of power whereby sociology has been excluded, at the very moment of its apparent inclusion. This paper goes on to argue that the value of sociology to nursing is dependent upon: firstly, a more systematic and rigorous discussion of its relationship to, and role within, nursing and secondly, a movement away from an implicit 'assimilation' model regarding the incorporation of sociology into nursing towards a more 'multicultural' approach. Only under such circumstances may sociology's value to nursing be realized but in a manner that places an importance on maintaining the ontological and epistomological integrity of the sociological tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a response to the challenges laid down by Hannah Cooke in a paper in the Journal of Advanced Nursing entitled 'Boundary work in the nursing curriculum: the case of sociology' (Cooke 1993a). In her paper, Cooke noted that the outlook of nursing and sociology are inimicable because nursing's concentration on individuals is at variance with sociology's concern with wider social issues. We argue that it is possible for nursing research to give due attention to social structures without losing its focus on individuals. One methodology that could facilitate this broadening of nursing's epistemological boundaries is critical realist ethnography, which works under the assumption that the relationship between social structures and individual actors involves a two-way process, in that while the enablements and constraints imposed by structures influence individual actions, those actions in turn either maintain or transform social structures. To demonstrate how such a methodology could be applied in nursing research, we work through a case study concerning the theory-practice gap, arguing that the gap is neither the result of clinicians' ignorance of nor antipathy to theory, but is largely generated by the lack of resources enjoyed by nurses, which in turn is a reflection of the social structure of capitalism within which nurses operate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to its critics, the "old" secularization paradigm has been tried, convicted, and executed by recent scholarship in the social sciences of religion, and is being replaced by a "new" (postsecularization) paradigm which highlights the continued vitality of religion in modern societies. This paper argues that claims to have definitively refuted secularization theory are exaggerated. It mounts a defense of a neosecularization paradigm which retains the core insights of the old paradigm while incorporating criticisms leveled against the hubris and laziness of some deployments of the concept of "secularization." Following Chaves (1994), this paper argues that the core of neosecularization theory is the proposition that secularization means not the decline of religion but the declining scope of religious authority at the individual, organizational, and societal levels of analysis. Three exemplars of this perspective in the area of religion and politics are highlighted: the work of Hertzke (1988), Demerath and Williams (1992), and Casanova (1994). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the belief in and reverence for superhuman beings cannot be understood as the chief distinguishing characteristic of religious phenomena. The consideration of Buddhism has always been central to the discussion of what religion is, and this paper focuses on the limitations of the human-superhuman dichotomy as it might be used to apply to Buddhist traditions. The argument makes three points: a) There are important sects of Buddhism that do not rely on reverence for superhuman beings, and the concept "superhuman" is difficult (if not impossible) to use in cross-cultural studies because of cultural variations in what it means to be human; b) the insistence that "philosophies" should be systematically distinguished from "religions" is arbitrary and culturally biased; and c) Buddhist doctrines that assert that reality is ultimately "nondual" provide the conceptual context for understanding superhuman beings in Mahayana, and this conceptuality is not consonant with superhuman definitions of religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the theoretical and policy significance of one of Robert Merton's most influential contributions to modern sociology, the anomie or ‘strain’ theory of deviant behavior. The enduring theoretical significance of strain theory lies in its sociological completeness. Strain theory preserves the interconnection between culture and social structure which is neglected or defined away by cultural and control theories of deviance. In its emphasis on socially structured contradictions in the relations of consumption, strain theory is also broadly consistent with and complements more conflict-oriented theories of crime and deviance. A major weakness of Merton's argument is its failure to clearly distinguish the etiological significance of the distribution of opportunities (mobility) and the distribution of outcomes (equality), which has led to misinterpretations of the policy implications of strain theory. Ironically, these problems are revealed through a kind of self-criticism that applies the basic tools of Mertonian functional analysis to strain theory. The paper concludes that, ambiguities notwithstanding, for purposes of theoretical integration and substantive insight, strain theory remains an important sociological perspective on deviance, especially when set in the context of Merton's broader sociological legacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an historical survey of problems arising in German mathematics during the rise and rule of National Socialism. Underlying this effort is the goal of developing a theoretical understanding of the social history of scientific disciplines in modern societies. The