This paper was originally delivered as a British Sociological Association Presidential Address at the end of the Annual Conference at the University of Surrey in April 1990. In the style of Presidential Addresses it was written as a lecture that would cover a range of issues and themes. In revising it for publication I have tried to keep much of the style of the lecture as well as the range of contemporary themes that were covered: training for `practising' sociologists, employment questions, and the role of the British Sociological Association in debates about research training. It is intended to illustrate some of the major concerns of British sociologists at the start of the 1990s.
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