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School architecture is often taken for granted both in use (where it is naturalized) and in writing on education policy (tending to feature simply as policy setting.) Built policy instead points up the active and ongoing role of the material environment in shaping education. From financing and procurement to the design of individual classrooms, the paper works across architecture, sociology and policy studies to clarify the relationship between different dimensions of physical and social space and so provide a useful theoretical ground for future work. What is special about school-building and architecture that enables them to do policy? How are they used to do it? By whom? From city planners to students, a range of actors use different space-organizing resources to attempt the instantiation of (and challenges to) policy in built form. These processes are explored first theoretically, then empirically through a new Academy school in England. The paper deepens understanding of what policy is, emphasizing its intimate if taken for granted spatial characteristics, its ongoing-ness in built form and its travel by means of circulating images of buildings and spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social care to assist with the activities of daily living is a necessity for many older people; while informal care provided by family members can be a first step to meeting care needs, formal care provided by professionals is often needed or preferred by older people and their families. In England, the number of older people paying for formal care is set to rise, driven by an ageing population and the limited resources of local authorities. Little is known about how older people and their families experience the potentially disruptive processes of deciding upon, searching for and implementing such care, including the financial implications. This paper explores accounts of seeking self-funded social care in England, told by older people and their families in 39 qualitative interviews. These accounts, which we call 'care chronicles', include stories about the emergence of care needs and informal care-giving, the search for formal care, including interacting with new systems and agencies, and getting formal (paid) care, either as the recipient or an involved family member. Stories are analysed through the lens of biographical disruption, and analysis demonstrates that such disruptions can occur for older people and their families across the entirety of the care chronicle. Needing, seeking and getting care all have the potential to cause practical and symbolic disruptions; moreover, these disruptions can be cumulative and cyclical, as attempts to resolve or minimise one disruption can lead to new ones. While the concept of biographical disruption is a mainstay in medical sociology, it is less frequently applied to issues relating to social care, and most often takes embodiment as a key focus. This study is novel in its application of the concept to experiences of seeking self-funded care, and in its introduction of the concept of 'care chronicles', which invite a longer and broader view of biographical disruptions in the lives of older people with care needs and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out the theoretical and methodological approach of a study of the politics of persuasion and the mobilisation of interest in relation to the Trust schools initiative in England. Drawing on the discourse theoretical approach of Laclau and Mouffe the paper argues that the politics of consensus associated with New Labour reconfigures the field of politics, closing down legitimate democratic space. Building on this approach and that of policy sociology the paper outlines how the researchers seeks to address the following questions – if the space for legitimate democratic debate is so severely constrained then how does a social democratic government deal with the kind of opposition that Labour faced in relation to Trust schools? How do governments persuade dissident citizens to support unpopular policies? How are citizens mobilised to support such policies? This also raises questions about how, in such a restricted political space, do those questioning or resisting such policies, engage in the politics of persuasion and the mobilisation of interests? The reconfiguration of the field of politics and what this means for the constitution of legitimate democratic debate is the object of study of the research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theoretical construct of social capital remains contested in terms of conceptualisation and measurement. The present paper follows the convention of distinguishing between trust, bonding, bridging and linking social capital, to conceptualise how religious communities promote and develop social capital within a specifically religious cohort. Developing this construct of religious social capital further, this paper proposes a measure for use specifically among religious communities to assess individual-level social capital. The Williams Religious Social Capital Index (WRSCI) provides a unidimensional construct of religious social capital taking into consideration the four elements highlighted. A sample of 720 members of six cathedral congregations in England and Wales completed a battery of items concerning social capital. Factor analysis procedures produced a 12-item index of religious social capital. Reliability analyses demonstrated that this index achieved satisfactory levels of internal reliability consistency. Construct validity was supported by the clear association between frequency of attendance and levels of assessed religious social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1990s, human trafficking has become the battleground for competing discourses on human rights and penality. While rights solutions are generally presented as in opposition to crime-control measures, in the context of anti-trafficking interventions, rights-based initiatives and criminal governance are often linked together both discursively and in practice. Drawing on the findings of Discourse Analysis of 120 texts about trafficking, this paper explores how dominant discourses and alternative voices construct the relationship between human rights and penality. It is contended that penality is framed as a crucial tenet of human rights. Dominant discourses (the 'law enforcement' and the 'victims first' discourses) link human rights to state coercive action, seen as a necessary component of their effectiveness. Alternative voices (the 'incompatibility' and the 'transformative justice' discourses) reject the appropriateness of penal intervention, but they end up preserving