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/43/3/421?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.

]]> 2009-06-15 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.

]]> 2009-06-15 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.

]]> 2009-06-15 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.

]]> 2009-06-15 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.

]]> 2009-06-15 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.

]]> 2009-06-15 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.

]]> 2009-06-15 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.

]]> 2009-06-15 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 2009-06-15 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 2009-06-15 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 2009-06-15 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 2009-06-15 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 2009-06-15 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 2009-06-15 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 2009-06-15 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 2009-06-15 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 2009-06-15 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 2009-06-15 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 2009-06-15 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 2009-06-15 info:doi/10.1177/0038038509103221 British Sociological Association 3 43 605 2009-06-01 601 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/2/213?rss=1 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508101161 British Sociological Association 2 43 214 2009-04-01 213 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/2/215?rss=1 More and faster information will transform our experience of healthcare, according to policymakers, while social theorists have argued that medicine has become `informatized': a new medical paradigm is being shaped. We question both the policy-led conflation of `information' and `healthcare' and ideas about the extent of the informatization of medicine, by exploring how these ideas resonate in medical work, revisiting our studies of expertise in two clinical domains where information technologies are central to practice. The projection of new information programmes as creating knowledge which is independent of space and time runs the risk of devaluing the experiential, haptic and affective knowledge of both apprentices and practitioners. Information, we argue, cannot underpin medicine unless it is recognized and defined as generative, dynamic and intimate, rather than storable and deliverable.

]]> 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508101162 British Sociological Association 2 43 231 2009-04-01 215 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/2/232?rss=1 The development and proliferation of new information and communication technologies has generated some profound claims about the erasure of place. Whilst these claims have continued political and policy resonance, they are increasingly challenged in sociological debate, which emphasizes the persistence of the local. Following this lead, our article explores relations between technology and place. We develop our understanding through engagement with Science and Technology Studies, Actor Network Theory and geographical conceptualizations of place. Our argument is worked through a new empirical study of telemedicine, where new technologies are applied precisely to overcome place. Our analysis is that, on the contrary, empirical outcomes are legible only through the lens of place. This has important policy implications and broader implications for thinking about technology in contemporary debates about globalization.

]]> 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508101163 British Sociological Association 2 43 249 2009-04-01 232 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/2/250?rss=1 This article critically examines the professionalization of General Practitioners with Special Interests (GPSIs) in the UK. Drawing on empirical research it examines the rationale for the establishment of this professional grouping; the construction of the field of expertise; the negotiation of boundaries with other professions; issues of professional control and autonomy; and internal organization. It concludes that the professionalization of GPSIs is leading to a restratification within the UK medical profession, which continues the Department of Health-led shift in the balance of power from secondary to primary care. This restratification, which enhances GPSIs' work satisfaction, status and in some cases remuneration, is heavily intertwined with managerial and bureaucratic accountabilities, advancing the `reprofessionalization' of medicine and continuing the shift in the boundaries between political and professional jurisdictions. It is posited that this trend is confined neither to one profession nor to the UK.

]]> 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508101164 British Sociological Association 2 43 267 2009-04-01 250 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/2/268?rss=1 The proliferation of home health care workers is an increasingly important trend in many contemporary societies, and its impact on the division of labour and the social meaning of care work is complex. In this article, these issues are analysed in relation to a new programme of domiciliary postnatal care in Australia. Coupled with early discharge from hospital, the programme is part of a reconfiguration that disrupts existing logics of care.The insertion of paid carers into the division of labour between `functionally diffuse', informal care and the `functional specificity' of professionals' work renders their status liminal, and their spatial location within the home transgresses symbolically important boundaries. Birthing women's responses include unease and a rejection of the workers based on the construction of them as `strangers'. It is argued that these responses demonstrate the lack of a `typification' based on contextual and spatialized knowledge of home health care workers.