first part of the paper gives a brief description of the social system of mathematics and the characteristics of National Socialism. Second, an analysis of the background and structure of the attempt to construct a ‘German’ mathematics related to Nazi-ideology is given. This appears as an anti-modernist movement prompted by the rise of mathematical formalism. The basic relations between mathematical and political thought are analyzed and the reasons for the failure of the ‘German’ movement discussed. The third section examines the integration of mathematics into Nazi-German society, focusing on the twin processes of adaptation and resistance by professional societies. It is argued that social differentiation within the system of mathematics, as well as its modern cognitive and social universality, were preconditions of adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that interpretive sociology should review its model of consciousness in the light of the new feminist scholarship on women's experience of self and society. The thesis of the paper is that there is a fundamental conflict in women's consciousness between meaning systems inherited from the culture and those that are acquired through lived experience. This paper demonstrates that interpretive sociology's model of consciousness does not account for the conflicts posed by the feminist perspective and suggests future issues for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

his paper examines the claim that positivism and humanism are mutually exclusive alternatives to the study and amelioration of human society. In the first part of the paper, eight theses normally associated with twentieth-century positivism are documented and explicated at length, ranging from the verification doctrine and the unified-language thesis to an emphasis on the nomological-deductive model of explanation and the fact-value distinction. In the second part the claims associated with a humanistic sociology are then examined, particularly those concerning scientism, the value-laden character of all scientific inquiry, and the relation between science and human emancipation. In the third part of the paper a distinction is between those claims which were definitive of positivism and those which were either peripheral or later amended by the leading positivists. It is then argued that a number of the criticisms leveled against positivism such as the latter's supposed affirmation of strict determinism, of scientism, and that normative considerations, being nondescriptive in character, are of little consequence, are entirely unfounded criticisms. Such claims were never an explicit part of the positivist program. On the contrary, it is argued that both contemporary positivism and humanism are motivated by parallel ideals of enlightenment-through-science, by a concern with reliable social knowledge as the basis for rational public policies, and—to quote Hempel—with ‘the broadening of our (moral) horizons.’ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a reply to Lemke, Shevach, and Wells's (1984) critique of Tibbetts's article ‘The Positivism-Humanism Debate in Sociology: A Reconsideration’ (1982). Though the latter paper was singly authored, Stanley Saxton, who provided valuable input to the original paper, has been asked to coauthor this response. Tibbetts's comments constitute part I of this reply, Saxton's part II. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Kant, all humans share a basic form of spatial representation—space is an ‘a priori intuition. ’ Durkheim felt that Kant's a priori stance blocked the kind of empirical inquiry that would show human spatial representation to be, on the contrary, quite diverse. Durkheim's claim raises the issues in intellectual history and philosophy addressed in this paper. First, the paper traces Durkheim's reading of Kant through the nineteenth-century French neo-Kantians Renouvier and Hamelin. Second, it argues that Kant's and Durkheim's projects are not, after all, genuine competitors. The result is to reassert the sharp distinction between epistemological and sociological approaches to spatial representation that Durkheim and others tried to collapse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the relationship between two seminal figures in American sociology, in terms of its contribution to the movement to establish the science within the academic world. Using archival data, the analysis shows how Edward A. Ross and Pitirim A. Sorokin became acquainted and subsequently collaborated to expand the intellectual horizons and institutional base of sociology. Their collaboration is understood as intergenerational solidarity, which the paper argues is fundamental to an understanding of both the past and the future of organized sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the paper of sociologist Serge Moscovici on social psychology. Moscovici believes that social psychology was once becoming an influential crossroads discipline, one that could shape and nurture other social sciences such as economics, anthropology and sociology. Moscovici's solution to the problem of how to become a powerful discipline seems to be along the lines of getting back to basics. Throughout his paper, Moscovici urges other social psychologists to consider the importance of creating rich descriptions garnered through careful, painstaking observations. In various ways an inductivist model of science within a positivist-empiricist framework informs Moscovici's views of the ideal social psychology. Moscovici seems to believe that the positivist-empiricist mode of scientific method is unchallenged within social psychology and sciences more generally. The author stresses the similarities between Moscovici's philosophy of science and that of the most traditional mainstream laboratory social psychologist.