what they denounce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to put the findings of the Secure, Accessible, Friendly and Equal (SAFE) Housing study, which explored older LGBT* people’s housing concerns, preferences and experiences, in a sociological context.Design/methodology/approach The SAFE Housing study was based on a mixed methods research design that included focus groups and an online survey conducted in two areas of England. The paper draws heavily on the theoretical concept of social capital to help to understand and explain the findings.Findings Findings are grouped into three broad themes: safety, comfort and trust; connections and community; and imagining the future.Originality/value This is the first time that an older LGBT housing study has used social capital theory to interpret its findings. This shows how a focus on issues of trust, social networks and connections is expedient to avoid reductive approaches in research, policy and practice to older LGBT* people’s housing choices, preferences and expectations that concentrate on the individual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to investigate social mobility processes affecting the lives of 15 young adults in Loughborough (aged 20-30) who experienced poverty and disadvantage as children. Using biographical narrations, the interactions between the labour market, welfare, educational institutions and familial relationships will form the framework for assessing the applicability of poverty 'transmission' theories and mechanisms. The paper's concluding comments highlight the complexity and vulnerability of young people's lives, reveal the structural and individual constraints on social mobility and address the role that institutions play in constructing the past and current life experiences of those young adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the treatment of ontology offered by critical realism. It addresses much of the material elaborated upon in two editions of this journal. Three main groups of criticisms are made here of the critical realist treatment of open systems. It is argued that critical realism, particularly in the project in economics emanating from Cambridge, UK, tends to define systems in terms of events. This definition is shown to be problematic. The exemplar of a closed system provided by critical realism of the solar system is shown to be flawed in that it is not closed according to the closure conditions identified by critical realism. Second, the negativity of the definitions adopted is problematic for heterodox traditions attempting to build positive programmes. Furthermore, the dualism of the definitions is also inconsistent with Dow's approach, which has ramifications for the coherence of post Keynesianism. Third, the definitions tend to polarize open and closed systems and ignore the degrees of openness evident in reality. The polarization of systems leads to polarized methodology and unsustainable arguments to reject so-called “closed-systems methods.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the roles of migration and group-specific ethnic penalties in minority groups’ life chances. In relation to existing knowledge of extensive diversity between ethnic groups, and outlining a range of frameworks within which to understand that diversity, the paper first explores the relationship of class origins to parental educational and economic assets for three groups of migrant parentage and a comparison white non-migrant group. Second, the paper investigates for the different ethnic groups how the probability of having a professional or managerial class outcome is influenced by class origins and by the educational achievements of the “second generation”. Analysis is based on the ONS Longitudinal Study, which enables the study members to be tracked from 1971, when they were children living with their parents, to their own social class outcomes in 1991 and 2001. Because processes of occupational achievement may take different lengths of time for different groups, occupational outcomes are modelled in both 1991 and 2001, and also outcomes in 2001 conditional on position in 1991. The paper shows that there is evidence of differential processes operating for different ethnic groups that go beyond their class background, but which cannot be attributed to discrimination operating equally against all minority groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines two significant moments in sexual minority citizenship in England and Wales in relation to one of the Marshallian sets of rights, namely, civil or legal rights, focusing specifically on the Sex Offences legislation and policing practices. The first moment that will be examined here is the process whereby homosexual acts were decriminalized in the 1950s and 1960s: here special attention will be paid to the recommendations made by the Wolfenden Committee. The second moment is one we are currently experiencing, which is associated with the inclusive policing of sexual minority communities (especially lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities) under the provisions of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and in the review of Sex Offences, especially in the consultation paper (Home Office 2000) and White Paper (Home Office 2002) associated with this review. Privacy and toleration dominate the first moment, at the same time it shall be demonstrated that privacy is also central to the British Sexual Citizenship literatures that have emerged in sociology in the post Wolfenden context. However, as the title suggests, the second moment under examination points to the emergence of a rather more extensive sexual minority citizenship beyond the boundaries of ‘homosexual privacy’ (which British Sexual Citizenship Studies is not currently engaging with) and perhaps even beyond the boundaries of toleration through ever more ‘inclusive’ policing strategies and through the review of sex offences in which many discriminatory laws are being ‘de-homosexualized’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For pilot or experimental employment programme results to apply beyond their test bed, researchers must select ‘clusters’ (i.e. the job centres delivering the new intervention) that are reasonably representative of the whole territory. More specifically, this requirement must account for conditions that could artificially inflate the effect of a programme, such as the fluidity of the local labour market or the performance of the local job centre. Failure to achieve representativeness results in Cluster Sampling Bias (CSB). This paper makes three contributions to the literature. Theoretically, it approaches the notion of CSB as a human behaviour. It offers a