]]> 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508101165 British Sociological Association 2 43 285 2009-04-01 268 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/2/286?rss=1 Within the sociology of religion there has emerged a discourse on spirituality that views contemporary developments as involving the assertion of individuals' self-authority.This perspective's theoretical roots have been persistently criticized for their conceptualization of agency; in contrast, this article draws on Bourdieu's concept of strategy to examine action in an English religious network of the sort often classified as `New Age'. In particular, one informant is discussed in order to provide focus for an understanding of what Lahire calls sociology at the level of the individual. Her actions, better explained as strategic improvisations than as choices made on the basis of self-authority, help to illuminate the peculiarities of this religious setting, which is characterized in terms of `nonformativeness'. By emphasizing social contextualization, this approach addresses people's meaningful actions in a way that may be applied not only more widely within the religious field but also in other fields of action.

]]> 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508101166 British Sociological Association 2 43 303 2009-04-01 286 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/2/304?rss=1 This article seeks to contribute to a newly growing literature on religious differences in education and the labour market, and seeks to answer two main questions: To what extent does education have similar impacts on occupational attainment across ethnic and faith groups? To what extent are these ethnic differences due to religious affiliation and/or skin colour? The data used in this study have been obtained from the 2001 UK Census.The data suggest that ethnicity per se is not an important factor but operates as a proxy, and, as this article shows, skin colour and culture (religion) are to a greater extent arguably the main mechanisms that operate to reinforce disadvantage among some groups or to facilitate social mobility amongst others. The direction and strength of their influence appears to be dependent on whether the specific culture is seen as compatible or `alien' in relation to the hegemonic culture.

]]> 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508101167 British Sociological Association 2 43 322 2009-04-01 304 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/2/323?rss=1 I aim here to explore the area of `other people's voices' in interview text through a comparative discussion of the work of George Mead and the Russian philosopher and theorist Mikhail Bakhtin. Specifically, I aim to outline Mead and Bakhtin's theories of reflective subjectivity, or how we recognize our self by looking back upon our experience. To explore the relative concepts of reflective subjectivity, I analyse selective quotes from the transcripts of interviews conducted with people who have received donor insemination about their views and experiences of donor anonymity. I conclude that the choices demonstrated in the interview data are, to use Bakhtin's term, answerable. The anticipation of response in dialogic forms represented in other people's voices is a potentially creative process and more than seeking agreement with the generalized other of the community. Bakhtin's unique theorizing contributes to our understanding of the ethical dimensions of everyday life.

]]> 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508101168 British Sociological Association 2 43 339 2009-04-01 323 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/2/340?rss=1 This article examines the effects of material inequality and gender expectations in structuring working-class girls' aspirations about higher education (HE). Through reference to recent ethnographic work in an inner-London secondary school two key arguments are made about how the combined effects of gender and class limit the social mobility HE is expected to provide. First, it is argued that family ties generate gender-specific obligations for working-class women, which have strong social consequences in terms of the take-up of HE places and labour market participation. This is particularly important since the commitment of working-class girls to home and family has been neglected in many theories of gender and social mobility. Second, it is argued that despite the recent political energy devoted to espousing a democratic HE system, the sense of entitlement to HE entry is, for young working-class people, undermined by a diminishing sense of the right to access middle-class spaces and institutions.

]]> 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508101169 British Sociological Association 2 43 355 2009-04-01 340 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/2/356?rss=1 The increasing importance of reflexivity within social research highlights the importance of the construction of knowledge in relation to the research endeavour. However, researcher-orientated notions of reflexivity can often relegate a discussion of participant reflexivity. Drawing on two motifs that emerged during the analysis of interview data from one research project, I argue that developing Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, practical mastery and symbolic mastery allows us to understand how reflexivity-in-practice is situated and enacted by both parties involved in the research interaction, and how such `sticky moments' help us work towards a more participant-focussed mode of reflexivity. In situating the article within larger social research debates, I suggest that ascribing a more active role to interview participants as reflexive subjects can help to address some of the wider ethical debates over the role and positioning of participants in the research process.