Neo-Weberian closure theory developed principally by Parkin appears at first glance to suffer from two opposing weaknesses — that its central concept of exclusion is either too broad or too narrow. This paper demonstrates that these objections are spurious. It then uncovers several real problems which have not yet been examined by the critics of closure theory. These problems have to do with Parkin's conceptions of usurpation, of the withdrawal of services, and of property, as well as with the ambiguity in the politics of Parkin's closure theory. The paper corrects these weaknesses and clarifies this ambiguity and concludes that closure theory so-corrected provides a promising framework for going beyond analyses focused narrowly on one particular means of domination and one particular set of monopolization and exclusion rules to a focus on monopolization and exclusion per se. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that children, as an important social group, repay study in connection with the sociology of health and illness. The paper outlines the neglect of children within medical sociology and goes on to open up a discussion towards a sociology of child health. The paper makes three main points. First, consideration of the case of health and illness helps understanding of children's social positioning as a minority group. Secondly, children present a clear case for considering people as embodied health care actors. Thirdly, taking account of children in the sociology of health requires rethinking the division of labour and inter-generational relationships within it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While sociologists earlier this century often used insights derived from psychoanalytic theory in their writings, contemporary sociology has largely tended to ignore this body of work. This is as true of medical sociologists as it is of others, despite the fact that the 'founding father' of medical sociology, Talcott Parsons, used psychoanalytic perspectives extensively in his theorising on the social aspects of medicine and health. In this paper I make a case for a return to a medical sociology that incorporates understandings of subjectivity derived from psychoanalytic writings, with particular reference to the medical encounter and the illness experience. The paper begins with an overview of psychoanalytic sociology. I go on to review the major insights Parsons developed in his writings and the work of other writers who have more recently used psychoanalytic theory productively in theorising the sociocultural dimensions of medicine and health care. The paper concludes with some thoughts about future directions for taking up the psychoanalytic perspective in the sociology of health and illness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article the authors comment on the views of sociologists Rona Campbell and Sam Porter, on a paper on feminist theory and the sociology of human reproduction written by them. The authors clarify that while feminists and midwives may hold ideas in common, feminist and midwifery practice are diverse and contested fields and there is no intrinsic affinity between the two. In their earlier paper they argued that feminism is not disinterested in its response to midwifery. It is further argued that differences which have become increasingly vociferous within feminism have tended to be neglected within the sociology of health and illness, and proposed that post-structuralist approaches might provide a fruitful, although certainly not unproblematic, counterpoint to a range of modernist feminist perspectives as they relate to gender and reproduction. In response to Campbell and Porter's criticism for ignoring recent midwifery and social science research on midwifery practice, it is clarified that the authors never intended to question midwifery's credentials in working with childbearing women.

This paper brings together recently developed perspectives m science studies and the historical sociology of state formation. It focuses on how scientific and government practices together construct the relationalities, identities, natures, and material environments of the bodies that constitute the modern state. The paper argues that the modem state is an effect of these practices, a techno- scientific political formation in which political government and scientific practice are woven together in a heterogeneous yet definitive network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the nature of educational studies is considered and discussed. Following some introductory comments, the paper deals with philosophy, psychology and sociology in relation to education. This is followed by a section on social psychology and the paper ends with a section on the history of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on stereotypes about gender differences in emotional communication or expression, as opposed to emotional experience or recognition. Expressiveness includes measurable changes in either the use of words, the facial and vocal characteristics associated with emotion, physiological arousal, or behaviors such as aggression or crying. The possibility that gender differences in emotional expression may be specific to certain situations is often ignored. For example, a series of recent widely cited papers have suggested that while females express dysphoric emotions more in words and facial expressions, males express these emotions more through physiological responses, as measured by increased heart rate, skin conductance, and blood pressure. Several papers are based on studies of couples' physiological responses, monitored during conflict situations in which wives confront husbands with feelings of marital dissatisfaction. In these conflict-laden interactions, husbands often show increased physiological arousal, while wives do not.