comprehensive theory, whereby researchers with limited resources and conflicting priorities tend to oversample ‘effect-enhancing’ clusters when piloting a new intervention. Methodologically, it advocates for a ‘narrow and deep’ scope, as opposed to the ‘wide and shallow’ scope, which has prevailed so far. The PILOT-2 dataset was developed to test this idea. Empirically, it provides evidence on the prevalence of CSB. In conditions similar to the PILOT-2 case study, investigators (1) do not sample clusters with a view to maximise generalisability; (2) do not oversample ‘effect-enhancing’ clusters; (3) consistently oversample some clusters, including those with higher-than-average client caseloads; and (4) report their sampling decisions in an inconsistent and generally poor manner. In conclusion, although CSB is prevalent, it is still unclear whether it is intentional and meant to mislead stakeholders about the expected effect of the intervention or due to higher-level constraints or other considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the centrality of regions in social movements, politics and public administration, here we aim to quantitatively study regional identity, cross-region communication and sentiment. This paper presents a new methodology to study social interaction within and between social-geographic regions, and then applies the methodology to a case study of England and Wales. We use a social network, built from geo-located Twitter data, to identify contiguous geographical regions with a shared social identity and then investigate patterns of communication within and between them. In contrast to other approaches (e.g. using phone call data records or online friendship networks), use of Twitter data provides message contents as well as social connections. This allows us to investigate not only the volume of communication between locations, but also the sentiment and vocabulary used in the messages. For example, our case study shows: a significant dialect difference between England and Wales; that regions tend to be more positive about themselves than about others, with the South being more ‘self-regarding’ than the North; and that people talk politics much more between regions than within. This study demonstrates how social media can be used to quantify regional identity and inter-region communications and sentiment, exposing these previously hard-to-observe geographic concepts to analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earthworms are primary candidates for national soil health monitoring as they are ecosystem engineers that benefit both food production and ecosystem services associated with soil security. Supporting farmers to monitor soil health could help to achieve the policy aspiration of sustainable soils by 2030 in England; however, little is known about how to overcome participation barriers, appropriate methodologies (practical, cost-effective, usefulness) or training needs. This paper presents the results from a pilot #60minworms study which mobilised farmers to assess over >1300 ha farmland soils in spring 2018. The results interpretation framework is based on the presence of earthworms from each of the three ecological groups at each observation (20 x 20 cm x 20 cm pit) and spatially across a field (10 soil pits). Results showed that most fields have basic earthworm presence and abundance, but 42% fields may be over-worked as indicated by absence/rarity of epigeic and/or anecic earthworms. Tillage had a negative impact (p < 0.05) on earthworm populations and organic matter management did not mitigate tillage impacts. In terms of farmer participation, Twitter and Farmers Weekly magazine were highly effective channels for recruitment. Direct feedback from participants included excellent scores in trust, value and satisfaction of the protocol (e.g. 100% would do the test again) and 57% would use their worm survey results to change their soil management practices. A key training need in terms of earthworm identification skills was reported. The trade-off between data quality, participation rates and fieldwork costs suggests there is potential to streamline the protocol further to #30minworms (5 pits), incurring farmer fieldwork costs of approximately £1.48 ha-1. At national scales, £14 million pounds across 4.7 M ha-1 in fieldwork costs per survey could be saved by farmer participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new paradigm of early childhood allows for the construction of the child as active agents able to comment on their own lives. Historically children have been constructed using divergent discourses as either beings or becomings. More recently they have been seen as complementary and a further temporal state of having been allows for a richer description of the child. In play and role-play, the three temporal states can be observed and appear to inform the children’s understanding of complex world structures. This paper reports the research that was conducted in two Early Childhood Education and Care settings in England. The research was concerned with young children’s experiences of play and role-play in their early childhood setting. Observations and conferences demonstrate the ways in which the temporal states are established in their play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on private equity in the UK and is set in the context of debates about transformations in the City of London. The article focuses on a particular concept of trust as expressed by senior members of the private equity sector. The argument developed is based on interviews with five senior founding partners of private equity firms who talked to us about their background and education, their understanding of how private equity worked and the basis for successful money making and their relationships with those inside and outside the organization. All interviewees strongly asserted the need for absolute trust between senior partners as an essential condition for the successful operation of their business. At the same time, their description of trust in this context was that while it is deep, it is also easily broken, and that once broken, the breach cannot be forgiven. We call this 'brittle trust': asserted to be simultaneously strong while extremely fragile. The paper argues, drawing on Diego Gambetta's work on the Sicilian Mafia, that this concept of 'trust' reflects a particular understanding of the practice of private equity as a high risk, tough and unforgiving business that nevertheless requires high standards of personal integrity. The study allows us to understand something more about the social ideals that were built into this financial sector by its founders, which we argue formed a crucial part of