Sociology

The Goldthorpe class schema has been criticised as being unsuitable for assessing women's class positions. This paper tests the cross-sex validity of the employee classes within the schema by examining their within-sex association with measures of theoretically relevant occupational characteristics relating to employment and payment conditions, and promotion prospects. Using data from the Social Class in Modern Britain survey, it is shown that class divisions are operationalised similarly among men and women. The only difference of note is a slightly weaker overall association between class position and certain job characteristics among women, which results from the allocation of large numbers of women to class IIIa. With this class excluded from the analysis these differences are removed. It is further shown that the clustering of women in the category of routine non-manual workers stems not from deficiencies in the logic of Goldthorpe's conceptualisation of class, or from limitations associated with its operationalisation using OPCS occupational codes, but from the reality of occupational sex segregation. The analysis thus provides evidence to support the use of the schema as a measure of class position for both women and men.

Two decades after Joan Acker (1973) castigated mainstream stratification research for its `intellectual sexism', the debate over the impact that married women's paid employment has on class analysis is perhaps the most controversial issue in social stratification. Using two decades of survey data from the U.S., we assess the conditions under which wife's class affects the class identification of both spouses. Our principal findings include: (a) although the class positions of both spouses have an impact on class identification, husband's class is more important; (b) the explanatory power of wife's class does not appear to depend on gender inequality for men but does so for women; and (c) in certain situations, wife's class significantly modifies or reverses the class leanings expected on the basis of husband's position.

The winter of discontent continues to exert a powerful hold over the British political imaginary. It acts as a discursive key to a collective mythology seemingly appealed to, and conjured, in each wave of industrial unrest, in each hint of political turmoil and, until recently, whenever the election of a Labour Government looked credible. In this paper I consider the rhetorical strategies and linguistic devices deployed by the tabloid media in the narration of the events of the winter of 1978-79. I argue for an interpretation of the winter of discontent as a moment of state crisis. By crisis however I do not refer to the mere accumulation of contradictions but rather to a moment of transition, a moment of decisive intervention. Within such a framework, the winter of discontent emerges as a strategic moment in the transformation of the British state, and perhaps the key moment in the pre-history of Thatcherism. For, as I hope to demonstrate, the initial appeal of the New Right was premised upon its ability to offer a convincing construction of the winter of discontent as symptomatic of a more fundamental crisis of the state. In such a moment of crisis, a particular type of decisive intervention was called for. In this discursive construction of crisis the New Right proved itself capable of changing, if not the hearts and minds of the electorate, then certainly the predominant perceptions of the political context. It recruited subjects to its vision of the necessary response to the crisis of a monolithic state besieged by the trade unions. This was perhaps the only truly hegemonic moment of Thatcherism. It occurred well before Mrs Thatcher entered Number 10. It is thus not surprising that one of the most enduring and distinctive legacies of Thatcherism has been the new political lexicon of crisis, siege and subterfuge born of the winter of discontent.

The defence of abortion from individualistic rights-based arguments understates social context and ostracises communities that draw on the language of collective responsibilities. In trying to understand restrictive abortion legislation in Ireland, I argue for a more constructive, less oppositional debate. As the basis for dialogue, I focus on the common ground of women's experiences, their changing social roles and general commitment to nurture others. The defence of abortion from responsibility-based arguments reconceptualises abortion from an individual woman's private dilemma, to a social conflict of care that requires culturally sensitive and morally responsible choices.

In this paper the sociological significance of informal giving in the Netherlands is addressed. Does informal giving in any way compensate for the failing efficacy of official politics to counteract social inequality? Empirical results are presented from a study about informal giving in the Netherlands. Material as well as immaterial gifts were distinguished: presents, money gifts, food, shelter, care or help, and blood and organs. The data showed informal giving to be ruled by reciprocity: gifts are followed by return gifts in most cases. However, reciprocity appeared to have a positive as well as a negative side: those who give many gifts, receive many gifts in return, but those who do not give much - often because their social and material conditions do not allow them to do so - are also the poorest receivers: the unemployed and the elderly in our sample. It is concluded that informal giving does not compensate for existing social inequality. Informal giving mainly benefits those who already receive much; those who need it most, receive the least. Reciprocity, then, may be considered `a principle of exclusion'.

Seen as a corrective to the continuing preoccupations of the sociology of social movements with progressive organisations and movements, this paper offers an analysis of the defensive crime prevention initiatives emerging in the suburbs of South Manchester (and, undoubtedly, elsewhere) as a vital contemporary social movement, taking a very specific organisational form. The paper also attempts to show how the movements taking place around crime ought to be linked, analytically, to other local suburban initiatives on Quality of Life issues and, in particular, following Molotch and Logan's pioneering work on the political economy of post-industrial cities, to interest-governed campaigns around the positioning of the larger city in national and international competition. The angry commitment informing all such connected social movements in the suburbs is ignored by progressive social movement analysis at its own peril.

Contrary to Pahl's criticism, Goldthorpe and Marshall's class analysis programme is a theoretical one. A re-formulation of their position shows how it sets key elements in structured relationships with each other. However this also shows several limitations in their model, which fails fully to account for changes in class positions, or social mobility. Their model says very little about education, cultural values, or events (like the Second World War) that are not entirely class-determined, but impact on life chances. An exploration of previous uses of the Goldthorpe and Marshall approach in defining classes and in measuring class mobility, reveals several inconsistencies of practice, which may suggest, as Pahl argues, too much emphasis on empiricism. Caution is advised before investment in the Goldthorpe and Marshall class analysis programme.

This paper is drawn from a study of the work and family experiences and aspirations of young adult women who were interviewed by either one or the other of the authors in 1992. A comparison can thus be drawn between interviews conducted by a man and those by a woman. This is attempted in a systematic and empirical way. The initial intention was to learn from the literature on gender and the interview to minimise the impact of the interviewer's gender on the data generated. In the first section this is reviewed and we put a case that this intention was achieved. This was, however, only to an extent, as we indicate with material on the revelation of abortion experience to the two interviewers. Whilst there was a similar pattern of response to our direct questions, there was a marked difference in the voluntary addition of further personal experience. The final evidence we deploy comes from re-interviews done in 1994 in which the interviewees were asked about their perception of the significance of the original interviewer's gender. This indicates the importance of interviewees' concepts of gender as well as the intentions of researchers.