Dependency associated with depression involves at least two forms of social behavior: (a) needs for nurturance/protection and close attachment, and an inability to function independently and (b) being (de)valued, fear of disapproval, and social status. In many studies, measures of dependency combine these two dimensions. This paper argues that this has led to confusion on the salient dimensions related to depression. It is suggested that behaviors currently regarded as dependent, and linked to depression, are better understood as forms of involuntary subordination that involve judgments of personal inferiority, and submissive-appeasement behavior. This paper presents preliminary evidence that social status, and its associated features of negative self-other comparisons and submissive behavior, may be particularly relevant to depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the impact of managerial social status on the normative evaluation of managerial acts in organizational contexts. We test several propositions on the relationship between social status and normative evaluation derived from Donald Black's theoretical framework on social control. The research design consists of a factorial survey of 200 managers. Each respondent evaluated the seriousness of a normatively questionable managerial act. In each vignette, the perpetrator's social status was systematically manipulated in either a high or a low condition. The results generally support the argument that the higher a manager's social status the less vulnerable that individual is to unfavorable normative evaluations, holding constant the act. The paper closes with discussion of our findings in light of social structural and rational choice perspectives on informal social control in organizations. Additionally, we discuss methodological issues related to experimental research on informal social control in organizations, the consistency of our findings with those from previous studies of social control across diverse settings, potential theoretical applications and extensions of Black's framework in organizational contexts, and practical implications for the implementation of corporate codes of conduct and corporate dispute resolution systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article responds to sociologist Andy Pickering's comments, partly because of the inherent intellectual stimulation of exchanging ideas with such a distinguished colleague, but partly also because of the need for much greater interchange between the two fields, the sociology of environment and technology, on the one hand and the sociology of science on the other. Pickering's comments raise three important points about the analysis of Iron Mountain, Michigan. First, he praises what he calls papers symmetry in noting the importance of physical⁄environmental as well as social factors in understanding social outcomes. Second, he argues that people have not taken this point far enough, in large part because, he believes, the social is not sufficiently at stake in papers. Third, he argues that a fruitful antidote would be to trace the evolution of actual practices, in detail, over time.

This paper offers an analysis of the continuing crisis in sociology that is different from those that have appeared in the literature. In contrast to the ideological and technical readings, it suggests that the origins of the crisis are to be found in the hermeneutic challenge that has resulted from the linguistic and multicultural turns. Both of these developments have given rise to new discourses within the academy that are competing with subfields such as the sociology of the arts and race/ethnic relations. The nature and impact of this new competition is examined in greater detail through the case of the sociology of race. The analysis reveals that these competitive challenges are hermeneutic in nature and not primarily technical or ideological. The paper concludes with some suggestions for crisis resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes a characteristic syndrome of modern literature identified as "anxiety of influence" by literary critics and as "mania for originality" by art historians. Based on a sociological reformulation of the syndrome as it relates to the structure of acknowledged influence, the paper develops and tests several hypotheses. Data are based on a survey of West German writers and are analyzed by using clustering techniques and correspondence analysis. First, the analysis demonstrates the fragmented and non-hierarchical structure of acknowledged literaty influence. Second, the different types of influence (absence distinctiveness, and clusterability) correspond to different professional and literary characteristics of writers. Results highlight one of the contradictions between the cultural code and the professional structure of modem an: at the level of ideology, greatness and genius are equated with the absence of influence and artistic uniqueness. The analysis shows, however, that the denial/absence of acknowledged influence is found among writers who are excluded from the professional networks where reputations are made in the world of literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that Japan underwent a sequence