In contrast to recent sociological emphases on the social shaping of technology, this article proposes and illustrates a way of analysing the technological shaping of sociality. Drawing on the concept of affordances (Gibson 1979), the article argues for a recognition of the constraining, as well as enabling, materiality of artefacts. The argument is set in the theoretical context of one of the most recent and comprehensive statements of anti-essentialism (Grint and Woolgar 1997). The position is illustrated through a reinterpretation of some case studies used by proponents of the radical constructivist position.

The past two decades have seen rapid changes in the ways in which sociologists think about children, and a growing cross-fertilisation of ideas between researchers in a variety of social science disciplines. This paper builds upon these developments by exploring what three inter-related ways of thinking about spatiality might contribute to the new social studies of childhood. Specifically, we identify the importance of progressive understandings of place in overcoming the split between global and local approaches to childhood; we discuss the ways in which children's identities are constituted in and through particular spaces; and we examine the ways in which our understandings of childhood can shape the meaning of spaces and places. These ideas are illustrated by reference to our current research on children's use of the internet as well as a range of wider studies.

This paper uses data gathered from an ESRC funded research project on social networks, social capital and lifestyle to provide an account of contemporary class identities derived from 178 in-depth interviews carried out in the Manchester area between 1997 and 1999. We use this data to unpack the ambivalent nature of contemporary class identities. We argue that despite the diversity of the sample, a number of common elements characterize people's attitudes to class. People are more hesitant in placing themselves in classes than they are about talking class as a social and political issue. Most people wish to see themselves as ‘outside’ classes. Even so, class is a marker by which people relate their life histories, and most people are aware of class terminology. The major division in our sample is between those with the cultural capital to play reflexively with ideas of class, and those who lack these resources and feel threatened by the implications of relating class to their own personal identities. This latter group are mainly concerned to establish their own ‘ordinariness’, which we read as a defensive device to avoid the politics of being labelled in class terms. Both middle-class and working-class identities can be used to establish ordinariness. We argue that sociologists should not assume that there is any necessary significance in how respondents define their class identity in surveys. We use these findings to take forward debates deriving from Bourdieu regarding class identity.

This article is concerned with the status of generalisation in interpretive sociology. The case made is that generalisation is inevitable, desirable and possible. It is held that interpretivism must employ a special kind of generalisation, characterised here as moderatum. However, an acknowledgement that such generalisations can be made must bring us to specify the limits of generalisation in interpretive research. These limits are the limits of interpretivism itself and the paper concludes that this implies the adoption of methodological pluralism in order to realise the full potential of the method.

In the light of the work of Pierre Bourdieu, this paper begins by reviewing an argument that Western populations no longer recognise any fixed cultural hierarchy and that, instead, individuals seek knowledge of an increasingly wide variety of aesthetically equivalent cultural genres. Contrasting versions of this argument are isolated. Data concerning the frequency of use of different commercial sources of meals and the social characteristics of customers using different types of restaurant in England are examined. An attempt is made to infer the social and symbolic significance of variety of experience and, in particular, of familiarity with diverse ethnic cuisines. The findings are interpreted in terms of the complex role of consumption in personal assurance, communicative competence and social distinction. It is maintained that the pursuit of variety of consumer experience is a feature of particular social groups and that some specific component practices express social distinction.

The usefulness of archived qualitative data has been questioned where contextual information surrounding the conditions of its production is not provided. It has been assumed that, without this background information, the data remain incomplete. By the same token, it has been argued that the provision of such information will repair and complete the dataset for the purpose of generating new findings or theories. We suggest that these arguments stress practical solutions to what is in fact a more fundamental epistemological issue relating to the reflexive and interpretive nature of the research paradigm within which we, as qualitative researchers, reside. Our experiences of revisiting our own data, discussed in this paper, have highlighted the central part played by the researcher not only in the interpretation and theorising of data, but also in their construction. Because of this, we contend that the conditions under which data are produced are inescapable, thus rendering their re-interpretation at some later date problematic. Thus, we argue that, while ‘reflexivity’ is now recognised as a key feature of qualitative research across social science disciplines, the implications of this for the archiving and re-use of qualitative data have yet to be adequately addressed. Failure to acknowledge this epistemological issue leads researchers unwittingly to adopt a ‘naively realist’ position.