]]> 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508101170 British Sociological Association 2 43 370 2009-04-01 356 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/2/371?rss=1 More than ever, social scientists have reason to question the assumption that work is the human activity of value and leisure is little more than a respite from work; a way to consume its fruits and prepare for more work. This article compares four conceptualizations of the demanding activities people choose for themselves in their spare time. Each one is based on relatively recent empirical studies and presented to social science with a distinct term: `serious leisure', `specialized play', `edgework', and `consumption within a fantasy enclave'. Any conceptual representation allows certain interpretations of social phenomena and blocks others. In this case, vastly different pictures emerge, depending on the conception chosen. Thus, the major finding of the article is that sociology urgently needs to assess its vocabulary in order to understand how the modern predicament affects men and women in their freest moments.

]]> 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508101171 British Sociological Association 2 43 387 2009-04-01 371 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/2/388?rss=1 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508101172 British Sociological Association 2 43 393 2009-04-01 388 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/2/394?rss=1 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508101173 British Sociological Association 2 43 397 2009-04-01 394 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/2/398?rss=1 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508101174 British Sociological Association 2 43 399 2009-04-01 398 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/2/400?rss=1 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430021402 British Sociological Association 2 43 401 2009-04-01 400 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/2/401?rss=1 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430021403 British Sociological Association 2 43 403 2009-04-01 401 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/2/403?rss=1 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430021404 British Sociological Association 2 43 404 2009-04-01 403 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/2/405?rss=1 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430021405 British Sociological Association 2 43 406 2009-04-01 405 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/2/406?rss=1 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430021406 British Sociological Association 2 43 408 2009-04-01 406 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/2/408?rss=1 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430021407 British Sociological Association 2 43 410 2009-04-01 408 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/2/410?rss=1 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430021408 British Sociological Association 2 43 411 2009-04-01 410 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/2/412?rss=1 2009-04-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508101175 British Sociological Association 2 43 415 2009-04-01 412 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/1/7?rss=1 2009-02-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508099094 British Sociological Association 1 43 10 2009-02-01 7 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/1/11?rss=1 Durkheim and subsequent commentators have argued for the`benign' influence of work and employment in modern life. Contemporary patterns of work and employment are thought to be fragmented and precarious and thus alienating and demoralizing — and this runs largely, but not wholly, counter to Durkheim's prognosis. If employment may be integrative or demoralizing, this raises the question of `are employment factors key determinants of life satisfaction?'We explore data on 1100 young adults to test the relationship between employment variables, non-employment variables and life satisfaction. Employment-related variables are significantly related to Life Satisfaction (LS) as are non-employment variables (social relations, home satisfaction). Crucially, the influence of all variables on LS is mediated by `sense of life control', and patterns for young men and women differ significantly, suggesting divergent valuation of work and home. Regression models uncover, with some precision, direct and indirect relationships between independent variables and Life Satisfaction.

]]> 2009-02-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508099095 British Sociological Association 1 43 26 2009-02-01 11 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/1/27?rss=1 A renewed class analysis has shown the importance of culture, emotions and identity in conceptualizing and understanding how class is lived. However, proponents of the new sociology of class rarely explore these issues in an occupational setting. This article argues that the insights developed in the new cultural approaches to class can be used fruitfully to analyse contemporary experiences of work. Using a comparative study of women working in working-class and middle-class occupations, the article illustrates the implicit and emotional dimensions of the classed experience of work through a study of the women's aspirations and their class identities. Rather than equating class with economic resources and constraints, the article shows how class `thinking and feelings' (Reay, 2005) also shape the experiences of work.