of historical periods during which the level of technical development and the place of the individual in society paralleled that of similar periods in Europe. Particular attention is paid to 16th-century Japan, a period remarkably similar to the European Renaissance in its individualism and socioeconomic and cultural vitality. In both Japan and Western Europe, this renaissance followed the breakdown of an imperium and its replacement by a feudal system. The historical parallel continues with those parts of Europe in which absolutist governments were successfully imposed, since Japan underwent a similar phenomenon, accompanied by a similar decline in individualism and in technological development. Although no definitive conclusions can be reached, the paper explores the implications of these parallels for our understanding of both Japan and the general historical and psychological processes involved in the growth of individualism and technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relation between positivistic and interpretive sociology, using the stress research literature as a case study. Analyzing the cultural history of the stress concept, it uncovers four central themes: anxiety, performance, adjustment, and mentalism, Examining the self-criticismc made by scientific students of stress, it focuses on the problems of temporal order, confounding, and interaction. Comparison of the cultural and scientific literatures shows that while some of the positivists' complaints derive from general methodological choices, others come from inescapable aspects of the culture's general idea of stress. Considering the past development of stress research, the paper argues that positivism and interpretation have not been Cartesian opposites but interpenetrating fractals. It then speculates about what this relation implies for future positivistic studies, both in the stress literature and more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between concentration and control, in terms of both markets and hierarchies in economics and their analogues of polities and parties in politics. It is argued that the relationship is not always a positive one. In some cases the relationship is negative and in other cases there is no relationship at all. Insight into the determinants of the nature of this relationship can be gained by explaining apparent inconsistencies which appear when contrasting the economic and political spheres. For example, why is it that a market which meets the criteria for perfect competition-many small producers-is considered socially optimal but not so a polity comprised of many small parties? The two-party system, considered desirable in our national politics, corresponds to the much maligned duopoly in the economic sphere. This paper posits that there are three major types of systems found in both the economic and political spheres, which apply to both levels of aggregation-firms and markets, and parties and polities, respectively-and which have different implications for the relationship between concentration and control. It is also argued that these two levels of aggregation, however useful or necessary for purposes of discussion, are not analytically distinct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the interpretive dynamics of official inquiries. Beginning with an ideal-typical sketch of congressional investigations, the discussion traces a portrayal of public problems by a committee of the House of Representatives. This leads to the analysis of a hearing in which committee factions struggled to define an Air Force administrator as a "whistleblower" or a "renegade." The hearing is understood as a "certification ceremony" that rhetorically transformed staff, discoveries into allegedly definitive evidence, it is concluded that the paper's conceptual approach can be applied to diverse inquiries that combine documentary research with interrogation of witnesses to generate authoritative findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the authors' reply to commentaries on their article The Family Realm: Theoretical Contributions for Understanding Its Uniqueness. We believe that life within the family realm is a unique part of the human experience and that having a concept that helps us recognize and articulate this will be a helpful addition to the field. The main purpose of our paper was to demonstrate that when our perspective starts by focusing on familial phenomena we see things differently than when our perspective starts from one of the older disciplines. A family realm perspective helps us realize that some family phenomena are more fundamental than the social and historical factors that influence, shape and mold families. Thus far, we have not entirely ascertained which aspects of the family realm are inherent and which are developed by cultural and social conditions. It is only in the family realm that people are connected through generations. The other characteristics of the family realm that we identify in our essay are relatively unique to this sphere. This means that relationship permanence, concern for the total person, emotionality and so on, exist in nonfamily realms but they are experienced in very differently ways in the family part of life.