This paper examines the character of the debate about ‘quantitative’ and ‘qualitative’ methods in feminist social science. The ‘paradigm argument’ has been central to feminist social science methodology; the feminist case against ‘malestream’ methods and in favour of qualitative methods has paralleled other methodological arguments within social science against the unthinking adoption by social science of a natural science model of inquiry. The paper argues in favour of rehabilitating quantitative methods and integrating a range of methods in the task of creating an emancipatory social science. It draws on the history of social and natural science, suggesting that a social and historical understanding of ways of knowing gives us the problem not of gender and methodology, but of the gendering of methodology as itself a social construction.

This paper sets out to make sociological sense of some contemporary trends in the consumption of policing services and security products. I argue that the commodification of policing and security can fruitfully be theorised and investigated in terms of the spread of consumer culture, a contention that I demonstrate in three (related) ways. I begin by examining how a culture of consumption is pervading the practices and rhetoric of the public police and outlining the impact of ‘consumerism’ on lay sensibilities towards policing. I then set out some prevailing trends in the consumption of protective services and hardware and consider the effects of a burgeoning ‘security market’ on the construction of authority, subjectivity and social relations. Finally, I detail a number of possible points of resistance to the spread of commercially-delivered policing and security and argue that these provide both some potential cultural limits to the extension of a ‘consumer attitude’ in this field, and a space within which to think about, and develop, modes of policing shaped by citizens acting in a democratic polity rather than consumers operating in the market.

In this paper we explore some key antionomies which have emerged in relation to children and childhood in late modernity: tensions between autonomy and protection and between perceptions of children as ‘at risk’ and as potentially threatening. A particular focus here is on the sexualisation of risk, the degree of public concern expressed whenever the sexual ‘innocence’ of children is thought to be endangered. We argue that the concept of risk anxiety provides a useful means of analysing contemporary fears about children and childhood and may thus be understood as contributing to the ongoing social construction of childhood. Here risk anxiety must be located within the context of gendered and generational power relations, in which children’s lives are bounded by adult surveillance. Furthermore, risk anxiety may have material consequences for children’s daily lives and for everyday adult–child negotiations around safety and danger, protection and autonomy.

Medical autonomy in the United Kingdom has declined over the last twenty-five years, whether considered at the micro level (such as control over treatment and work patterns), the meso level (in terms of corporatist relations with the state) or the macro level (in terms of the ‘biomedical model’). After a period in the early 1990s when the National Health Service displayed a mix of Fordist and post-Fordist controls, the emphasis has swung sharply towards the former, suggesting the continued explanatory value of theories which focus on the state's need both to contain welfare expenditure and to maximise the political legitimacy derived from it. The analysis of this relatively narrow area of sociology has implications for the study of much broader questions about the capacity and legitimacy of the state in the twenty-first century.

This paper addresses two important questions in the area of the division of domestic labour. Firstly, what change is observable in the patterns of men and women's time spent in domestic labour over the past twenty years, when taking into account structural factors such as employment patterns and social class? Secondly, among which groups of the population of couples can change be identified? One of the problems of this area of research has been that relatively few studies have systematically analysed change over time using directly comparable large-scale data. Here I present a detailed examination of the nature and pattern of change in the domestic division of labour among couples in Britain based on nationally representative time-use diary data collected in 1975, 1987 and 1997. The data are drawn from a cross-national data archive held by the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex. Notwithstanding the fact that in 1997 women still performed the bulk of domestic work, it is found that, in relation to changes in time use in other areas of life, the increase in men's participation in domestic work (at least as measured in terms of time contributed) should be regarded as significant. In support of this, there had been (i) a reduction in gender inequality in the performance of some of the normatively feminine-associated tasks, (ii) a larger proportional increase in the time contributed to domestic work tasks by men from lower socio-economic strata, to a position of near equality with men from higher socio-economic positions, and (iii) a substantial increase in more ‘egalitarian’ couples.