the transformation of the financial sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces Edward Shils’ transition, during World War II, from enthusiasm to harsh criticism of Karl Mannheim, the Hungarian-born sociologist of knowledge. While serving in London, Shils drew upon a direct and explicit intellectual assault on Mannheim by fellow emigrés to England. Even while Shils maintained regular contact with Mannheim, Shils was exposed to an often vituperative dismissal of Mannheim’s work by Karl Popper and Friedrich Hayek, in the pages of the London School of Economics (LSE) journal Economica. After the war, when both Popper and Shils joined the LSE faculty—Hayek’s affiliation dated to 1931—Shils’ encounter with their critiques was deepened. And in these early postwar years, Shils became close friends with yet another emigré Mannheim critic, Michael Polanyi. Combined, these sustained and sophisticated criticisms helped wrest Shils from his interwar, Mannheim-friendly intellectual coordinates. The implications for Shils’ later propagation of the “mass society theory” label are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the significant characteristics of many poor neighbourhoods is that the schools which serve them are characterised by poor performance in terms of attainment and other measures. This feature is seen as critical in the reinforcement of disadvantage, its transmission between generations, and as a barrier to social integration. Government policies in the UK have increasingly targeted improved school standards and performance, while other policies on urban regeneration and housing may interact with this issue. This paper examines the particular role of homeownership tenure alongside the other factors (notably poverty) which affect school attainment. After reviewing existing literature it presents new analyses of attainment based on linked pupil, school and small area-level datasets for selected areas in both England and Scotland. This provides some evidence to support the contention that homeownership has an additional effect on school attainment, beyond that explained by poverty and other associated variables, although there is some uncertainty about how separable these effects are at school or neighbourhood levels. It also points out the significant role of changing tenure mix in housing regeneration in transforming the overall profile of neighbourhoods and schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A. H. Halsey has been a professorial fellow (now emeritus) at Nuffield College in Oxford University since his appointment in 1962 as Director of Oxford’s Department of Social and Administrative Studies. This paper explores his contribution to education throughout his career, as an academic and as a national and international policy advisor, and the interface between these two. Halsey worked in what he termed the ‘political arithmetic’ tradition throughout his career, with the dual tasks of documenting the state of society, and addressing social and political issues through ‘experimental social administration’, that is the field testing of social innovation and social policy in advance of national implementation. The paper focuses on Halsey’s ‘activist’ role in policy development in the UK and internationally, through his work on educational reform at the OECD and as research advisor to Crosland at the DES with the introduction of comprehensive schooling in the UK and in particular the Educational Priority Areas (EPA) programme, and traces through the impact of his work. His major contribution as one of the leading sociologists of education in the second half of the 20 th century is also discussed, but the wider impact of this aspect of his work requires a much more extensive assessment than is possible in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper undertakes a review of gentrification and global city research to develop an appreciation of the nature of gentrification taking place in central areas of Leeds in the UK. The literature review establishes an uneven and dominant set of social, economic and cultural relations between the city-region of London and the South East with other regions in the UK. It is proposed that these sets of relations will impact upon socio-spatial developments in regional cities in the UK and will provide the dynamics leading contemporary gentrification in regional financial centres. Using Leeds as a case study, quantitative and qualitative data are presented to develop an appreciation of the internal and external dynamics driving contemporary 'developer-led' gentrification in Leeds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kari Polanyi Levitt has commented that her father's writing was met with a 'deafening silence' in England, a silence which she suggests is 'yet to be explained'. Given The Great Transformation was purposefully, situated in England Polanyi Levitt's point is an interesting one, and one which still deserves attention. But the last two decades have witnessed an intensification of interest in Karl Polanyi's methodological approach and theoretical insights, from England as well as elsewhere, and representing a range of disciplines. This raises a string of associated questions: interest from who? Why now? And how? Further we could ask: Does this new interest have the potential to redress the Polanyi Levitt charge without falling prey to an opposite one of misusing or abusing the Polanyi legacy? This paper contributes to the much larger agenda of examining in a serious way the usefulness and applicability of Polanyi's key ideas and methods, particularly as they apply to the burgeoning interest in markets and exchange within New Economic Sociology (NES). A sub-set of this agenda is to explore whether Polanyian insights provide a more nuanced and critical understanding of competitive processes and innovation than is currently available within Economics, Sociology or indeed Economic Sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A discussion of the boundaries between nursing and sociology is contained in this paper. The creation of nursing as an academic subject is discussed and compared with the creation of academic geography. The creation of academic subject involves 'boundary work' in which power and legitimacy are conferred on some forms of knowledge and not others. Boundary work enables a discipline to stake out a claim to its legitimate territory and the resources that go with it. In a practice discipline such as nursing, the boundaries between nursing and supporting subjects, such as sociology and physiology, create problems of transfer of learning. This has implications for curriculum design. Bernstein's work on educational transmissions offers useful insights. He suggests a distinction between educational knowledge codes. 