]]> 2009-02-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508099096 British Sociological Association 1 43 44 2009-02-01 27 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/1/45?rss=1 Bourdieu overlooked the possibility of gendered capital. A number of feminists have taken issue with this and have claimed that uniquely feminine forms of capital exist.This article takes up this proposal and explores two forms of gendered capital — feminine capital and female capital. This article explores these forms of capital operating as cultural resources within the field of paid caring work. In the caring field `femininity' and `femaleness' appear to be resources women draw upon, but gendered currency operates within limits.This article examines women's perceptions of advantage arising from ownership of feminine dispositions or the experience of feminine selves; the gains that might be made from working with and for similar female others; and the parameters to female privilege. Building on feminist Bourdieusian scholarship, this article argues that Bourdieu's concept of capital is particularly useful for understanding contemporary gender practices and the relationship between gender and class.

]]> 2009-02-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508099097 British Sociological Association 1 43 66 2009-02-01 45 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/1/67?rss=1 This article applies a Foucauldian approach to an examination of contemporary policy and practice towards older people, specifically a model of case management designed to manage older people `at risk' of hospital admission. The article proceeds by reviewing old age policy over three historical time periods, emphasizing discontinuities and mutations, in an attempt to problematize the principles underlying case management. It then draws on empirical data from a study of the micro-practices of case management, focusing on the construction of expertise, the subjectification of the `at risk' older person and the interplay between expert and patient. The productive and repressive aspects of this interaction are both discussed and resistances to it by the older people are seen to take the nuanced form of imposing family values upon the professional encounter.

]]> 2009-02-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508099098 British Sociological Association 1 43 84 2009-02-01 67 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/1/85?rss=1 In 2006 over three million experiments were performed on nonhuman animals. In making an argument against such experiments I contend that approval of nonhuman animal experimentation is rooted in acceptance of humans as having essential primacy over nonhuman animals and lies in the power relations associated with human primacy identity claims.To challenge essentialist notions of human identity and human primacy I utilize a performative conceptualization of identity. Discourses used by Pro-Test, a lobby group that promotes nonhuman animal experimentation, allows an exploration of justifications made for such experiments. In promoting these experiments Pro-Test is, I argue, engaging in a form of human primacy identity politics based in continued inequality and the sustained oppression of nonhuman animals. I conclude that discourses extolling scientific advancements for human benefits, made on the basis of experiments on nonhuman animals, reiterate an immoral human primacy identity that dissolutely exploits power relations to privilege the human.

]]> 2009-02-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508099099 British Sociological Association 1 43 102 2009-02-01 85 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/1/103?rss=1 In the last two decades, illuminating the outside of a house with multi-coloured lights has become a popular British Christmas practice, typically adopted within working-class neighbourhoods and thus producing a particular geography of illumination.This article explores how such displays have become a site for class conflict mobilized around contesting ideas about space, time, community, aesthetics and festivity, highlighting how the symbolic economy of class conflict moves across popular culture. We focus upon two contrasting class-making practices evoking conflicting cultural values. First, we examine the themes prevalent in negative media representations of Christmas lights, notably the expression of disgust which foregrounds the working-class stereotype, the `chav'. Second, we analyse the motivations of displayers, exploring how the illuminations are imbued with idealistic notions about conviviality and generosity.

]]> 2009-02-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508099100 British Sociological Association 1 43 121 2009-02-01 103 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/1/122?rss=1 This article examines the insinuation of therapeutic culture into everyday life from the vantage point of a qualitative cross-generational study of economically marginalized young women and their mothers. Against dominant assessments of therapeutic culture — as representing cultural decline, social regulation or transformation — we draw on interview narratives to analyse its practical and situated effects. We argue that desires for disclosure and open communication are not trivial or narcissistic and instead interpret them as productive emotional strategies for managing difficult circumstances, and for engendering a sense of competence and possibility.Thus a concern with`talkingthings through' is neither ineffectual nor adequately understood as a manifestation of an ahistorical feminine alignment with emotions and interior life. While we do not dismiss regulatory aspects of therapeutic culture, our analysis offers an alternative and empirically based account of the ways cultural imperatives are enacted across generations.

