http://soc.sagepub.com Sociology RSS feed -- recent issues Sociology 0038-0385 http://soc.sagepub.com:80/icons/banner/title.gif http://soc.sagepub.com http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/6/1029?rss=1 This article examines the ‘canonical’ status achieved in recent British sociology by four writers: Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck, Pierre Bourdieu and Anthony Giddens. Along with other key thinkers of the later 20th century such as Foucault and Habermas, these four sociologists, from different geographical and theoretical bases, transformed the shape of British sociology and its relation to social theory.

]]> Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/0038038509345696 British Sociological Association 6 43 1045 2009-12-01 1029 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/6/1047?rss=1 This article develops the concept of the ‘canonical generation’ — a generational unit that identifies itself and is identified with the national canon. By highlighting this concept we explore the inter-relations between national and biographical memories. We illustrate how generations are distinguishable in terms of the freedom they have to express their critical and personal voices. Our analysis is based on a comparison of two sets of Jewish-Israeli war stories, those of the 1948 generation (veterans of ‘the War of Independence’) and those of the 1973 generation (veterans of ‘the Yom Kippur War’).

]]> Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/0038038509345698 British Sociological Association 6 43 1065 2009-12-01 1047 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/6/1067?rss=1 This article explores the effects of the legalization of international human rights on citizens and non-citizens within states. Adopting a sociological approach to rights it becomes clear that, even in Europe, the cosmopolitanization of law is not necessarily resulting in greater equality and justice. In fact, ‘actually existing’ cosmopolitan citizenship is characterized by a proliferation of status groups that concretize new forms of inequality, including those of super-citizens, marginal citizens, quasi-citizens, sub-citizens and un-citizens. Far from inaugurating a new era of genuinely universal human rights, in some cases cosmopolitan law may even contribute to the creation of conditions in which fundamental human rights are violated.

]]> Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/0038038509345702 British Sociological Association 6 43 1083 2009-12-01 1067 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/6/1085?rss=1 While the literature on highly skilled international migration has grown substantially over recent years, the motivations and experiences of an important sub-group — the internationally mobile student — have remained under-researched. In an attempt to redress this gap, this article draws on in-depth interviews with 85 young adults, to explore the choices and motivations of UK students who choose to study abroad for the whole of an undergraduate or postgraduate degree. While studies of east to west migration have typically emphasised the importance of an international higher education as a high-prestige, first choice option for those students who can afford it, we argue that, for UK students, choices are configured differently. For many of our respondents, overseas education offered primarily a ‘second chance’ at accessing elite education.

]]> Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/0038038509345713 British Sociological Association 6 43 1102 2009-12-01 1085 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/6/1103?rss=1 This article draws on case studies of nine working-class students at Southern, an elite university. ¹ It attempts to understand the complexities of identities in flux through Bourdieu’s notions of habitus and field. Bourdieu (1990a) argues that when an individual encounters an unfamiliar field, habitus is transformed. He also writes of how the movement of habitus across new, unfamiliar fields results in ‘a habitus divided against itself ’ (Bourdieu, 1999a). Our data suggest more nuanced understandings in which the challenge of the unfamiliar results in a range of creative adaptations and multi-faceted responses. They display dispositions of self-scrutiny and self-improvement — almost ‘a constant fashioning and re-fashioning of the self ’ but one that still retains key valued aspects of a working-class self. Inevitably, however, there are tensions and ambivalences, and the article explores these, as well as the very evident gains for working-class students of academic success in an elite HE institution.

]]> Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/0038038509345700 British Sociological Association 6 43 1121 2009-12-01 1103 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/6/1123?rss=1 There has been a proliferation of interest in cultural processes amongst those seeking to explain the role of family life in the reproduction of class-related educational inequalities. Analysts of macro level quantitative and micro level qualitative evidence share an interest in internal family dynamics and resources, yet they generate very different pictures of family level processes, and their articulation with broader structures of social inequality. This article critically explores insights and gaps afforded by the differing perspectives. Since qualitative research is well placed to access salient cultural processes in action and interaction, some proposals are made about enhancing such a programme of research, locating the specificity of evidence, confronting class diversity, and better grounding claims about the nature of social reproduction.

