Sociology

This study examines the effects of the later stages of comprehensive reorganisation in Scotland. Nationally representative samples show that standards of attainment rose, particularly among females and pupils of lower socioeconomic status (SES). The rise was faster than could be accounted for by the rise in average SES. Inequalities of attainment associated with SES varied between communities but, overall, they declined for both males and females. Female attainment moved ahead of male attainment. Creamed comprehensives did worse than uncreamed ones, but the longer that either creamed or uncreamed schools had been established as comprehensive the higher was their average attainment. Some implications for the reduction and reproduction of inequalities of attainment are discussed.

The paper which follows takes the form of a dialogue between a sociological voice and an unidentified, questioning voice. The two voices explore some of the tasks involved in, and difficulties generated by, the attempt to apply social science to practical issues. The discussion focuses on the area of health economics and, particularly, on recent efforts to provide measures of the quality of life that can be used to solve administrative problems within the NHS. Beginning from close examination of a particular text, the sociological voice claims to reveal some of the background assumptions of health economics as a social practice and to identify some of the ways in which the production and application of economic knowledge are socially contingent. The sociological voice also contrasts the textual form of the present paper with the `scientific' format normally employed by economists and most other applied social scientists. S/he may be read as asserting that the dialogic character of the present text is in some way more suited to a more collaborative use of social science expertise in the realm of practical action.

The logical structure of class theory is described in terms of a number of correspondence principles. The theory of class depends upon a concept of exploitation (and justice). The Marxian concept of exploitation is but one possible example of a more general conception. Class boundaries drawn in terms of the Marxian concept (i.e. labouring time and positions in the relations of production) apply when the line between capital and labour is relatively unambiguous. Where this is not the case a new concept is needed, formulated in terms of unequal choices in the relations of production, exchange and consumption. The new concept emerges in minimax class society where class boundaries derive from an individual's status as a provider of labour and capital and as a consumer.

A remarkable variety of academic treatments of family life are in broad agreement as to the processes of development and change occurring within families in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A wide range of authors regard the following as a set of interconnected changes: family household members increasingly come to have a sense of themselves as a distinctive and sacrosanct unit, `the family', which is separated from the wider social world; emotional relationships within the family household become very intense; gender divisions become more acute, with the sharp demarcation between a housewife/mother role and an earner/father role; respect for the rights of the individual is increased - loyalty to oneself may take precedence over loyalty to the family. My aim in this paper is to confront this `classical' corpus of historical and sociological analysis with a particular set of experiential data - oral accounts of growing up in urban Scotland in the early 1900s gathered by me in 1975 - 77 (Jamieson 1983). As we shall see, these data cast into doubt several of the generalisations contained in the `classical' corpus.

The labour process debate has failed to analyse systematically the `deus ex machina' in Braverman's original contribution, capital. This paper elaborates a complex conception of capital which differentiates circuits of capital - industrial, banking and commercial - both within the firm and in the economy as a whole. The specific way in which these circuits are integrated and the meaning of this for firms is examined through a case study of events within Imperial Tobacco in the 1970s. The labour process and strategies towards the labour process are seen as only one element in the complex articulation of the circuits of capital within firms and in the economy as a whole. The role of owners and ownership in particular requires greater consideration.

In this research note, I examine Oakley's treatment of the traditional textbooks' recommendations for interviewing. Oakley criticises these as a basis for data collection `which cannot and does not work in practice' (Oakley 1981:31). An examination of textbook prescriptions for data collection suggests that Oakley's objection to them is a product of her misleading characterisation of them. Her criticism is therefore misplaced, and her proposed alternative rather less original than has been assumed.