Drawing on data from a study of middle-class women undergoing the transition to motherhood, this paper critically examines the early 1990s' work of Giddens and Beck on self-identity. Parallels with the work of Giddens and Beck are drawn, but it is argued that more attention needs to be paid to gendered and embodied identity. Using discourse analysis, it is suggested that the women are ‘excused’ from aspects of their identity in the process of pregnancy, but remain within the same regime of subjectification. Six dimensions of an altered sense of self are identified, and the discourses on which the women draw in maintaining a coherent sense of self are discussed. The concept of a refracted self is proposed as a means of theorising these changes.

In this paper I examine changes in men and women’s attitudes to sexual morality across nations and time. First, I use time-series data from British Social Attitudes and the General Social Survey of the United States to examine to what extent there has been a revolution in sexual attitudes and whether the change in attitudes has continued through to the 1990s. In particular, I investigate whether changes in permissiveness are mainly due to period effects or to cohort replacement. I also compare the trajectory and pace of change in the two countries. Second, I use data from the International Social Survey Programme to compare British and American attitudes with those of four other nations with very different socio-political and religious traditions – Ireland, Germany, Sweden and Poland. With the exception of attitudes to pre-marital sex, attitudes have not changed very dramatically over the past few decades. Attitudes towards homosexuality are becoming slowly more tolerant, especially among women, but condemnation of extra-marital sex has remained high. Religion plays an important role in explaining both within and cross-national variations in attitudes and provides a powerful counterbalance to permissive trends. I conclude that change has not been as revolutionary as is often claimed and the demise of traditional values is over-stated.

This paper draws on empirical research into the recruitment, training, and management of female flight attendants, working primarily in the transatlantic business travel sector of the contemporary airline industry. We argue that whilst the ‘ skills’ which flight attendants are required to deploy are denied, being treated as somehow inherent abilities and thus neither trained nor remunerated, they are nevertheless managed in a directive way. This management involves, in particular, a focus on a flight attendant’s figure, and ‘dieting’ – what Naomi Wolf has referred to as ‘the essence of contemporary femininity’ (Wolf 1990:200) – as a recruitment, training and managerial strategy. The work of a female flight attendant involves adhering to culturally prescribed norms on femininity as well as organisational regulations governing her figure – its presentation and performance – whilst undertaking work which involves, at least in part, serving food to others. We conclude that this aspect of the work of flight attendants is thus ‘a symbolic representation of the subordination of women . . . a concrete expression of their position as servers and carers of men’ (Charles and Kerr 19 88:84).

Positional competition for credentials and jobs has been a major focus of sociological inquiry. However, there has been little attempt to examine the impact of economic globalisation on competition for a livelihood. This is an important question for sociological analysis as centre-left Modernisers, including New Labour in Britain and the Democrats in the United States, assume that globalisation has transformed the nature of positional class conflict. They argue that it is now the absolute standards of educational achievement, rather than the relative standing of credential holders within local or national labour markets, which are of primary importance. Drawing on neo-Weberian theories of social closure, this article will argue that the Modernisers' description of the global labour market and its impact on positional class conflict is seriously flawed. It will also be argued that existing theories of social closure are inadequate and need to be developed in terms of what we call Positional Conflict Theory.