]]> Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/0038038509345701 British Sociological Association 6 43 1140 2009-12-01 1123 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/6/1141?rss=1 In this article, we show how circulated diaries can be used as a source of knowledge about the display and normative standards of family life. The par ticular strength of the data lies in the circulation among members of a local public before reaching the researcher. This keeps researcher intervention low, while the data remain socially and culturally saturated. In addition, the method allows for comparative cultural research, which is illustrated by the examples taken from Norway and China. Having two sets of data from different contexts adds to the richness of the data by providing a contrast that is needed to illuminate the taken-for-granted.

]]> Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/0038038509345694 British Sociological Association 6 43 1150 2009-12-01 1141 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/6/1151?rss=1 Coolness is an elusive concept. This research note seeks to understand its place in the life of the sociologist. Reflecting on the recent experiences of the author, this piece focuses on the problems of studying music cultures where the interested researcher has become uncool. It begins by tracking this problem, with particular regard to the problems of identifying and studying the very aspects of culture that the researcher wishes to investigate, before suggesting how we might react where we think our uncoolness is a problem in our research. The note concludes with a discussion of the implications of these issues for sociology more generally.

]]> Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/0038038509345699 British Sociological Association 6 43 1162 2009-12-01 1151 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/6/1163?rss=1 With the systematic archiving of qualitative data emerging as a distinct possibility in Australia, both the practices of qualitative research and how subsequent outputs are ‘used’ are coming under increased scrutiny and reflection. Drawing on a series of focus groups with qualitative researchers, this article critically explores the meanings ascribed to qualitative research practice and the perceived challenges posed by contemporary innovations in data management, access, and analysis through electronic archiving. The accounts presented provide much needed insight into key debates (and divergences) within the qualitative community regarding the values and meanings of qualitative practice, but also how contemporary innovations may come to challenge these core values.

]]> Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/0038038509345704 British Sociological Association 6 43 1180 2009-12-01 1163 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/6/1181?rss=1 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/0038038509345695 British Sociological Association 6 43 1190 2009-12-01 1181 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/6/1191?rss=1 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/0038038509345703 British Sociological Association 6 43 1197 2009-12-01 1191 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/6/1199?rss=1 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/0038038509345697 British Sociological Association 6 43 1201 2009-12-01 1199 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/6/1203?rss=1 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/0038038509345693 British Sociological Association 6 43 1204 2009-12-01 1203 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/6/1205?rss=1 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430061302 British Sociological Association 6 43 1206 2009-12-01 1205 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/6/1206?rss=1 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430061303 British Sociological Association 6 43 1208 2009-12-01 1206 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/6/1208?rss=1 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430061304 British Sociological Association 6 43 1209 2009-12-01 1208 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/6/1209?rss=1 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430061305 British Sociological Association 6 43 1211 2009-12-01 1209 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/6/1211?rss=1 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430061306 British Sociological Association 6 43 1212 2009-12-01 1211 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/6/1213?rss=1 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430061307 British Sociological Association 6 43 1214 2009-12-01 1213 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/6/1214?rss=1 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430061308 British Sociological Association 6 43 1216 2009-12-01 1214 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/6/1216?rss=1 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430061309 British Sociological Association 6 43 1217 2009-12-01 1216 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/6/1218?rss=1 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430061310 British Sociological Association 6 43 1219 2009-12-01 1218 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/6/1219?rss=1 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430061311 British Sociological Association 6 43 1220 2009-12-01 1219 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/6/1220?rss=1 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430061312 British Sociological Association 6 43 1222 2009-12-01 1220 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/6/1222?rss=1 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430061313 British Sociological Association 6 43 1223 2009-12-01 1222 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/6/1224?rss=1 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/0038038509346779 British Sociological Association 6 43 1228 2009-12-01 1224 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/6/1229?rss=1 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:33:43 PST info:doi/10.1177/0038038509356155 British Sociological Association 6 43 1231 2009-12-01 1229 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/5/811?rss=1 This paper traces relations between the study of work and the evolution of British sociology as an academic discipline. This reveals broad trajectories of marginalization, as the study of work becomes less central to Sociology as a discipline; increasing fragmentation of divergent approaches to the study of work; and — as a consequence of both — a narrowing of the sociological vision for the study of work. Our paper calls for constructive dialogue across different approaches to the study of work and a re-invigoration of sociological debate about work and — on this basis — for in-depth interdisciplinary engagement enabling us to build new approaches that will allow us to study work in all its diversity and complexity.