Drawing on the sociology of moral panic, this paper argues that the media will shift from alarming to reassuring coverage when a `hot crisis' portends a possible grass root panic. To determine whether this moderation effect follows from dread-inspiring events that are developing in unpredictable and potentially threatening ways, the paper compares newspaper and magazine coverage of emerging diseases with their coverage of Ebola Zaire. The results reveal that the mutation-contagion package, with its frightful account of emerging diseases, was quickly abandoned and subverted during the Ebola epidemic. In its place, the media fashion a containment package that uses a strategy of 'othering' to allay the fear. The conclusion discusses the flexibility in the tool kits used by the media to frame events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After more than two decades of challenging mainstream sociology, feminist sociology has come of age. Recognizing that the strength of feminist sociology in the early 1990s is the product of considerable struggle and is an achievement to be celebrated, this paper explores the implications of the maturation of the feminist project within sociology. It examines issues concerning the practice of feminist sociology and addresses its current and future theoretical orientations. The relationship of feminist sociology to both the discipline as a whole and to the interdisciplinary area of women's studies is discussed, and the merits of the 'integrationist' versus the 'multiculturalist' strategies are evaluated. The paper then discusses recent concern about 'political correctness' as a form of backlash against the success of feminist work in the academy. The theoretical concerns of the paper focus on the implications of the poststructuralist turn in feminist sociology, and on the turn towards agency which, it is argued, is just beginning. It is concluded that the issues addressed in the paper are some of those which will concern the emerging generation of feminist sociologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction to this paper provides a brief review of the literature on religious belief and practice suggesting that much of this remains to be fully assimilated within the sociology of religion. The paper examines the contention that contemporary British religious practice can be characterized as 'believing without belonging'. Drawing on a survey of rural residents in five areas of England, the paper suggests that a majority of people express high levels of religious belief and a sense of belonging to a particular denomination. Formal religious observance is, however, low. Through a detailed examination of attitudes to the Church of England, a picture emerges of a populace with a well developed sense of the role of the Church and its clergy which is, in the main, affirmative and positive. An important question remains as to why such sentiment is so unevenly transmitted into formal religious observance such as regular attendance at church services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourism is currently a very significant sector and force in the economic regeneration or micro-modernisation of old industrial cities in western society. This 'new urban tourism' has, along with tourism in general been little studied in sociology. This paper focuses on one aspect of this field, namely the staging of cultural or sporting mega-events. Social science interest in mega-events tends to be dominated by economic impact studies. This paper attempts to go beyond a narrow economistic approach and explores the wider socio-economic impacts of mega-events. It also suggests that we need to take account of a range of contexts (from macro-level post-industrial/post-national shifts to micro level urban politics and tourism strategy formation), if we are to develop a sociologically adequate understanding of touristic mega-events and their contemporary social significance. The paper throughout takes the opportunity presented by mega-event analysis to discuss some of the main issues involved in developing a structural sociological and political economic account of tourism events and policies. The focus of the paper on income, employment and economic modernisation impacts means that the cultural impacts of urban tourism are not dealt with in any detail. However the paper concludes by briefly considering (a) tourism as a cultural phenomenon (indeed as one of the archetypal forms of the 'post-modern' culture of modernity) and thus (b) the need for the sociology of tourism to attempt to comprehend tourism's various different dimensions (i.e. economic, political and cultural). It is suggested that dialectical forms of conceptualisation will be needed in addition to empirical studies if the sociology of tourism is to respond adequately to the challenge of its subject matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to challenge selected aspects of Professor J. A. Banks' discussion of Morris Ginsberg's view of the place of historical research in sociological work as they are presented in 'From Universal History to Historical Sociology' (BJS, rot. LX, no. 4, 1989:521-43). Specifically, it challenges Professor Banks' argument that Ginsberg believed that sociologists need not -- perhaps even should not -- do their own empirical research; that they should rely instead on historians and other disciplinary specialists for their data. It is true that Ginsberg was dismissive of a narrow positivist conception of empiricism and of sociology as a science more generally. At the same time, however, he saw empirical research (historical research included) as a