The public/private distinction has been an important, generative but relatively unexplicated and unstable background assumption in sociological thinking. This paper describes some of the significances of this dualism in the context of a contemporary anxiety about the public sphere and a turn to the private, the subjective and the individual, not least for sociology. Popular and materialistic meanings of ‘the private’ are distinguished from possible sociological analytical uses. The increasing sociological interest in various forms of subjectivity is taken to be one characteristic version of the private within the current public/private dualism. A range of well-known formative sociological theorising is described, which provides implicit versions of the relation between the private and the public. These are a resource for rethinking what the private might now refer to in sociology. Three dimensions of the sociological private are proposed – intimate relationships, the self and the unconscious – as marking the sociological terrain of the private now and as directions for research. It is sugguested that the hitherto secondary quality of the private within a sociology which has traditionally privileged the public realm may now be changing and that discourses of the private are affecting the public agenda.

This paper's purpose is to highlight key sociological issues, that come to light when ‘the body’ becomes a theoretical site in reproductive genetics. By positioning the body as a central feature in this analysis, the paper: (1) describes how a mechanistic view of the body continues to be privileged in this discourse and the effects of this view; (2) examines how reproductive limits are practised on the gendered body through a feminised regime of reproductive asceticism and the discourse on shame; and (3) explores the social effects and limitations of reproductive genetics in relation to disability as a cultural representation of impaired bodies. The central assumptions concerning reproductive genetics are that it appears within surveillance medicine as part of a disciplinary process in society's creation of a genetic moral order, that it is mobilised by experts for the management of reproductive bodies and that it constructs a limited view of the body. Thus, the way reproductive genetics operates tends to hide the fact that what may appear as ‘defective genes’ is a result of a body's interaction not only with the environment but also gendered social practices valorised by difference as well as rigid definitions of health and illness. The research is from a 1995–96 European study of experts interviewed in four countries.

In this paper we explore the development of a new regime in a major bank where total quality management (TQM) has recently been introduced. A number of recent critics have suggested that TQM all but eliminates resistance either through a management regime that removes waste or through the totalising discourse it propagates. We argue that new management innovations associated with TQM and ‘empowerment’ are effective in increasing control over work processes and the subjectivity of staff. Even so, employees are able to retain some control over areas of their working lives. A central concern of the paper is to provide some limited evidence of how an analysis of subjectivity enhances our understanding of both consent and resistance at work.

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.

This paper presents a sociological investigation of instances of a class of claimed paranormal phenomena: the apparent demonstration of paranormal means of cognition by psychic practitioners, such as mediums, psychics, clairvoyants and tarot-card readers. Using a conversation analytic perspective, this paper examines recordings and transcripts of sittings between psychics and members of the public. It describes a linguistic sequence through which (unattributed) information is offered by the psychic, accepted by the sitter and then established as coming from a paranormal source. This form of analysis is located within an emerging social scientific interest to explore ostensibly anomalous human experiences to enrich understanding of everyday behaviour. In this case, it is argued that analysis of the socially organised properties of exchanges in which apparently successful demonstrations of paranormal cognitive abilities are accomplished can contribute to broader debates about the relationship between discourse and cognition.

The ethnic dimension to social relations can be distinguished from dimensions based on neighbourliness, national origin, race and religion etc., but ethnic conflicts are not a special class of conflicts. The significance of a shared ethnic origin varies with the location and scale of social relations. In local communities relations are multidimensional; ties based on different attributes are balanced against one another and against individual interests. Outside the range of personal acquaintance a shared ethnic origin may be a basis on which individuals are mobilised for collective action and for bargaining with other groups, though some individuals will seek to be free-riders. Mobilisers from elsewhere may induce individuals to change their relative preference for ethnic association, destroy local methods of dispute regulation, and so polarise relations that the participants treat their relations with members of an opposed ethnic group as unidimensional. Outside institutions, including foreign governments, can help resolve ethnic conflicts by providing guarantees that facilitate ethnic bargaining.

This article draws upon data from an in-depth ethnographic study of 5 and 6 year old children in an English multi-ethnic, inner-city primary school. It focuses on the significance of ‘race’ within young girls' peer-group relations and the ways in which the social dynamics that underlie those relations provide the context for understanding the particular nature and form that racism takes among the girls. This is done through a focus on the experiences of South Asian girls within the group. Within this, the article has two main aims. First, it aims to contribute to the literature within the sociology of education by extending the existing research focus on racism within teacher/pupil interactions to include an understanding of racism as it manifests itself among the children's peer-group relations. Second, in adapting and applying Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of capital and field, the article also offers a contribution to the literature within the sociology of ‘race’ and ethnicity by suggesting one potentially fruitful way in which racism can be understood within specific social contexts.