'Collection' codes involve strong boundaries between subjects, 'integrated' codes imply weak boundaries. The implications of the move to an integrated code in nursing are discussed. The existence of an integrated code implies a 'strong ideological consensus' within a discipline. In nursing this entails a belief in the 'individualized care' of the patients. This is incompatible with the sociological understanding of nursing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Introduction: While screening uptake is variable, many individuals feel they 'ought' to participate in screening programmes to aid the detection of conditions amenable to early treatment. Those not taking part in screening are often presented as either hindered by practical or social barriers or personally at fault. Why some people choose not to participate receives less consideration. Methods: We explored screening nonparticipation by examining the accounts of participants who chose not to participate in screening offered by a national research trial of atrial fibrillation (AF) screening in England (SAFER: Screening for Atrial Fibrillation with ECG to Reduce stroke). AF is a heart arrhythmia that increases in prevalence with age and increases the risk of stroke. Systematic screening for AF is not a nationally adopted programme within the United Kingdom; it provides a unique opportunity to explore screening nonparticipation outside of the norms and values attached to existing population‐based screening programmes. We interviewed people aged over 65 (n = 50) who declined an invitation from SAFER and analysed their accounts thematically. Results: Beyond practical reasons for nonparticipation, interviewees challenged the utility of identifying and managing AF earlier. Many questioned the benefits of screening at their age. The trial's presentation of the screening as research made it feel voluntary—something they could legitimately decline. Conclusion: Nonparticipants were not resistant to engaging in health‐promoting behaviours, uninformed about screening or unsupportive of its potential benefits. Instead, their consideration of the perceived necessity, legitimacy and utility of this screening shaped their decision not to take part. Patient or Public Contribution: The SAFER programme is guided by four patient and carer representatives. The representatives are embedded within the team (e.g., one is a co‐applicant, another sits on the programme steering committee) and by participating in regular meetings advise on all aspects of the design, management and delivery of the programme, including engaging with interpreting and disseminating the findings. For the qualitative workstream, we established a supplementary patient and public involvement group with whom we regularly consult about research design questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper was originally planned as an abstract of the introduction to a book on the coordination of the social sciences. It was written out in its present form as a contribution to the discussions at the conference on the same topic, held at Oxford, England, in October 1922. Unfortunately it arrived just too late for use at the conference; but it was kept in hand. The task of preparing the paper for the printer has not been altogether easy; for the author is now in India, and it has been impossible to consult him on a number of points, some of them important. The author has not hesitated to make slight changes in choice and order of words, and arrangement of matter, where he seemed to see clearly that improvement was possible. In some other respects slight changes have been necessary to meet printing difficulties. The author trusts, however, that the ideas, which the author is earnest to place before his readers, have in no way been obscured by these changes. It is impossible to foretell how far a contribution on such original lines will have authority with the sociologists of to-day.

The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is the standard qualification undertaken by pupils in England and Wales at the end of year 11 (age 15–16). GCSEs continue to play an important and central role in young people's educational and employment pathways. Within the sociology of youth, there has been recent interest in documenting the lives and educational experiences of ‘ordinary’ young people. In this paper, we analyse school GCSE attainment at the subject area level. This is an innovative approach and our motivation is to explore substantively interesting patterns of attainment that might be concealed in analyses of overall attainment or attainment within individual subjects. We analyse data from the Youth Cohort Study of England and Wales using a latent variable approach. The modelling process uncovered four distinctive latent educational groups. One latent group is characterised by high levels of overall attainment, whereas another latent group is characterised by poor GCSE performance. There are two latent groups with moderate or ‘middle’ levels of GCSE attainment. These two latent groups have similar levels of agglomerate attainment, but one group performs better in science and the other performs better in arts GCSEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

abstract The paper describes a developing sociological and psychoanalytic approach to the study of 20 London families in the early 1950s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides information on the biennial conference of the British Sociological Association at Queen Elizabeth College in London, England on March 22 to 24, 1957. The theme Sociology in Retrospect and Prospect was an appropriate one in view of the increasingly felt need to undertake a systematic re-assessment and clarification of the main issues involved in sociological theory and practice. A large theme of this nature could not be pursued in exhaustive detail, but the papers in both the plenary and the group sessions were such as to stimulate much thought, and the degree of interest shown in the conference was such as to suggest that this theme was one of central concern to all. The attendance was greater than had been anticipated. Although not central to the theme of the conference, perhaps one of the most significant facts about it was that it became the basis for a consciously contrived effort to begin and foster co-operative relations between the British Association and the American Sociological Society. Another encouraging feature was that 39 students were sufficiently interested to become student members of the association. The executive officers were very helpful throughout, and finally it proved possible to send over a small delegation.

