Sociology

The article explores the benefits of relating Bourdieu’s critical analysis of inequalities and domination to the theory of contributive justice. The latter is a normative theory concerning divisions of labour between jobs of different qualities that provide their holders with unequal possibilities for realizing their potential. Both approaches have Aristotelian influences in their emphasis on the development of dispositions and abilities through practice. It is argued that while this theory needs to consider the shaping of the habitus in early life prior to entry into the labour market, the concept of the unequal division of labour highlights a key structuring force of the social field. In so doing it makes explicit some justifications for Bourdieu’s critique of symbolic domination and the struggles of the social field that are left largely implicit in his work.

The narrative about the squandering lottery winner ending up alone and in debt has been shown to affect other lottery winners’ thinking about how to manage their money. Based on a narrative analysis of interviews with 14 Swedish lottery winners, this article considers the ways in which lottery winners present themselves and their post-winning life in counter-position to this story about the squandering winner. By spending their prize money responsibly in order to project moderate, non-luxury consumption, the winners are ‘rewarded’ by feelings of fortune, security, and happiness. Finally, the article discusses how this narrative about ‘the prospering winner’ might be understood in relation to norms about consumption and identity.

Academics studying the British temperance movement tend to regard it as having had little effect. This article reframes the question of impact by drawing on the separation, inherent in moral regulation theory, of the law’s simple legal functions from its broader moral functions. This concentration on the discursive and persuasive faculties of the law allows an investigation of the subtler effects of different parts of the social movement. The methodology entails a longitudinal examination of developments in statutory law as well as an analysis of public discourse on alcohol in the Victorian and contemporary eras. The article concludes that particular strands of the British temperance movement had a significant, lasting impact on the legal, heuristic and moral frameworks which continue to surround drink.

Hannah Arendt is a frequent reference point in Zygmunt Bauman’s writings. This article explains Arendt’s influence on Bauman, and then identifies three important differences in their work. The first is that Arendt’s account of totalitarianism departs from the Weberian theory of bureaucratic rationalization. The second is that Arendt believes sentiments of compassion are corrosive rather than productive of civilized public life. The third is that Arendt defines the moral conscience as a relationship with oneself rather than the other, and that this relationship is not a form of action. Arendt argued that the moral self is unpolitical because of this, but that in periods of social crisis the negative character of the moral conscience may become a precious source of political defiance. I conclude by suggesting that Arendt’s conception of morality could be a starting point for the kind of ‘ethics of self-limitation’ which Bauman believes is necessary to mitigate the destructive consequences of liquid modernity.

Boundary objects are entities that enhance the capacity of an idea, theory or practice to translate across culturally defined boundaries, for example, between communities of knowledge or practice. This concept thus has potential to both explain and predict technology adoption; however, it remains sociologically under-theorized. This article assesses, by recourse to a historical case study of innovations in surgical sterility, how boundary objects work and their relationship to social meanings within communities of practice. It is concluded that not only are there positive and negative boundary objects, but that technological devices or processes may themselves act as facilitative or inhibitory boundary objects during innovation. The approach set out here has potential as a sociologically informed model of improving adoption of technologies and policies by managing the positive and negative social meanings of technology objects.

This article provides a critique of governmentally inspired accounts of urban regeneration and partnership working. Drawing on the work of Norbert Elias and prominent figurational sociologists, it discusses the changes taking place within and through the many partnerships set up by New Labour around the notion of ‘community safety’. Although recognizing the important insights provided by accounts of urban regeneration emerging through studies of governmentality, the article argues that such accounts fail to adequately consider the impact of partnership working on the individuals, communities and organizations involved. While urban regeneration partnerships have the potential to be the motor of the civilizing process in the manner identified by figurational sociologists, the article concludes that they are not currently living up to this civilizing potential.

The emergence of the British National Party (BNP), primarily at the local level, has led to a proliferation of political, media and academic accounts seeking to explain its rise. These accounts have focused on a homogeneous, fixed construction of ‘the white working class’. This article, written during early 2010, seeks to challenge these assumptions by offering a more nuanced account of the nature of BNP support. It will be suggested that the data available on BNP supporters demonstrates that a focus on such simplistic conceptions of the ‘white working class’, ignores the heterogeneity that exists within this group, while simultaneously downplaying how BNP voters construct boundaries, drawing on both ‘racial’ and class distinctions. The article then draws on qualitative interviews conducted with BNP voters in Burnley between 2004 and 2005, exploring how notions of entitlement rest on particular, differentiated claims to whiteness — claims mediated by class and articulated through assertions of ‘respectability’ and ‘responsibility’.

Covert research is research which is not declared to the research participants or subjects. This is often muddled with deception, and condemned as intrinsically unethical. The basis of that condemnation is a legitimate concern with the rights of research subjects. It is, however, over-generalized. Research subjects do have rights, but they are not the only people with rights. They may have some say about the use of information, but not all information is under their control. They are entitled to privacy, but not everything is private. Undeclared, undisclosed research in informal settings has to be accepted as a normal part of academic enquiry.

Within the sociology of education, there is a growing interest in the middle classes and their educational practices, yet research to date has predominantly been framed within the context of the white middle classes. The article comes from a small, exploratory qualitative study exploring the identities and educational practices of the minority ethnic middle classes. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in England with 36 minority ethnic, ‘middle-class’ parents (13), pupils (13) and young professionals (10) from a range of minority ethnic backgrounds. This article explores the views of participants as located at the intersection between class privilege and racial subordination. The ambiguity within participants’ classed or racialized identifications is examined and the article argues that participants constructed ‘middle-classness’ in a range of ways but commonly regarded it as unattainable due to its association or conflation with ‘whiteness’.

This article examines the HBO television series The Wire as an example of a popular cultural form that stimulates the sociological imagination. It provides some examples of how it functions to do this. A brief case study of one character — ‘Snoop’ — is examined to illustrate a set of more general observations. It is suggested that The Wire, although still containing strong narrative elements, provides an intriguing popular cultural example of what Andrew Abbott has recently called a ‘lyrical sociology’.