]]> 2009-02-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508099101 British Sociological Association 1 43 139 2009-02-01 122 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/1/140?rss=1 Evolutionary psychologists aspire to show how —contrary to `soft' social sciences such as sociology — `seemingly capricious' occurrences in the realm of human behaviour follow biologistic `laws of greater generality' (Pinker, 2005: xii).This article is a case study of the `seemingly capricious occurrence' of paternity uncertainty. According to evolutionary psychologists, paternity uncertainty arises from the fact that men are `hard wired' to seek as many sexual partners as they can, and women to seek men of superior genetic quality. This account is said to be demonstrable through independent biological evidence of widespread discrepancy between putative and actual biological paternity in human populations.Yet close scrutiny of biological evidence and new evidence from representative sex surveys indicate that evolutionary psychologists consistently inflate estimates of paternal discrepancy. Evolutionary psychologists' account of paternity uncertainty highlights their overattachment to biologistic laws at the expense of understanding the social dimensions of human behaviour.

]]> 2009-02-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508099102 British Sociological Association 1 43 157 2009-02-01 140 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/1/158?rss=1 This article explores dilemmas of critical, participatory research with young people, illustrating examples from research in the UK and the US and highlighting issues of access, participation, dissemination and the misuse of findings.The authors stress the need for new field strategies including more participatory approaches and attention to transgression of power through research.

]]> 2009-02-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508099103 British Sociological Association 1 43 168 2009-02-01 158 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/1/169?rss=1 2009-02-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508099104 British Sociological Association 1 43 178 2009-02-01 169 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/1/179?rss=1 2009-02-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508099105 British Sociological Association 1 43 185 2009-02-01 179 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/1/186?rss=1 2009-02-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508096945 British Sociological Association 1 43 188 2009-02-01 186 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/1/189?rss=1 2009-02-16 info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430010102 British Sociological Association 1 43 192 2009-02-01 189 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/1/192?rss=1 2009-02-16 info:doi/10.1177/00380385090430010103 British Sociological Association 1 43 195 2009-02-01 192 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/1/196?rss=1 2009-02-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508099107 British Sociological Association 1 43 197 2009-02-01 196 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/1/198?rss=1 2009-02-16 info:doi/10.1177/003803850809694601 British Sociological Association 1 43 199 2009-02-01 198 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/1/200?rss=1 2009-02-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508099108 British Sociological Association 1 43 205 2009-02-01 200 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/1/206?rss=1 2009-02-16 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508099109 British Sociological Association 1 43 208 2009-02-01 206 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/42/6/1045?rss=1 2008-12-03 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508096932 British Sociological Association 6 42 1048 2008-12-01 1045 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/6/1049?rss=1 Using data drawn from the Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion study, we examine the relationship between social class membership and cultural participation and taste in the areas of music, reading, television and film, visual arts, leisure, and eating out. Using Geometric Data Analysis, we examine the nature of the two most important axes which distinguish `the space of lifestyles'. By superimposing socio-demographic variables on this cultural map, we show that the first, most important, axis is indeed strongly associated with class. We inductively assess which kind of class boundaries can most effectively differentiate individuals within this `space of lifestyles'.The most effective model distinguishes a relatively small professional class (24%) from an intermediate class of lower managerial workers, supervisors, the self-employed, senior technicians and white collar workers (32%) and a relatively large working class which includes lower supervisors and technicians (44%).

]]> 2008-12-03 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508096933 British Sociological Association 6 42 1071 2008-12-01 1049 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/6/1072?rss=1 This article draws on qualitative in-depth interviews with 63 white middle-class families whose children attend inner London comprehensives.The white middle classes, as they are inscribed in policy discourses, best fit the ideal of the democratic citizen — individualistic, rational, responsible, participatory, the active chooser. Yet, narratives of white middle-class choice reveal both powerful defences and the power of the affective. Sublimated in the psyche of the majority white middle classes who avoid inner-city comprehensives and the more inclusive parents in this ESRC-funded research project are multifaceted and differing responses to the classed and ethnic `other'. This article examines frequently overlooked anxieties, conflicts, desires and tensions within middle-class identities generated by education choice policies. However, the main focus is white middle-class relationships to their classed and ethnic `other', and the part played by the psychosocial in white middle-class identities and identifications within predominantly working-class, multi-ethnic schooling.