necessary part of the sociological enterprise. Indeed, while the formulation of an all-inclusive theory of social development was the first purpose of general sociology, this was not possible without empirical contributions from a variety of smaller-scale specialized sociologies. Thus, it was not a question of historians doing one thing and sociologists another, but a question of emphasis. The paper concludes by noting that part of the difficulty in determining Ginsberg's position on this issue and other related theoretical matters is that, following Hobhouse, he styled himself as a 'rational empiricist'. According to this perspective, which from the dominant contemporary perspective incorrectly conflates philosophy and science (and sociology), the rational analysis of values can be described as a 'scientific' endeavour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observing that the violent realities of family life belief the social rhetoric of harmony, most sociologists recommend 'demythologizing' the family. This paper challenges that view, arguing that social rhetoric must be analysed rather than debunked. The sense-making activities of actors who engage in violent family events are identified as a strategic site for such an analysis. The paper explores the ways in which the rhetoric of family harmony is routinely sustained and reproduced. Two kinds of supports are considered (i) macrosocial supports, which sustain family rhetoric by integrating it into a wider system of collective representations; and (ii) microsocial supports which sustain family rhetoric by embodying it in the accounts of family members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the 1965 issue of the journal "Sociological Inquiry." The 1954 and 1955 Supreme Court decisions on desegregation are the force that set in motion vast changes that are restructuring the very nature of race relations in the United States. This volume contain recent developments relating to race relations in the United States. Its nine essays touch on several of the major areas in which change occurs or in which old blemishes remain. The paper by Robin Williams, with which this issue begins attempts an overview of what has happened in the last two decades. Most of the papers in this set are themselves reports of research appropriate to Williams' contention that intergroup relations are part of the basic dynamics of modem social systems. Richard Lamanna's doctoral dissertation is concerned in part with the response of the Negro public school teacher to desegregation. Lewis Killian turns his attention to the negotiations between representatives of the white and Negro communities.

This paper provides an assessment of Pierre Bourdieu's sociology based on a reading of his posthumously published lectures on the state in Sur l' État. It argues that the state was a foundational element in Bourdieu's rendition of the symbolic order of everyday life. As such, the state becomes equally pivotal in Bourdieu's sociology, the applicability of which rests on the existence of the state, which stabilizes the social fields and their symbolic action that constitute the object of sociology. The state, which Bourdieu considers a 'meta'-ordering principle in social life, ensures that sociology has a well-ordered object of study, vis-à-vis which it can posit itself as 'meta-meta'. The state thus functions as an epistemic guarantee in Bourdieu's sociology. A critical analysis of Bourdieu's sociology of the state offers the chance of a more fundamental overall assessment of Bourdieu's conception of sociology that has relevance for any critical sociological perspective that rests on the assumption of a meta-social entity, such as the state in Bourdieu's work, as a final ordering instance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists have increasingly come to recognize that the discipline has unduly privileged textual representations, but efforts to incorporate visual and other media are still only in their beginning. This paper develops an analysis of the ways objects of knowledge are translated into other media, in order to understand the visual practices of sociology and to point out unused possibilities. I argue that the discourse on visual sociology, by assuming that photographs are less objective than text, is based on an asymmetric media-determinism and on a misleading notion of objectivity. Instead, I suggest to analyse media with the concept of translations. I introduce several kinds of translations, most centrally the distinction between tight and loose ones. I show that many sciences, such as biology, focus on tight translations, using a variety of media and manipulating both research objects and representations. Sociology, in contrast, uses both tight and loose translations, but uses the latter only for texts. For visuals, sociology restricts itself to what I call 'the documentary': focusing on mechanical recording technologies without manipulating either the object of research or the representation. I conclude by discussing three rare examples of what is largely excluded in sociology: visual loose translations, visual tight translations based on non-mechanical recording technologies, and visual tight translations based on mechanical recording technologies that include the manipulation of both object and representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While many aspects of social life possess an emotional component, sociology needs to explore explicitly the part emotions play in producing the social world and human history. This paper turns away from individualistic and anthropocentric emphases upon the experience of