]]> Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:06:42 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509341307 British Sociological Association 5 43 828 2009-10-01 811 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/5/829?rss=1 The paper offers reflections on the author’s working experience as an industrial sociologist from the 1960s. It seeks to contextualise this in more general considerations of the part played by industrial sociology in the development of sociology in the UK. This is evidenced in thematic concerns, the importance of historical perspectives as well as the use of case studies and the development of ethnographic work. It discusses the role which industrial sociology has played in bringing issues of power, authority, control and class into sharp focus.

]]> Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:06:42 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509340748 British Sociological Association 5 43 845 2009-10-01 829 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/5/846?rss=1 This article responds to the Special Issue call for sociologists’ individual perspectives on developments in the sociology of work. In this article I reflect on my own approach to studying work, the intellectual resources I draw on, and how I see the sociology of work developing at the present time. I have located my own very modest contribution within the traditions of gender studies, highlighting thereby the longstanding links between the sociology of work and other substantive fields of inquiry. I take a relatively personal approach. This is because, while there is nothing notable about my personal life, like many feminists I see my ideas as having evolved in the interstices of the professional and personal and the values and divisions of labour that underpin them.

]]> Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:06:42 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509340741 British Sociological Association 5 43 860 2009-10-01 846 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/5/861?rss=1 Alongside many significant changes, there are considerable continuities between the work activities and work institutions of the 21st century and those of earlier periods studied by the sociology of work. These continuities are easily neglected if we get too taken up with what is allegedly ‘new’ in the world which we study or if we constantly seek new theoretical ‘directions’ or ‘turns’. A successful future sociology of work needs to achieve a balance between attention to change and continuity, both in what it looks at empirically and in the devices it uses in its analyses and theorizing as well as in its communication beyond the academy. The idea of the sociological imagination, which brings together American Pragmatist thinking with the European ideas of Weber and Marx can help considerably in reinvigorating the sociology of work.

]]> Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:06:42 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509340726 British Sociological Association 5 43 877 2009-10-01 861 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/5/878?rss=1 The division of labour, an enduring concept of the sociology of work, has yet to receive fundamental critical re-evaluation. The need for this is exposed especially by developments in global work and employment, and the ensuing complexity and variety of contemporary connections and divisions of labour. The aim of this article is to initiate a process of conceptual renewal. Having reviewed classical and 20th-century formulations of the concept, I propose a broader and multidimensional framework. Here, overall socio-economic formations of labour are viewed as constituted through the interplay between three forms of integration and differentiation: the technical division and allocation of labour, interdependencies between work across socio-economic modes, and across overall instituted processes of labour in production, distribution, exchange and consumption. The framework may be used to explore connections and divisions of labour at different scales and levels of generality.

]]> Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:06:42 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509340727 British Sociological Association 5 43 895 2009-10-01 878 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/5/896?rss=1 The sociology of class and the sociology of work have, historically, occupied two sides of the same coin, sharing foundational studies such as the Affluent Worker series and Braverman’s vivisection of the labour process. Recently, however, the par tnership has been questioned. Though the seeds of the split were sown by Erik Wright and John Goldthorpe, the overdue de-hegemonizing of Marx and Weber in research on class with the growing influence of Pierre Bourdieu and the broader ‘cultural turn’ in sociology has weakened the bond and forged a new alliance between class and the sociology of culture. This is, by all means, a positive development, but the connection between processes in the sphere of work and class has become less clear. This ar ticle therefore seeks to explore the new theoretical nexus between class and work, demonstrating that a Bourdieusian approach fruitfully reverses the connection put in place by Goldthorpe and Wright.