]]> 2008-12-03 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508096934 British Sociological Association 6 42 1088 2008-12-01 1072 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/6/1089?rss=1 This article evaluates cosmopolitan theory by exploring how parents perceive cosmopolitanism. Interviews with parents whose children attend an internationalized form of education revealed that parents viewed cosmopolitanism as a form of cultural and social capital, rather than feelings of global connectedness or curiosity in the Other. Dedicated cosmopolitan parents were distinguished from pragmatic cosmopolitans.The former taught their children to explore the world and to take a global perspective on their course of life, while the latter thought that globalizing processes required cosmopolitan competencies. Analyses of survey data showed that parents' inclination to provide children with cosmopolitan capital was related to their own cosmopolitan capital and their level of ambitions, but not to their social class position. The article concludes that cosmopolitanism should be viewed as an expression of agency, which is acted out when people are forced to deal with processes of globalization.

]]> 2008-12-03 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508096935 British Sociological Association 6 42 1106 2008-12-01 1089 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/6/1107?rss=1 Theoretical concepts of cosmopolitanism suggest new forms of societal and political organization.Yet these notions are overwhelmingly normative and hardly specify the ways in which cosmopolitanism is constructed from`below'.To what extent are people cosmopolitan and who are they? In following the debate on cosmopolitanization we offer a case study of Europe in which we provide grounding for `global' forms of identification. Using the recent Eurobarometer 64.2 (European Commission, 2005),`global belonging' is juxtaposed with attitudes and perceptions of the European Union, describing theoretically claimed openness and recognition of difference.We find that a considerable proportion of Europeans see themselves as what could be called cosmopolitan.These views are, however, socially stratified and do not necessarily go hand in hand with open-mindedness. To conclude, the social reality of cosmopolitanism is ambiguous: substantive European cosmopolitanism exists next to more banal forms, but forms of non-cosmopolitanism should not be underestimated.

]]> 2008-12-03 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508096936 British Sociological Association 6 42 1126 2008-12-01 1107 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/6/1127?rss=1 This article challenges existing contentions regarding the weakening of work identities amongst young adults and the proposition that labour market uncertainty inhibits life planning. It draws on analysis of 48 in-depth young adult interviews carried out in two globalizing, post-industrial cities, Bristol and Gothenburg, and presents a typology of future orientations which demonstrates the salience of employment to young adult identities. Since young adult life narratives are often about what they want to become, rather than what they are, analysis of aspirations is crucial for understanding the place of employment in their lives. The findings reveal a propensity towards detailed employment-centred life plans amongst young adults in Bristol, which contrasts with the desire to take life a `day at a time' in Gothenburg.These emergent future orientations reveal alternative versions of the `good life', which stem from the contrasting education and welfare regimes of the two countries, Britain and Sweden

]]> 2008-12-03 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508096937 British Sociological Association 6 42 1145 2008-12-01 1127 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/6/1146?rss=1 Social science, policy and popular discourse around counterfeiting regularly position consumers of counterfeit goods as part of a technological elite or as motivated by anti-capitalist or anti-corporate positions. In order to explore this construction and highlight its associated limitations, this article presents quantitative data collected through postal and web-based questionnaires looking at the frequency, location and motivations for the purchase of counterfeit leisure items for consumers in the United Kingdom.The article suggests that the purchase and consumption of counterfeit goods is commonplace across a broader variety of age, gender and socio-economic status categories than often assumed.The study also highlights the value of viewing the consumption of counterfeit goods as social and situated, occurring within existing social networks and familiar locations, and as closely related to other consumption practices.

