Sociological Research Online

This article seeks to understand network governance within the context of the North American automotive industry. Within this industry, original equipment manufacturers (lead firms) have outsourced a substantial portion of parts production over the last 30 years. This paper argues that in an aim to govern their supplier relations, North American lead firms imposed quality assurance standards upon their suppliers. In addition, this paper considers how nodes situated in the network are called upon to pre-emptively manage failures. Utilizing the quality assurance standards themselves, and 15 in-depth interviews with quality assurance managers at different part supplier plants, this article explores the technologies of performance used to manage failures. The focus of this paper is on the creation of part narratives, and particularly, the quality audit and its role in governing the conduct of part suppliers at-a-distance. Lastly, this paper focuses on the network prudential subject who is called upon to pre-emptively manage failures on behalf of the network.

One of the core contentions of the individualisation thesis is that the residents of contemporary Western nations are no longer willing or able to perceive the motors of their life paths as external, social forces such as ‘class’ or material resources and instead talk of internal, personal facets and motivations. This paper, grounded in a Bourdieusian understanding of class, engages with this prominent assertion through analysis of 55 life-history interviews with people from a mix of class positions. It reveals that though individualistic sentiments are present, the respondents were all too ready to cite various forms of capital as advantages or disadvantages as well, though the degree to which they were seen as ‘external’ or ‘individualised’ differed by class. Furthermore, when ‘class’ was brought explicitly into the frame it was generally seen as a playing a fundamental role in life's trajectory, but mainly through issues of interaction and (mis)recognition rather than deprivation and inequality. Insofar as individualistic schemes of perception and class thus intertwine these processes could be said to represent what Beck refers to as a ‘both/and’ situation, but since they are neither particularly new nor damaging to class analysis the individualisation thesis is put in doubt.

This article describes using email as a kind of interview. In a sociological study of professional career transition into law, on several occasions in that study, interview participants suggested using emails rather than face-to-face interviews. This ‘irregularity’ set off reflection whether email interviews counted as ‘proper’ interviews. Discussing examples of email interviews clarifies differences from other uses of email in research, and assists exploration of advantages and disadvantages of email interviews as a qualitative research method. A preliminary framework is suggested for evaluation the suitability of email interviews. Present-day limitations point to continuing development in this area of social research. Current indications are that emergent media technologies such as email interviews, like other new media innovations, do not diminish older forms, but rather enrich the array of investigatory tools available for social research today.

During the course of this paper we mobilise an ideal typical framework that identifies three waves of reduction within contemporary qualitative inquiry as they relate to key aspects of the sociological tradition. The paper begins with a consideration of one of sociology's key questions; namely how is social organisation possible? The paper aims to demonstrate how this question moves from view as increased specialisation and differentiation in qualitative methodology within sociology and related disciplines results in a fragmentation and decontextualisation of social practices from social orders. Indeed, the extent to which qualitative methods have been detached from sociological principles is considered in relation to the emergence of a reductionist tendency. The paper argues that the first wave is typified by conceptual couplings such as ‘discourse and the subject’, ‘narrative and experience’, ‘space and place’ and the second by ‘activity type couplings’ such as ‘walking and talking’ and ‘making and telling’ and then, finally, the third wave exemplified through auto-ethnography and digital lifelogging. We argue each of these three waves represent a series of steps in qualitative reduction that, whilst representing innovation, need to reconnect with questions of action, order and social organisation as a complex whole as opposed to disparate parts.

Lesbian and gay sociology has witnessed a reflexive turn in recent years, which emphasises choice, self-creation and self-determination in the formation of sexual identities. Individuals are involved in, what GIDDENS (1991) called, a ‘project of self’ or a ‘reflexive biography’, which allows them to engage in a dynamic and constantly evolving process of defining and re-defining their self-identity. Identity becomes fluid, fragmented and plastic. In a recent issue of this journal, Brian Heaphy argued that such accounts of lesbian and gay reflexivity are partial and fail to take account of the ways in which structural factors continue to limit one's choice narrative and he proposed a move towards a reflexive sociology, rather than a sociology of reflexivity. This article seeks to develop Heaphy's argument further and suggests that the limitation of theories of reflexivity lies in their inability to adequately account for the continued significance of collectivity, interdependency and human relations in shaping an individual's identity. Drawing on Norbert Elias’ figurational sociology, it will be argued that against a reflexive model of identity that privileges individualism, choice and creativity over collectivity and material constraints, there is a pressing need to revisit and re-establish our interdependent relationships with one another.

Young people have been characterised as apathetic and disengaged from mainstream politics. This discourse draws upon a narrow, regulatory and hegemonic model of politics that centres on parliamentary politics. This paper reports findings from a qualitative study of young people drawn from across the political spectrum that also found most participants to adhere to this dominant model of politics. However, this conceptualisation of politics did not match their forms of socio-political engagement, instead it generated a series of tensions and worked to discount their actions as not ‘genuine’ or ‘real’ politics. It is argued that this narrow, regulatory model of politics does not reflect contemporary social conditions and actually militates against young people understanding themselves as political actors and beings.