This paper reflects on Julia Brannen’s contribution to the development of theory and methods for intergenerational research. The discussion is contextualised within a contemporary ‘turn to time’ within sociology, involving tensions and synergies between sociological and historical imagination. These questions are informed by a juxtaposition of Brannen’s four-generation study of family change and social historian Angela Davis’s exploration women and the family in England between 1945 and 2000. These two studies give rise to complementary findings, yet have distinctive orientations towards the status and treatment of sources, the role of geography in research design and limits of generalisation [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objectives: To extend existing research on the US health disadvantage relative to Europe by studying the relationships of disability with age from midlife to old age in the US and four European regions (England/Northern and Western Europe/Southern Europe/Eastern Europe) including their wealth-related differences, using a flexible statistical approach to model the age-functions. Methods: We used data from three studies on aging, with nationally representative samples of adults aged 50 to 85 from 15 countries (N = 48225): the US-American Health and Retirement Study (HRS), the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Outcomes were mobility limitations and limitations in instrumental activities of daily living. We applied fractional polynomials of age to determine best fitting functional forms for age on disability in each region, while controlling for socio-demographic characteristics and important risk factors (hypertension, diabetes, obesity, smoking, physical inactivity). Results: Findings showed high levels of disability in the US with small age-related changes between 50 and 85. Levels of disability were generally lower in Eastern Europe, followed by England and Southern Europe and lowest in Northern and Western Europe. In these latter countries age-related increases of disability, though, were steeper than in the US, especially in Eastern and Southern Europe. For all countries and at all ages, disability levels were higher among adults with low wealth compared to those with high wealth, with largest wealth-related differences among those in early old age in the USA. Conclusions: This paper illustrates considerable variations of disability and its relationship with age. It supports the hypothesis that less developed social policies and more pronounced socioeconomic inequalities are related to higher levels of disability and an earlier onset of disability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New medicines represent exciting possibilities to individual patients for improved futures through reduced morbidity, as well as the potential for disappointment where promised outcomes are not forthcoming. For healthcare systems these technologies can enable enhanced effectiveness as well as spiralling costs, depending on value-for-money offered. Amidst uncertainty over efficacy and pricing, institutions such as the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence have been set up to regulate the cost-effectiveness of new products. The increased transparency of this new regulation, combined with inescapable uncertainties, leads to the heightened politicisation of decision-making and an insidious subjectivity beneath a veneer of rational-bureaucracy. This paper develops a theoretical framework for understanding the influence of hope within such contexts. Conceptualised here as ideological, affective and prone to lapsing into trust, hope is considered to shape the lifeworld-background of regulatory decisions and mask uncertainty around effectiveness. These processes challenge regulator legitimacy and effectiveness within polycentric regimes, through the distortion of communication and the manipulation of blame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws parallels between the market trend in the English NHS and Polanyi's (1957) The Great Transformation: The political and economic origins of our time, Beacon Press: Boston (originally published in 1944 in the United States as The Great Transformation, Rinehart: and Co: New York, and in 1945 in England as Origins of our time, Gollancz: London) account of how the rise of markets provokes a self-protective counter-reaction that tries to re-embed economic relations in social relations. We report findings from a qualitative study of NHS contracting, which examines the recent move to harder-edged contracts with greater use of financial penalties and incentives. In practice, use of these techniques tended to be confined to nationally-mandated sections of the contract rather than emerging from local bilateral agreements, and when things went wrong the parties relied more on cooperative behaviour than on the provisions of the contract to find solutions. Making the current contracting system work depended more on existing relational networks than on the incentive structures created by recent 'marketisation' initiatives, but the inability of the market to evolve as expected has encouraged policy makers to publish plans for further radical reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors describe the incremental approach to the marketisation of the English National Health Service (NHS) since the introduction of an 'internal market' in 1990 until the 2010 White Paper, 'Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS', and the subsequent Health and Social Care Bill published in January 2011. The introduction of a competitive market for a universal, tax-financed health system requires fundamental changes in regulation in order that market bureaucracy can be substituted for direct management. The components of reform are insufficiently captured by the framework of hierarchies and networks in new public management theories of decentralisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper tells of the social constructs surrounding young children with learning difficulties in their home, 'special' early education setting and 'inclusive' or mainstream early education setting in England. The exploratory study focused on how three- to four-year-old children made sense of their environments and how their identities were constructed by different parties in the different contexts. Ethnographic case studies were conducted using semi-structured and informal interviews with parents and practitioners, documentary analysis, fieldnotes, and live and video observations. Shared constructions across the contexts for each child were common, with constructions of them being happy and making progress pervasive across the children and settings. Differences in constructions across settings indicated that qualities could shine or negative constructions be tempered, thus showing the role of the environment and the culture of inclusion in socially constructing children with special needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The youth justice system in England and Wales has been subjected to numerous transformations since 1997 under New Labour governments. Most approaches to the field during the period under review address the fine details of what is a politically and organisationally modernised domain. Even though this paper steps inside the system to observe some of its transformative developments, it aims to begin at the other end which enables a more rounded sociological