]]> Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:06:42 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509340718 British Sociological Association 5 43 912 2009-10-01 896 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/5/913?rss=1 This article opens by suggesting that the decline in the sociology of work in the UK has been overstated; research continues, but in locations such as business schools. The continued vitality of the field corresponds with material changes in an increasingly globalized capitalism, with more workers in the world, higher employment participation rates of women, transnational shifts in manufacturing, global expansion of services and temporal and spatial stretching of work with advanced information communication technologies. The article demonstrates that Labour Process Theory (LPT) has been a crucial resource in the sociology of work, especially in the UK; core propositions of LPT provide it with resources for resilience (to counter claims of rival perspectives) and innovation (to expand the scope and explanator y power of the sociology of work). The ar ticle argues that the concept of the labour power has been critical to underpinning the sustained influence of labour process analysis.

]]> Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:06:42 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509340728 British Sociological Association 5 43 930 2009-10-01 913 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/5/931?rss=1 Labour process analysis (LPA) is a well-established approach to the sociological study of work which attends to the instabilities of capitalism and, more specifically, to the volatile and contested nature of social relations at work. However, an unreflexive ‘neo-orthodoxy’ has emerged in recent years that is constrained by a series of dualistic and (critical) realist assumptions which inhibit the development of this distinctive sociology of work. This article contends that the potential of LPA can best be fulfilled through a renewal of critical reflection upon the foundational assumptions of LPA that can open up an acknowledgement and appreciation of the embroilment of subjectivity in the reproduction and transformation of production relations. This development is consistent with the central analytical importance ascribed to the ‘indeterminacy of labour’ in LPA but invites the adoption of a negative ontology in order to advance a less narrow conception of its meaning and significance. Studies of the new media and creative industries are engaged to indicate how a revitalized labour process analysis might embrace this ontology as a way of exploring and explaining the radical contingency of organization in contemporary social relations.

]]> Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:06:42 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509340742 British Sociological Association 5 43 951 2009-10-01 931 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/5/952?rss=1 This article charts the historical and contemporary absences in the sociology of service work. Although studies of service work have now become the empirical mainstream in the sociology of work, there have been few attempts to conceptualize broad patterns of worker—customer relations in ser vice work. This neglect is to be regretted because whether the customer is an alienating figure for service workers constitutes a key unasked question in contemporary sociology of work. The article highlights three factors that are likely to have a key influence on workers’ sense of alienation vis-a-vis the customer. It highlights divergent literature in each of these areas and hence ends with a call for research on this topic.

]]> Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:06:42 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509340725 British Sociological Association 5 43 967 2009-10-01 952 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/5/968?rss=1 Interactive service occupations, requiring face-to-face contact, are rapidly growing in the US as they are typically not susceptible to larger trends of off-shoring and computerization. Yet conventional paradigms of understanding the nature of that work, and in particular the skill demands, are often ill equipped to deal with the ‘interactive’ aspects of these gendered and racialized occupations. As a result, discussions of lower-end service occupations have typically grouped together a variety of jobs that require little or no higher education, without examining the actual skill content and job requirements of these occupations. In this article we delve more deeply into the rapidly growing non-professional service occupations in the US and the level of skills these jobs require, with the intention of creating a framework that will reorient future sociological research in this area.

]]> Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:06:42 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509340735 British Sociological Association 5 43 989 2009-10-01 968 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/5/990?rss=1 This article explores some of the similarities and differences between two approaches to the study of work that use moving images. The first approach, most notably practised by Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, ‘dissected’ the movement of workers’ bodies in the pursuit of efficiency. The second approach has emerged in the last few decades from ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. The ar ticle notes how shared technologies for data collection and shared interests in work practice belie more fundamental differences in analytic orientation. The article uses this comparison to highlight the potential contributions that the more recent corpus of studies can make to our understanding of work; an understanding that prioritizes the methodic practices in and through which members of society accomplish, experience and constitute work and organization.