This paper investigates husbands' and wives' perceptions of fairness of the domestic division of labour. Using data from a recent national Australian survey, the paper shows that 59 per cent of women report that the division of labour in the home is fair even though they also report responsibility for the bulk of the work. On the other hand, 68 per cent of men report that the division of household labour is fair. Drawing on Thompson's distributive justice framework, the paper analyses the factors underlying these patterns in relation to perceptions of fairness of childcare and housework. The results show that, for both men and women, the key factor determining perceptions of fairness is the division of tasks between men and women. The amount of time spent on domestic labour is also significant, but is less important than who does what around the home. There is little support for other hypotheses relating to gender role attitudes, time spent in paid work and financial power. The conclusion examines these findings in light of the distributive justice framework and considers their implications for understanding perceptions of fairness in households.

This paper locates labour process theory in broader sociological debates concerned with the action-structure dualism before examining three broad programmes for research that have emerged in response to the question of subjectivity and agency. Whereas the ‘orthodox’ school tends to re-assert the structuralist and economistic features of Marx, the ‘anti-realist’ or deconstructionist position invites the abandonment of analysis that has traditionally been orientated by the polarities of ‘structure’ and ‘agency’. We identify and develop a third, ‘hybrid position’, one that is informed by poststructuralist insights but does not neglect or reject established traditions of ‘modern’ sociology and labour process research. Critical examinations of two recent studies of ‘subjectivity and the labour process’ – Mike Sosteric's (1996) case study of a night club and Douglas Ezzy's (1997) paper on ‘good work’ – are undertaken to show how poststructuralist insights may offer an instructive way of understanding how subjectivity is co-implicated in the accomplishment and reproduction of capitalist employment relations.

Recent debates within social and political theory, and within the public sphere more generally, reveal growing concern with issues of ‘trust’. While forms of voluntary association frequently are cited as prime examples of trust relations, they rarely provide a focus for such debates. In this paper we examine current developments within the voluntary sector in Britain, arguing that the relation of voluntary organisations to questions of trust is increasingly problematic. In particular a tension exists between trust relations based on principles of voluntarism and linked to shared values, and relations of confidence that are mediated by institutional and contractual forms. After surveying recent theoretical accounts of trust and confidence, we consider the relevance of these debates to the British voluntary sector. We then draw on a range of quantitative and qualitative research on the voluntary sector to examine how trust and confidence are negotiated with a number of key constituencies: the general public; government and institutional funders; business; and users or beneficiaries. Our argument is that, while resources of trust are linked to their core values, voluntary organisations are increasingly governed by formal measures designed to promote confidence.

In this paper we seek to engage with contemporary environmental debates concerning human–nature relations at the everyday level. Our focus is on the domestic or home garden, which we argue is a significant locale for understanding human–nature relations. Secondary empirical data illustrate the growth of gardening and its connections to changes in housing tenure, consumption patterns and the ‘commodification of nature’ by the garden industry. Primary empirical data on the meanings of home and garden (and gardening activities) are utilised to understand the relations between human agency and contemporary human–nature relations. The findings suggest that a variety of social and economic processes encourage utilitarian and consumerist orderings of nature in gardens. But the meanings of gardens are also structured by personal practices, often reflecting relationships with family and friends, that produce complex and personalised connections with nature that illustrate the ambiguity of human–nature relations.

While various attempts have been made to link nature and society more closely together within environmental sociology, it now appears as though there is a general acceptance of rather traditional divisions between these two domains. Yet ecology specifies that natural and social entities are bound together in complex interrelations. Why then does sociology insist on sifting out the social from the natural? The paper takes this question as its starting point and seeks to identify what environmental sociology might gain and lose from a shift towards ecological thinking. It does so by examining the case of actor-network theory, an approach that, in significant respects, closely approximates a kind of ‘ecological sociology’. Actor-network theory is ‘co-constructionist’: it seeks to identify how relations and entities come into being together. Critics have focused on the problems of co-constructionism: they have argued that human actors generally possess powers of reflection (through language) and that these powers of reflection provide motive forces for action. Thus some form of social analysis is still necessary. Any ecological sociology will thus need to bring these two perspectives together so that humans and non-humans can be considered within the same frame of reference but so the distinctions that generally hold between the two can also be assessed.