approach to youth justice under New Labour to emerge which facilitates the production of a more detailed evaluation and understanding of the field. Design/methodology/approach – This other-end approach draws upon two main bodies of sociological theory, namely, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim, which are put to work to enrich the analysis. It should be made clear that the main concern is not to produce a blueprint for a new youth justice system, but rather to draw attention to some exploratory and explanatory tools to evaluate the period under New Labour from 1997 to 2010. Findings – Since 1997, the focus of the youth justice system has been placed upon individual and family responsibility, tougher on crime than its causes, and the creation of more efficient systems management. Furthermore, youth and criminal justice has been preoccupied with risk assessment and prediction. This has resulted in a system that is ambiguous in terms of what it is trying to achieve. Originality/value – The main concern is not to sketch a blueprint for the future, but rather to analyse features of youth justice to which these theoretical and sociological traditions of Weber and Durkheim are explored in order to explain the complex dynamics of youth justice make a substantive contribution by enlarging our critical understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a qualitative study of UK mental health practitioners' experiences of working with the contested condition, dangerous and severe personality disorder (DSPD). Our interviews focused on the issues of treatability, risk assessment and decision-making in multi-disciplinary teams. We discuss the approach of values-based medicine (VBM) as a useful framework for interpreting the data: respondents cited both explicit values (based on occupational training) and implicit values (based on personal beliefs and subjective perceptions). There was evidence of conflicting values -- within individuals, between occupational groups, and between individuals in occupational groups -- which led to widespread uncertainty and caution about whether and how those with 'dangerous' personality disorders could be treated. These disputes were resolved by a 'slide to pragmatism', whereby practitioners, reluctantly acknowledging their own empowerment in the process, sought to make whichever choice was least risky for their own professional reputation, and most pragmatic, given the resources available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sectionalism has historically been viewed as negative in that it isolates workers from a shared sense of a collective identity thereby weakening solidarity. This paper considers the alternative argument that sectionalism can be good for solidarity. It does this by measuring the collective identity of the workforce in the Tyneside Maritime Construction Industry (TMCI) using mobilization theory as a tool for measurement. It discovers that the collective identity does not necessarily develop in one setting but can develop in different stages and at different levels. It also finds that workers may have an association with different collective identities and therefore, the collective identity may take different forms. The collective identity can also divide as well as unite, which implies ‘solidarity within sectionalism’, and in turn it is argued that this brings positivity to the TMCI workforce’s shared collective identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a C-SAP-funded project evaluating the introduction of a new tutorial programme for first year Sociology students, which sought to integrate a 'skills framework' to enable students to develop a range of academic skills alongside their study of the subject. The pegagogical and institutional background to the decision to adopt this 'integrated' approach is summarised and the staff and student experiences are then evaluated using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Primarily concerned with evaluating staff and student responses to the new programme, this paper also raises some issues with regard to the methodologies of evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper was transcribed from a talk presented by David Kynaston at a seminar on Social Science Data Archives for Social Historians: creating, depositing and using qualitative data, organised jointly by the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) and the Institute of Historical Research (IHR), held at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London on 25 November 2003. This paper presents the author's experience of doing research for a social history of Britain between 1945 and 1979 using data and documentary evidence drawn from some of the classic sociology studies archived at ESDS Qualidata (University of Essex). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between gentrification and globalisation has recently become a significant concern for gentrification scholars. This has involved developing an understanding of how gentrification has become a place-based strategy of class (re)formation during an era in which globalisation has changed sociological structures and challenged previously established indicators of social distinction. This paper offers an alternative reading of the relationship between gentrification and globalisation through examining the results of a mixed method research project which looked at new-build gentrification along the River Thames, London, UK. This research finds gentrification not to be distinguished by the gentrifer-performed practice of habitus within a ‘global context’. Rather, the responsibility for gentrification, and the relationship between globalisation and gentrification, is found to originate with capital actors working within the context of a neoliberal global city. In order to critically conceptualise this form of gentrification, and understand the role of globalisation within the process, the urban theory of Lefebvre is drawn upon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the policy of promoting 'mixed communities' in the UK context. It describes the various policy instruments available for the pursuance of this goal and sets out the assumed benefits and underlying mechanisms intended to deliver beneficial outcomes, especially for disadvantaged areas. It goes on to analyse the effects of housing tenures and of housing tenure mix upon the incidence of serious problems and of the desire for local service improvements within neighbourhoods in England, using the Survey of English Housing. The findings indicate that the level of social renting is a more important influence upon neighbourhood conditions than the degree of tenure mixing. Furthermore, the findings provide more support for tenure dispersal policies than for tenure dilution strategies such as promoting a modest degree of owner occupation on social housing estates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research on social capital has explored trends in membership in voluntary organizations. However, there is currently little robust evidence on such trends in the UK since the 1970s, nor is there any analysis of whether participation bridges social divisions or accentuates them. This paper explores trends in participation in England and Wales since 1972 using data from the Social Mobility Inquiry of 1972 and the British Household Panel Survey of 1992 and 1999. We are concerned with social exclusion mechanisms in social