]]> Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:06:42 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509340723 British Sociological Association 5 43 996 2009-10-01 990 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/5/997?rss=1 Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:06:42 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509340740 British Sociological Association 5 43 1006 2009-10-01 997 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/5/1007?rss=1 Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:06:42 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509340749 British Sociological Association 5 43 1013 2009-10-01 1007 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/5/1014?rss=1 Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:06:42 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509340750 British Sociological Association 5 43 1018 2009-10-01 1014 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/5/1019?rss=1 Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:06:42 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509341690 British Sociological Association 5 43 1023 2009-10-01 1019 Articles http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/4/613?rss=1 Drawing on data from in-depth interviews with seafarers and their partners, this article examines the impact of routine absence on couple and family relations. Using the lens of time, we identify how work patterns and extended absence lead to temporal desynchrony and fragmentation of the life course. We examine how seafarers' lives are both continuous and fractured and often out of step with lives at home.Temporal desynchrony was exemplified in reduced opportunities for couples jointly to produce temporal markers and share in significant calendar events. This lack of temporal harmony posed a challenge to family relations.These findings draw attention to the need for further research that embraces a more multifaceted understanding of time in the context of work and family life.

]]> Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509105411 British Sociological Association 4 43 630 2009-08-01 613 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/4/631?rss=1 This article analyses the expectations and experiences of a group of Canadian working-class, first-generation university students. I outline the structural disadvantages, in terms of economic, social, and cultural capital, these young people encounter. Rather than viewing working-class status exclusively as a barrier, I show how these students draw on their working-class backgrounds to construct uniquely working-class moral advantages, such as those associated with a strong work ethic, maturity, responsibility, and real-life experiences, to overcome structural disadvantages.Their narratives of moral class advantages, however, lack class consciousness.They can be interpreted as individualistic strategies that draw on collective values. Ultimately, these working-class students hope to transcend their class position. Drawing on working-class moralities supports their claim for recognition as educated middle-class subjects, but with moral dispositions rooted in their social background and upbringing.

]]> Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509105412 British Sociological Association 4 43 647 2009-08-01 631 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/4/648?rss=1 This article examines the extent to which cultural capital helps to explain the link between social background and gaining an offer for study at the University of Oxford. We find that cultural knowledge, rather than participation in the beaux arts, is related to admissions decisions.This effect is particularly pronounced in arts subjects. We only partly support Bourdieu's postulation of cultural capital as the main differentiator between fractions of the middle class. Measures of cultural capital do not account for the gender gap in admission and only explain a small part of the disadvantage faced by South-Asian applicants.

]]> Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509105413 British Sociological Association 4 43 666 2009-08-01 648 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/4/667?rss=1 Women on low incomes are disproportionately represented among sexual violence survivors, yet feminist research on this topic has paid very little attention to social class.This article blends recent research on class, gender and sexuality with what we know about sexual violence. It is argued that there is a need to engage with classed distinctions between women in terms of contexts for and experiences of sexual violence, and to look at interactions between pejorative constructions of working-class sexualities and how complainants and defendants are perceived and treated. The classed division between the sexual and the feminine, drawn via the notion of respectability, is applied to these issues. This piece is intended to catalyse further research and debate, and raises a number of questions for future work on sexual violence and social class.

]]> Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509105414 British Sociological Association 4 43 683 2009-08-01 667 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/4/685?rss=1 This work examines evolving forms of ethnographic practice generated in response to advances in mediated communication. It chronicles phases in the transformation of offline ethnography, beginning with pioneering virtual ethnographies concerned with identity work and deception. Subsequently, analysis illuminates cyberethnographic redefinitions of traditional methodological concerns including fieldwork, participant observation, and text as data. It concludes with an examination of current cyberethnographic practice.The work closes with the argument that the methodological adaptations made by ethnographers indicate the increasing salience of mediated communication in the social world. The research sheds light not only on issues connected to methodology but invites larger methodological and ethical questions that will grow ever more pressing as the information revolution continues to unfold. We suggest that just as ethnographic practice continues to benefit from its encounter with mediated communication, so will other forms of sociological practice be enriched from engagement with new media.