Drawing on recent research on professional fears around touching children, and also on the consequences for those professionals who find themselves the subject of a false allegation of abuse, this paper considers some of the barriers to changing the ‘parenting’ culture of those in loco parentis. It consists of three linked sections. The first sets the scene by describing briefly the research relating to ‘touch’ and to ‘false allegation’ as well as outlining the particular ethical and methodological approach of the latter. This leads into the central section of the paper which comprises a first person account of the experiences of a male teacher who was wrongly accused and convicted of touching young children inappropriately in the classroom, serving a prison sentence before being found not guilty. In spite of this verdict his career is ruined and he will not be able to teach or work with children/vulnerable adults in the future. The final section reflects on the implications of this and other accounts, and offers tentative suggestions as to how accusations could be dealt with in a more appropriate way. The challenge is to identify principles and practices which are in keeping with our joint responsibility in relation to human rights (ie those of both children and professionals), and which also contribute towards encouraging the changes required in the ‘parenting’ culture of those in loco parentis .

Today, alongside many other proscriptions, women are expected to abstain or at least limit their alcohol consumption during pregnancy. This advice is reinforced through warning labels on bottles and cans of alcoholic drinks. In most (but not all) official policies, this is linked to a risk of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) or one of its associated conditions. However, given that there is little medical evidence that low levels of alcohol consumption have an adverse impact on the foetus, we need to examine broader societal ideas to explain why this has now become a policy concern. This paper presents a quantitative and qualitative assessment of analysis of the media in this context. By analysing the frames over time, this paper will trace the emergence of concerns about alcohol consumption during pregnancy. It will argue that contemporary concerns about FAS are framed around a number of pre-existing discourses including alcohol consumption as a social problem, heightened concerns about children at risk and shifts in ideas about the responsibility of motherhood including during the pre-conception and pregnancy periods. Whilst the newspapers regularly carried critiques of the abstinence position now advocated, these challenges focused did little to refute current parenting cultures.

Based on research in London with mothers from a breastfeeding support organisation this paper explores the narratives of women who breastfeed ‘to full term’ (typically for a period of several years) as part of a philosophy of ‘attachment parenting’, an approach to parenting which validates long term proximity between child and care-taker.

In line with wider cultural trends, one of the most prominent ‘accountability strategies’ used by this group of mothers to explain their long-term breastfeeding is recourse to scientific evidence, both about the nutritional benefits of breastfeeding and about the broader cognitive and developmental benefits of attachment parenting more broadly. Women's accounts internalize and reflect popular literature around attachment parenting, which is explored here in-depth as a means of contextualizing shifting patterns of ‘scientisation’. What follows is a reflection on how ‘scientific evidence’ is given credence in narratives of mothering, and what the implications of this are for individuals in their experience of parenting, and for society more broadly. As a form of ‘Authoritative Knowledge’ (JORDAN 1997) women utilise ‘science’ when they talk about their decisions to breastfeed long-term, since it has the effect of placing these non-conventional practices beyond debate (they are simply what is ‘healthiest’). The article therefore makes a contribution to wider sociological debates around the ways in which society and behaviour are regulated, and the ways in which ‘science’ is interpreted, internalized and mobilized by individuals in the course of their ‘identity work’.

This paper attempts to understand the prominence given to teenage pregnancy in policy discussions since the late-1990s by contextualising it within a broader analysis of the contemporary ‘culture of parenting’. The emerging field of parenting culture studies has begun to develop an analysis of the key features of policy, practice and informal culture. Three key concepts are discussed to shed an alternative light on the issue of teenage pregnancy and parenthood with the hope of further developing the healthy debate that has emerged in recent years in response to policy priorities: the development of ‘parental tribalism’ whereby differing parental choices and behaviour become a site for identity formation; the idea of a deficit at the level of parenting and intimate familial relationships; the reconceptualising of the parent as an autonomous, authoritative adult to a more infantilised imagining. The teenage mother, herself neither adult nor child, becomes emblematic of these developments.

The ESRC's (2010) Framework for Research Ethics extends the remit of its 2005 research ethics framework in three significant ways: the system is to be fully mandatory and it will no longer be possible to make the case that no out of the ordinary ethical issues arise; the Research Ethics Committees (RECs) set up under the ESRC's 2005 document have extended remit, including reviewing all research proposals accepted by the ESRC and other funding bodies; and funding will depend on the REC review, with its purview extending through a project's life. The 2010 document is reviewed in detail and the conclusion is drawn that it is not fit for purpose. Six wider issues raised by the FRE document are discussed: the consultation process by the ESRC was insufficient and the informed consent of the social science community was not obtained; the ethics creep involved will involve unnecessary bureaucratisation; the RECs will operate without expert discipline-specific knowledge using unethical generalist criteria; the overall effects long-term will be deleterious to the research base; the FRE document unacceptably ignores the professional associations and their research ethics guidelines; and the ESRC's system of the expert peer review of funding applications will be undermined.

This note responds to the discussion pieces by Elizabeth Shove and John Urry in the debates section of Sociological Research Online, 31 August 2010.