capital generation in Britain over the three decades. Using binomial and multinomial models to 'unpack' the effects of socio-cultural factors on civic participation and on different types of associational membership, we test the thesis of across-the-board decline in social capital by Putnam (2000) and that of rising levels of middle-class social capital versus consistent low levels of working-class social capital by Hall (1999). The results show significant socio-cultural-gender differences, a relative stability of middle-class participation, and a rapid decline in the working-class access to social capital. We challenge the established accounts of both theses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seen as a corrective to the continuing preoccupations of the sociology of social movements with progressive organisations and movements, this paper offers an analysis of the defensive crime prevention initiatives emerging in the suburbs of South Manchester (and, undoubtedly, elsewhere) as a vital contemporary social movement, taking a very specific organisational form. The paper also attempts to show how the movements taking place around crime ought to be linked, analytically, to other local suburban initiatives on Quality of Life issues and, in particular, following Molotch and Logan's pioneering work on the political economy of post-industrial cities, to interest-governed campaigns around the positioning of the larger city in national and international competition. The angry commitment informing all such connected social movements in the suburbs is ignored by progressive social movement analysis at its own peril. [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]

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

This article explores the question: can the variation that have been observed in class mobility rates in England, France and Sweden be in fact attributed entirely to differences in the evolution of the class structures of these societies - or in other factors affecting the demand and supply conditions attending mobility; or is it rather the case that there are, in addition to such structural sources of variation, differences also among the three societies in the pattern of what we would term their social fluidity or, in other words, in mobility considered independently of structural influences? To use the conceptual language that has been conventional in mobility research- but from which we would wish to depart -- the issue could then be alternatively posed as that of whether the cross-national variation that we have demonstrated is confined simply to structural mobility, or whether it extends to exchange mobility as well. The source of mobility data in England, France and Sweden have been fully described in previous paper of these authors. Here it will be sufficient to say that the data derive from nationally-based sample survey inquiries undertaken in the three countries during the early 1970s.

Using the implementation of the Griffiths Report as an example, this paper examines the way in which sociologists and others have examined the process of managing change within the NHS. Several studies of Griffiths have documented a number of unintended consequences of its implementation but it is argued that none of these have adequately theorised these unintended outcomes of the policy implementation process. It is suggested that the process-sociological approach of Norbert Elias, and in particular his game models, enable us better to understand the complex interweaving of planned and unplanned processes which is involved in all processes of managed change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article highlights the first conference of the British Sociological Association held in London, England on March 27-29, 1953. The conference was attended by 233 persons of whom 125 were members of the Association. The theme was Social Policy and the Social Sciences. The conference opened with a plenary session which was addressed by Myrdal on the Relation Between Social Theory and Social Policy. For the second day the conference divided into three groups, each of which devoted its attention to a topic chosen to illustrate the general theme. The three topics chosen for group discussion were: health; design and planning of buildings, towns and countryside; needs and standards in the social services.

This section offers news briefs related to the Association for the Sociology of Religion (ASR). It states that religion, identity and place is the major theme in the 2010 annual meeting of the ASR. It mentions some of the members of the ASR who died in 2009 including Nancy L. Eiesland, Thomas P. Imse and Joseph B. Tamney. It also announces the 33rd annual Denton Conference on Implicit Religion to be held at Denton Hall, Ilkley, West Yorkshire, England, in May 2010.

Low‐dose computed tomography lung cancer screening has mortality benefits. Yet, uptake has been low. To inform strategies to better deliver and promote screening, in 2018, we interviewed 27 long‐term smokers immediately following lung cancer screening in Australia, prior to receiving scan results. Existing lung screening studies employ the Health Belief Model. Reflecting growing acknowledgement of the centrality of emotions to screening uptake, we draw on psychological and sociological theories on emotions to thematically and abductively analyse the emotional dimensions of lung cancer screening, with implications for screening promotion and delivery. As smokers, interviewees described feeling stigmatised, with female participants internalising and male participants resisting stigma. Guilt and fear related to lung cancer were described as screening motivators. The screening itself elicited mild positive emotions. Notably, interviewees expressed gratitude for the care implicitly shown through lung screening to smokers. More than individual risk assessment, findings suggest lung screening campaigns should prioritise emotions. Peer workers have been found to increase cancer screening uptake in marginalised communities, however the risk to confidentiality—especially for female smokers—limits its feasibility in lung cancer screening. Instead, we suggest involving peer consultants in developing targeted screening strategies that foreground emotions. Furthermore, findings suggest prioritising humanistic care in lung screening delivery. Such an approach may be especially important for smokers from low socioeconomic backgrounds, who perceive lung cancer screening and smoking as sources of stigma and face a higher risk of dying from lung cancer and lower engagement with screening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transfer from primary to secondary school in England and Wales is a status passage, from child to teenager. Research on the anxieties and anticipations surrounding that transfer over a 30-year period shows continuities and discontinuities. As well as the contrast of sociological approaches, the perceptions of children in 1977–1978 and 2003–2004 are compared to explore whether their anxieties and anticipations have changed. The transfer studies conducted by Galton in the 1970s are shown to have revealed concerns and enthusiasms among children that are an enduring feature of British pupils’ lives. Two different sociological approaches to researching children are contrasted, one current in the 1970s, the other predominant in the new century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]