]]> Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509105415 British Sociological Association 4 43 698 2009-08-01 685 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/4/699?rss=1 Journals and research networks are awash with advice about how best to promote children and young people's participation, with young people's involvement in the doing of research often presented as a specific expression of this wider good. Most of this discussion, however, is concerned with methods, the practicalities of securing research involvement and, more recently, with research training. At the same time, wider debates about the uses of sociological research have unfolded at an abstract level, framed in terms of `knowledge for what' and `knowledge for whom' with little focus on research practice, including who is carrying it out. In this article, I examine the `young researcher' to do two things: embed discussions about young people's research participation in long-standing epistemological and political debates about the role of research; and add to the broader sociological debate by foregrounding the question of who carries out research.

]]> Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509105416 British Sociological Association 4 43 716 2009-08-01 699 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/4/717?rss=1 Epidemiological research has identified a significant association between upper- or middle-class membership and a woman's probability of becoming anorexic, but the extant literature has yet to address the social processes underlying this association. In order to fill this gap, this article frames anorexia as a deviant career that entails the adoption of an anorexic set of practices and orientations that may be recognized as a distinctive type of Bourdieuian habitus. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative interviews conducted in France, this article argues that the set of practices and orientations acquired through an anorexic career builds upon practices and orientations clearly identified with middle- and upper-class status.

]]> Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509105417 British Sociological Association 4 43 733 2009-08-01 717 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/4/735?rss=1 In this article we draw on research with young (aged 11 to 18 years old) Somali refugees and asylum seekers currently living in the UK, to explore their narratives of identity in the context of complex histories of mobility. We focus on how processes of disidentification or disavowal impact on young people's subjectivities and are lived out in particular spaces. Specifically, we examine the young people's experiences of having their claims to be British denied, of disidentifying as black, and as having to negotiate the complex ambiguities of being positioned as Somali in the UK but British in Somalia. In the conclusion we reflect on the importance of the young people's emotional investment in the subject position Muslim as an explanation for why they prioritize their faith above their racial, gender or ethno-national identities in their narratives of the self.

]]> Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509105418 British Sociological Association 4 43 751 2009-08-01 735 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/4/753?rss=1 Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509105419 British Sociological Association 4 43 761 2009-08-01 753 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/4/762?rss=1 We respond to the two comments on our article `The Coming Crisis of Empirical Sociology' from Rosemary Crompton (2008) and Richard Webber (2009) which have been published in Sociology , as well as issues arising from the wider debate generated by our article. We urge sociologists to recognize the gravity of the challenges posed by the proliferation of social data and to become more vociferous in contributing to political debates over method and data.

]]> Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509105420 British Sociological Association 4 43 772 2009-08-01 762 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/4/773?rss=1 Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509105421 British Sociological Association 4 43 774 2009-08-01 773 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/4/775?rss=1 Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509105422 British Sociological Association 4 43 781 2009-08-01 775 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/4/782?rss=1 Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509105427 British Sociological Association 4 43 785 2009-08-01 782 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/4/785?rss=1 Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430041302 British Sociological Association 4 43 787 2009-08-01 785 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/4/788?rss=1 Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509105423 British Sociological Association 4 43 790 2009-08-01 788 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/4/790?rss=1 Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430041402 British Sociological Association 4 43 791 2009-08-01 790 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/4/792?rss=1 Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430041403 British Sociological Association 4 43 793 2009-08-01 792 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/4/793?rss=1 Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430041404 British Sociological Association 4 43 795 2009-08-01 793 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/4/795?rss=1 Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430041405 British Sociological Association 4 43 796 2009-08-01 795 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/4/797?rss=1 Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430041406 British Sociological Association 4 43 798 2009-08-01 797 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/4/798?rss=1 Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430041407 British Sociological Association 4 43 800 2009-08-01 798 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/4/800?rss=1 Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430041408 British Sociological Association 4 43 801 2009-08-01 800 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/4/802?rss=1 Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:16:24 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509105429 British Sociological Association 4 43 808 2009-08-01 802 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/3/421?rss=1 Mediated interaction has become a feature of everyday life, used routinely to communicate and maintain contacts, yet sociological analysis of mediated communication is relatively undeveloped. This article argues that new mediated communication channels merit detailed sociological analysis, and that interactional differences between media have been overlooked. Goffman explicitly restricted his interaction order to face-to-face interaction.The article adapts some of Goffman's interactional concepts for synchronous mediated interaction, but argues that his situational focus is less relevant to asynchronous media. The theoretical approach developed is illustrated and supported by qualitative research on mobile phones, which fortuitously afford both synchronous and asynchronous communication.The study suggests that although the distinction between synchronous and asynchronous interaction is important, it is not technologically determined, but shaped by interactional norms.