Black supplementary schools, as organic grassroots organisations, are not simply a response to mainstream educational exclusion and poor provision, as they are so often described. They are far more radical and subversive than their quiet conformist exterior, indicating the presence of a covert social movement for educational change. In our small-scale, exploratory study of four black supplementary schools, we attempt to uncover their subjugated knowledges and hidden histories in order to illustrate the ways in which they generate Mueller's ‘oppositional meanings’. The narratives of the black women educators consistently decentre assumptions of mainstream schooling, as well as providing evidence of thriving black communities, social capital and complex, contradictory pedagogies within which childcentredness remains an important component. Supplementary schools provide a context in which whiteness is displaced as central and blackness is seen as normative. We conclude by arguing that, through their strategies of reworking notions of both community and blackness, their creation of new ‘types’ of professional intellectuals and their commitment to social transformation, black supplementary schools represent the genesis of a new gendered social movement.

When it comes to understanding the relationship between organised labour and the racialised worker in England, the conclusions reached by black radical theorists like Sivanandan and Gilroy have gone unchallenged for many years. In this paper, it is contended that these accounts of trade-union racism are constructed on the mistaken assumption that a trade union represents the interests of all the working class. Instead, an alternative conceptual framework is advanced underpinned by the recognition that the response of trade unions towards racialised labour is contingent on a wider set of economic, political and ideological circumstances and the type of strategy trade unions employ to protect the economic interests of their members. Through an assessment of events between 1945 and 1979 (the period black radical theorists use to advance their arguments), this paper challenges the conclusions drawn by black radical theorists regarding the basis of trade-union racism, the significance of ‘black’ self-organisation and the likelihood of ‘inter-racial’ class action developing.

Jean Curthoys, Feminist Amnesia: The Wake of Women's Liberation, London: Routledge, 1997, £40.00 (£12.99 paperback), xiv+200 pp. (ISBN 0-415-148073)

Mary Evans, Introducing Contemporary Feminist Thought, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997, £39.50 (£11.95 paperback), 170 pp. (ISBN 07-456-14760)

Heidi Safia Mirza (ed.), Black British Feminism: A Reader, London: Routledge, 1997, £45.00 (£15.99 paperback), xiv+306 pp. (ISBN 0-415-152895)

All three books attempt, in different ways, to re-evaluate the feminist enterprise, reflecting on contemporary developments within feminism. Heidi Mirza's collection of essays represents developments in what she terms ‘Black British Feminism’. Jean Curthoys, on the other hand, criticises contemporary feminism, arguing that the ‘true spirit’ (sic) of feminism has been subverted by later developments in the academy. Mary Evans has written a history of the development of Western feminist thought in the academy. The two latter books focus on post-1970 developments in Western feminism, arriving, however, at opposite conclusions. Where Evans sees the 1970s as an important building block for contemporary feminist thought, Curthoys argues that the important insights of the 1970s have been abandoned. Both of these books, in one way or the other, acknowledge the multiplicity of voices within feminism today, and the need to pay attention to ‘difference’. However, neither of these books fully attends to contemporary debates within anti-racism and the critiques made by black and Third World feminists. Mirza's book, by contrast, claims to be the ‘first to be entirely dedicated to the writings of black women in a British context’.

Randall Collins, The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1998, £30.95, xxi+1098 pp. (ISBN 0-674-81647-1)

Alvin I. Goldman, Knowledge in a Social World, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, £16.99 paperback, xiii+407 pp. (ISBN 0-19-823820-7)

Social epistemology versus social ontology

About a dozen years ago I started a journal and wrote a book, both with the name social epistemology (Fuller 1988; Fuller 1996). In the intervening years a few intrepid philosophers and sociologists have tried to map this area, and the two books under review represent two very important, yet very different, efforts from both sides of the disciplinary divide. But before proceeding further, I should say that ‘social epistemology’ is not the only rubric that philosophers and sociologists have used to map a common conceptual space. To be sure, in the days when Popper and Wittgenstein aroused passions, ‘philosophy of the social sciences’ could lay fair claim to that goal. Much of the work of Gouldner, Habermas, Foucault and Bourdieu is also easily interpreted as exercises in social epistemology, as each in its own way theorises the place of the knower in the production of social knowledge. However, at the same time, there has been considerable resistance to social epistemology amongst both philosophers and sociologists in Britain. (It is no coincidence that Collins and Goldman are American.) Instead, what may be called social ontology turns out to be the terms in which philosophy and sociology have sought common ground, and much of what today passes for ‘social theory’ – especially that which takes Anthony Giddens as a significant presence – falls under this rubric (Fuller 1995).