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The connection between a Public School education and the British Army officer corps has often been presented as an example of a self-perpetuating elite, with little by way of theoretical explanation. This paper aims to explicate these matters by reference to Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and field and to extend the empirical work of earlier studies by looking at the nature of army organization structure, the place of particular regiments within it, and the relative success of officers from different regiments in gaining promotion to general. Inter-regimental competition plays a key role in allowing the reproduction of privilege within the military, and testifies therefore to the importance of organizational structures. The shorthand conclusions of earlier studies that 'the elite is maintained' can be replaced by analysis and explanation, which suggest that the alignment of public school habitus and military field will ensure that (other things being equal) this state of affairs will be slow to change. The property assets of the upper middle class allow their offspring to acquire at public school the cultural assets that will enable them to succeed in a military career. This in turn give access to organizational assets and economic rewards that will enable them to provide the next generation with their cultural assets.

Consists of two articles on the sociology of the professions. The first by MacDonald and Ritzer refutes Richard Hall's 1983 study claiming that the sociological study of the professions was almost totally inactive by examining the British literature on the topic. The second article consists of Hall's comments on the first. (CH)

In 1983 Richard Hall viewed the sociological study of the professions as near death. However, had Hall examined the recent British literature he would have come to a very different conclusion. Our survey shows that this is a very active area of research and theorizing and that there are important lessons in it for American students of the professions. First, unlike the American literature, work in Britain has not been dominated by fruitless efforts to find the characteristics that differentiate professions from other occupations. Second, the British literature contains four distinctive characteristics that differentiate it from the American literature. They are a focus on inter- and intraprofessional conflicts, the relationship between the professions and the polity, the link between the professions and social stratification, and theoretical roots in the classic ideas of observers such as Marx and Weber. Third, the realities examined in the British literature lead us to conclude that the professions will continue to be an active social force. It is imperative that the American literature be redirected to deal with these developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents research work related to organizational sociology as interpreted by various sociologists. The conceptualization of involvement rests upon the work of those writers who have attempted to specify the content of the rather ambiguous concepts of alienation and anomie. The main themes of this literature appear to be powerlessness, isolation, uncertainty, meaninglessness, purposelessness, and self-estrangement. Furthermore, involvement may be related to one or more of three categories of referent within the organizational boundary. These are the organizational referent, by which authors mean identification with the organization, as such, either in its entirety or as a branch, together with acceptance of organizational values and goals, the work group referent, by which authors mean identification with the particular work group to which the individual belongs, with greater emphasis on informal goals and norms; and lastly, the job activity itself. To examine the conceptualization of involvement in the light of empirically derived data authors began by formulating a large number of statements from which seventy-seven were selected by means of a panel technique.