]]> Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:49:56 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509103197 British Sociological Association 3 43 438 2009-06-01 421 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/3/439?rss=1 The significance of sport as a social practice remains hidden at the margins of sociology. This article aims to highlight the social significance of sport by providing a sociological interpretation of the transformations of sailing in Czechoslovakia, and later in the Czech Republic, following the Velvet Revolution of 1989. These sport-related changes are understood to be consequences of wider socio-cultural, economic and political transformations. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork of the Czech sailing movement, I argue that during Czechoslovakia's communist period, a time when sailing was labelled pejoratively as a `bourgeois sport', it actually experienced a `golden age' of enchantment. Based on Weber's concept of disenchantment and its subsequent developments in contemporary sociology, this article demonstrates how this earlier enchantment was jeopardized by disenchantment threats that occurred after 1989, and how sailing has once again been re-enchanted in the current period.

]]> Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:49:56 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509103198 British Sociological Association 3 43 456 2009-06-01 439 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/3/457?rss=1 Young people's alcohol consumption has been the focus of heightened concern over `binge drinking' in social policy, academic research and popular culture. A normalized culture of intoxication is now central to many young people's social lives, playing an important role in the night-time economy of towns and cities across the UK. In this article we draw on the findings of a study on the significance of alcohol consumption in the everyday lives of `ordinar y' young adult drinkers to explore the significance of loss of consciousness and loss of memory in their drinking stories. Through an analysis of focus group discussions with 89 young women and men aged 18 to 25, we explore the role of `passing out stories' in the classed and gendered domain of young people's alcohol consumption in the neo-liberal social order, focussing on the constitution of risk and pleasure in their accounts.

]]> Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:49:56 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509103201 British Sociological Association 3 43 476 2009-06-01 457 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/3/477?rss=1 This article investigates the relationship between religiosity and contemporary national identities by using Israel as a case study and comparing it to other countries. Survey data from the ISSP 2003 (ZA 3910) module and the Jewish Religious Behaviour in Israel study (2000)¹ are used to evaluate the level of national sentiments among people with different degrees of religiosity. It is found that secular Jewish Israelis are significantly less proud in almost every dimension of national pride than other Jewish Israeli groups. A similar pattern was noticed in other countries, but the gap in national pride between religious and less religious people in Israel is the highest among the 17 majoritarian ethnic groups examined.These findings point to the difficulty of stripping ethnic symbols from their religious origin, as well as to the special quest of Israeli Jews for legitimacy, which can be achieved more easily via religious justifications.

]]> Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:49:56 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509103204 British Sociological Association 3 43 496 2009-06-01 477 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/3/497?rss=1 This article contributes to the reflexive turn within the social sciences by arguing for enhanced recognition of the role of gender and emotions in the research process. The chief instrument of research, the ethnographer herself, may alter that which is being studied and may be changed in turn (Golde, 1970). Women may trigger off specific behaviours in male-dominated settings such as the `boy racer' culture. This includes the gender-related behaviours of `sexual hustling' and `sexist treatment' (Gurney, 1985). Ethnographers must adopt a reflexive approach and locate themselves within the ethnography while recognizing the influence of their social position on interactions with the researched and the research itself. An awareness of these interactions does not undermine the data but instead acknowledges that the researcher and the researched are embedded within the research. Hence, they shape the ethnography while also being shaped in turn.

