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Debates about the state of Australian sociology have raged for as long as sociology has existed in Australia. Concerns about the discipline's future may be inevitable for a critical, reflexive discipline, but to those entering the discipline, it is neither instructive nor productive to be subjected to lingering disciplinary anxieties. After more than fifty years, it is time to take stock of the differing visions of sociology, and examine the arguments about the health, or otherwise, of Australian sociology. To advance this debate, we consider the signs and benchmarks of a 'successful' sociology as expressed in The Australian Sociological Association magazine, NEXUS, and key writings from Australian sociologists. We suggest that much of the disagreement over the status of sociology derives from the way 'disciplines' and 'success' are defined. Regarding sociology to be an heterogeneous, multi-modal, social institution and practice, we propose a way forward in our efforts to represent ourselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Choice is an imperative for patients in the Australian healthcare system. The complexity of this healthcare ‘maze’, however, means that successfully navigating and making choices depends not only on the decisions of patients, but also other key players in the healthcare sector. Utilising Bourdieu's concepts of capital, habitus and field, we analyse the role of gatekeepers (i.e., those who control access to resources, services and knowledge) in shaping patients' experiences of healthcare, and producing opportunities to enable or constrain their choices. Indepth interviews were conducted with 41 gatekeepers (GPs, specialists, nurses, hospital administrators and policymakers), exploring how they acquire and use knowledge within the healthcare system. Our findings reveal a hierarchy of knowledges and power within the healthcare field which determines the forms of knowledge that are legitimate and can operate as capital within this complex and dynamic arena. As a consequence, forms of knowledge which can operate as capital, are unequally distributed and strategically controlled, ensuring democratic 'reform' remains difficult and 'choices' limited to those beneficial to private medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on a citation-context analysis of journal articles from Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Examining publications from the sociology of health and medicine, the study draws a number of conclusions about the state of sociology, inter-country relationships between knowledge workers, and national systems of sociological knowledge production. It finds that core–periphery relations define significant features of sociological work, impacting on citation patterns, inter-country collaboration and the selection of reference materials. Core–periphery relations are also found to influence the sociological production of knowledge across the Australian university sector. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The production of sociological knowledge in Australian universities is explored through an empirical study of research papers published in a selection of academic outlets between 1960 and 2011. Drawing on theories concerning scholarly practices, institutional formation and the sociology of knowledge, questions are posed about the factors that shape and structure the production of sociological knowledge about health and medicine. The concept of intellectual schools is examined, with evidence sought for the presence of these 'knowledge networks' in the Australian context. The study suggests the formation and maintenance of schools are subject to structural factors within the university sector, specifically the relative wealth and prestige of the university and the dictates of the higher education market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a study of the specialist field of the sociology of health and medicine, and examines its institutional development in Australia. A thesis is developed about the relationship between the field and the parent discipline of sociology. The formation of the discipline and the specialist field are proposed to have occurred in stages: the formative years, a period of inter-disciplinarity and collaboration, a stage of intensification and organisation, the years of institutional growth and specialisation, the decade of consolidation and fragmentation, and, its most recent phase, a time of 'new' internationalisation. Moreover, the institutionalisation of the sociology of health and medicine has closely followed the developmental trajectory of its parent discipline, even though its disciplinary boundaries have been, and continue to be, less rigid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many countries, including Australia, are currently experiencing severe shortages of professional, para-professional, and semi-professional workers in their health care systems. This is generally conceived as a problem stemming from rising demand in health care services or the production of inadequate numbers of health related graduates. A qualitative study of health care workers in the Australian context challenges the adequacy of this supply-demand approach to the health care system; and demonstrates that solutions lie in the conceptualisation of the health sector as a socio-cultural system. Findings indicate the extent to which policies independently formulated for the health, education, finance, and industry sectors have, in combination, inadvertently impacted on the functioning of the health care system, and some policy mechanisms, such as privatisation and marketisation, have fundamentally eroded its structural framework. Conclusions can therefore be drawn about the relationship between workforce shortages and the neo-liberal orientation of recent governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the intersections between place and healthcare choice, drawing on Bourdieu's concepts of distinction and social space, and engaging with data from interviews with 78 Australians living in varied geographic locations. We find the status of an area is used to judge the quality of its healthcare services. Areas with high status are assumed to have better quality health services than areas of disadvantage. Where people live shapes the choices they make and their judgements about the status of a place. Moreover, having less choice is not necessarily problematic. Participants in regional and remote areas with less choice tend to report positive experiences with healthcare providers. Place can constrain people's ability to make good healthcare choices, yet participants have differing capacities to mobilise resources to overcome the constraints of place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Signifi cant transformations of the health care services sector over the past three decades have seen an increasing reliance on the private provision of health care services mediated through private health insurance. In countries such as Australia and the UK, private health insurance is promoted as providing a greater choice for individuals and easing the burden on the public system. While these claims, the policy contexts and the decision-making processes of individual consumers have attracted some sociological attention, little has been said about the role of private insurers. In this article we present a comparative analysis of the websites of private health insurers in Australia and the UK. Our analysis highlights adoption by private health insurers of neoliberal discourses of choice and individual responsibility, partnership and healthy lifestyles. In these respects, similarities between the discourses over-ride national differences which might otherwise be expected given their contrasting health care traditions and contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]