]]> 2008-12-03 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508096938 British Sociological Association 6 42 1164 2008-12-01 1146 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/6/1165?rss=1 This article critically considers the `fit' between FairTrade consumption and conceptualizations of the reflexive project of selfhood. By outlining the ways in which FairTrade products are marketed, we argue that a particular and partial reflexivity is invoked and mobilized. Following from recent class debates which apply a Bourdieusian analysis to explore the operations of everyday class distinctions, we explore what such an analysis can offer to the project of critically mapping out the dynamics of this particular reflexivity and ethical consumption. However, FairTrade's emphasis on `just' consumption and invocation of a deserving farmer/worker allows some scope for problematization here too. By turning to an emerging literature on the `moral economy' we reach past the homogenizing tendency in some `new' class analyses to suggest possibilities both for a psychosocial imagining of ethical consumption and for fleshing out the conceptualization of a `situated reflexivity' demanded by recent social theory.

]]> 2008-12-03 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508096939 British Sociological Association 6 42 1182 2008-12-01 1165 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/6/1183?rss=1 This article examines neglected aspects of coming out that arise for lesbian parents and for their families of origin and considers the ways in which these forms of coming out resonate with the concept of display work. It draws upon a study that examines the family lives of lesbian couples who had their first and subsequent children in the context of their current relationship. Respondents identify having children as a point at which their own parents (and other members of their families of origin) are potentially called upon to negotiate new kin relationships. The lesbian parents' child may also be a grandchild, a nephew or niece, a cousin. I utilize the concept of display work to examine respondents' accounts about how they negotiate recognition and validation as a lesbian parent family with their family of origin and how their families of origin `come out' (or not) within their own social networks.

]]> 2008-12-03 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508096940 British Sociological Association 6 42 1199 2008-12-01 1183 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/6/1200?rss=1 A parallel is drawn in this article between influential theoretical perspectives on the contemporary culture of romantic intimacy, and Durkheimian interpretations of modernity, individualism and social solidarity.The author sketches generalities of Durkheim's account of individualism and solidarity in modern society; this sketch serves as a heuristic for cataloguing and distilling North American and European theories of contemporary intimacy that have emerged post-1960. Scholarly discourse on intimacy is shown to share rhetorical and substantive ground with Durkheimian understandings of individual interest and social obligation. Self-development and collective ties, and the potential for these to be mutually reinforcing, are central concerns in intimacy theory.Though not commonly engaged in such a manner, perspectives on contemporary intimacy present an opportunity to explore personal relationships in a style uniquely consistent with the generalist inclinations of past sociological traditions, and to move beyond heavily normative claims about individualism in intimacy.

]]> 2008-12-03 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508096941 British Sociological Association 6 42 1217 2008-12-01 1200 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/42/6/1218?rss=1 2008-12-03 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508096942 British Sociological Association 6 42 1227 2008-12-01 1218 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/6/1228?rss=1 This article examines low pay and the national minimum wage in the UK hotel industry, focusing on the lowest remunerated workers in the industry — room attendants — who have hitherto been overlooked in studies of the industry. It draws on qualitative research from eight case studies and relates this material to other secondary data. By including employees' experience, it reveals the management and employment practices that have limited the effect of the national minimum wage and attempts to alleviate low pay.The article ends by suggesting how this employee experience can be transmuted into political voice to improve the position of low wage workers.

]]> 2008-12-03 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508096943 British Sociological Association 6 42 1236 2008-12-01 1228 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/42/6/1237?rss=1 2008-12-03 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508096944 British Sociological Association 6 42 1244 2008-12-01 1237 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/42/6/1245?rss=1 2008-12-03 info:doi/10.1177/0038038508096946 British Sociological Association 6 42 1246 2008-12-01 1245 Article http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/42/6/1247?rss=1 2008-12-03 info:doi/10.1177/00380385080420061402 British Sociological Association 6 42 1248 2008-12-01 1247 Article