]]> Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:49:56 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509103205 British Sociological Association 3 43 513 2009-06-01 497 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/3/515?rss=1 The article analyses attitudes of European citizens towards gender equality. It describes how the EU script on gender relations emphasizes gender equality. Subsequently, the article analyses the extent to which citizens of different European countries agree with this idea, based on Eurobarometer data.The analyses show a strong overall support for gender equality in the economic, political, and educational realms, but also differences between countries. In explaining these differences, we go beyond other studies not only by concentrating on endogenous characteristics of the analysed countries, but also by taking into account their levels of modernization, institutionalized gender regimes, and religious composition. Moreover, following neo-institutionalist theory, we include an exogenous variable — the influence of the EU — in multi-level analyses and can show that, in addition to all endogenous variables, it also has an effect on attitudes towards gender relations.

]]> Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:49:56 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509103206 British Sociological Association 3 43 534 2009-06-01 515 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/3/535?rss=1 Understanding the processes by which practices become routinely embedded in everyday life is a long-standing concern of sociology and the other social sciences. It has important applied relevance in understanding and evaluating the implementation of material practices across a range of settings.This article sets out a theory of normalization processes that proposes a working model of implementation, embedding and integration in conditions marked by complexity and emergence. The theory focuses on the work of embedding and of sustaining practices within interaction chains, and helps in understanding why some processes seem to lead to a practice becoming normalized while others do not.

]]> Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:49:56 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509103208 British Sociological Association 3 43 554 2009-06-01 535 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/3/555?rss=1 Time permeates all aspects of our everyday lives but its very centrality often renders it invisible. This article examines how temporal understandings and priorities shape and inform lay and professional constructions of illness, understandings of symptoms and help-seeking behaviour, based on semi-structured interviews with 20 GPs and 16 parents of children with asthma. This identifies the significance of a temporal perspective for beliefs about the nature of asthma as episodic or linear, the appropriate sequences and timing of symptoms and treatment, patterns of help-seeking, and perceptions of speed and treatment choices. Comparing GPs' and parents' accounts highlights both the concordance and divergences in temporal perspectives.We argue that understanding the complexity of illness behaviours requires engagement with the ways in which temporal understandings shape and inform behaviours throughout the illness trajectory and may vary among different social and cultural groups.

]]> Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:49:56 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509103210 British Sociological Association 3 43 572 2009-06-01 555 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/3/573?rss=1 Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:49:56 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509103211 British Sociological Association 3 43 579 2009-06-01 573 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/3/581?rss=1 Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:49:56 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509106062 British Sociological Association 3 43 584 2009-06-01 581 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/3/585?rss=1 Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:49:56 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509103213 British Sociological Association 3 43 586 2009-06-01 585 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/3/587?rss=1 Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:49:56 PDT info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430031002 British Sociological Association 3 43 588 2009-06-01 587 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/3/588?rss=1 Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:49:56 PDT info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430031003 British Sociological Association 3 43 589 2009-06-01 588 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/3/590?rss=1 Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:49:56 PDT info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430031004 British Sociological Association 3 43 591 2009-06-01 590 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/3/591?rss=1 Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:49:56 PDT info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430031005 British Sociological Association 3 43 593 2009-06-01 591 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/3/593?rss=1 Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:49:57 PDT info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430031006 British Sociological Association 3 43 594 2009-06-01 593 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/3/594?rss=1 Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:49:57 PDT info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430031007 British Sociological Association 3 43 596 2009-06-01 594 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/3/596?rss=1 Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:49:57 PDT info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430031008 British Sociological Association 3 43 597 2009-06-01 596 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/3/598?rss=1 Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:49:57 PDT info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430031009 British Sociological Association 3 43 599 2009-06-01 598 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/3/601?rss=1 Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:49:57 PDT info:doi/10.1177/0038038509103221 British Sociological Association 3 43 605 2009-06-01 601 Article