feelings and emotions, attending instead to an exploration of flows of 'affect' (meaning simply a capacity to affect or be affected) between bodies, things, social institutions and abstractions. It establishes a materialist sociology of affects that acknowledges emotions as a part, but only a part, of a more generalized affective flow that produces bodies and the social world. From this perspective, emotions are not a peculiarly remarkable outcome of the confluence of biology and culture, but part of a continuum of affectivity that links human bodies to their physical and social environment. This enhances sociological understanding of the part emotions play in shaping actions and capacities in many settings of sociological concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Life story methods in Europe commonly belong to the field of biographical sociology. This paper points out that biographical sociology is missing from American sociology and describes in-depth two well-known methods in this field in Europe, the narrative interview and objective hermeneutics. The absence of biographical sociology from U.S. sociology should be remedied, it is argued, for the following reasons: First, an analysis of biographical patterns could counteract the heavy emphasis on social structure in American sociology and enrich certain subfields within it. For example, some of the concepts used in European biographical sociology, such as the concept of the 'trajectory' can be related to conceptions of agency set forth by American and British sociologists and thus enrich sociology overall. Second, biographical sociology can help counteract the heavy orientation towards quantitative research in American sociology without falling into the pitfalls of purely interpretive methodologies. And third, biographical sociology can significantly enrich the still missing link between culture and cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a response to a recent article dealing with the concept of value-free sociology by Donald Black. It argues that while a defence of Weber's position on the role of values in sociological research is necessary and important, what is offered by Black is counter-productive in important respects. This is because it encourages some of the misunderstandings that it is aimed at remedying and, even more importantly, offers a simplistic discussion of what are complex issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines one aspect of early twentieth century debates over the meaning of scientific methodology and epistemology within the social sciences: the tendency of sociologists to invoke 'laboratory' as a multivalent concept and in reference to diverse institutions and sites of exploration. The aspiration to designate or create laboratories as spaces of sociological knowledge production was broadly unifying in early American sociology (1890-1930), even though there was no general agreement about what 'laboratory' meant, nor any explicit acknowledgment of that lack of consensus. The persistence of laboratory talk in sociology over decades reflects the power of 'laboratory' as a productively ambiguous, legitimizing ideal for sociologists aspiring to make their discipline rigorously scientific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates a puzzling feature of social conventions: the fact that they are both arbitrary and normative. We examine how this tension is addressed in sociological accounts of conventional phenomena. Traditional approaches tend to generate either synchronic accounts that fail to consider the arbitrariness of conventions, or diachronic accounts that miss central aspects of their normativity. As a remedy, we propose a processual conception that considers conventions as both the outcome and material cause of much human activity. This conceptualization, which borrows from the économie des conventions as well as critical realism, provides a novel perspective on how conventions are nested and defined, and on how they are established, maintained and challenged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are living in a time when it is frequently assumed that the logic of capital has subsumed every single aspect of our lives, intervening in the organization of our intimate relations as well as the control of our time, including investments in the future (e.g. via debt). The theories that document the incursion of this logic (often through the terms of neoliberalism and/or governmentality) assume that this logic is internalized, works and organizes everything including our subjectivity. These theories performatively reproduce the very conditions they describe, shrinking the domain of values and making it subject to capital's logic. All values are reduced to value. Yet values and value are always dialogic, dependent and co-constituting. In this paper I chart the history by which value eclipses values and how this shrinks our sociological imagination. By outlining the historical processes that institutionalized different organizations of the population through political economy and the social contract, producing ideas of proper personhood premised on propriety, I detail how forms of raced, gendered and classed personhood was formed. The gaps between the proper and improper generate significant contradictions that offer both opportunities to and limits on capitals' lines of flight. It is the lacks, the residues, and the excess that cannot be captured by capital's mechanisms of valuation that will be explored in order to think beyond the logic of capital and show how values will always haunt value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]