Sociology

Using data drawn from the Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion study, we examine the relationship between social class membership and cultural participation and taste in the areas of music, reading, television and film, visual arts, leisure, and eating out. Using Geometric Data Analysis, we examine the nature of the two most important axes which distinguish `the space of lifestyles'. By superimposing socio-demographic variables on this cultural map, we show that the first, most important, axis is indeed strongly associated with class. We inductively assess which kind of class boundaries can most effectively differentiate individuals within this `space of lifestyles'.The most effective model distinguishes a relatively small professional class (24%) from an intermediate class of lower managerial workers, supervisors, the self-employed, senior technicians and white collar workers (32%) and a relatively large working class which includes lower supervisors and technicians (44%).

This article draws on qualitative in-depth interviews with 63 white middle-class families whose children attend inner London comprehensives.The white middle classes, as they are inscribed in policy discourses, best fit the ideal of the democratic citizen — individualistic, rational, responsible, participatory, the active chooser. Yet, narratives of white middle-class choice reveal both powerful defences and the power of the affective. Sublimated in the psyche of the majority white middle classes who avoid inner-city comprehensives and the more inclusive parents in this ESRC-funded research project are multifaceted and differing responses to the classed and ethnic `other'. This article examines frequently overlooked anxieties, conflicts, desires and tensions within middle-class identities generated by education choice policies. However, the main focus is white middle-class relationships to their classed and ethnic `other', and the part played by the psychosocial in white middle-class identities and identifications within predominantly working-class, multi-ethnic schooling.

This article evaluates cosmopolitan theory by exploring how parents perceive cosmopolitanism. Interviews with parents whose children attend an internationalized form of education revealed that parents viewed cosmopolitanism as a form of cultural and social capital, rather than feelings of global connectedness or curiosity in the Other. Dedicated cosmopolitan parents were distinguished from pragmatic cosmopolitans.The former taught their children to explore the world and to take a global perspective on their course of life, while the latter thought that globalizing processes required cosmopolitan competencies. Analyses of survey data showed that parents' inclination to provide children with cosmopolitan capital was related to their own cosmopolitan capital and their level of ambitions, but not to their social class position. The article concludes that cosmopolitanism should be viewed as an expression of agency, which is acted out when people are forced to deal with processes of globalization.

Theoretical concepts of cosmopolitanism suggest new forms of societal and political organization.Yet these notions are overwhelmingly normative and hardly specify the ways in which cosmopolitanism is constructed from`below'.To what extent are people cosmopolitan and who are they? In following the debate on cosmopolitanization we offer a case study of Europe in which we provide grounding for `global' forms of identification. Using the recent Eurobarometer 64.2 (European Commission, 2005),`global belonging' is juxtaposed with attitudes and perceptions of the European Union, describing theoretically claimed openness and recognition of difference.We find that a considerable proportion of Europeans see themselves as what could be called cosmopolitan.These views are, however, socially stratified and do not necessarily go hand in hand with open-mindedness. To conclude, the social reality of cosmopolitanism is ambiguous: substantive European cosmopolitanism exists next to more banal forms, but forms of non-cosmopolitanism should not be underestimated.

This article challenges existing contentions regarding the weakening of work identities amongst young adults and the proposition that labour market uncertainty inhibits life planning. It draws on analysis of 48 in-depth young adult interviews carried out in two globalizing, post-industrial cities, Bristol and Gothenburg, and presents a typology of future orientations which demonstrates the salience of employment to young adult identities. Since young adult life narratives are often about what they want to become, rather than what they are, analysis of aspirations is crucial for understanding the place of employment in their lives. The findings reveal a propensity towards detailed employment-centred life plans amongst young adults in Bristol, which contrasts with the desire to take life a `day at a time' in Gothenburg.These emergent future orientations reveal alternative versions of the `good life', which stem from the contrasting education and welfare regimes of the two countries, Britain and Sweden

Social science, policy and popular discourse around counterfeiting regularly position consumers of counterfeit goods as part of a technological elite or as motivated by anti-capitalist or anti-corporate positions. In order to explore this construction and highlight its associated limitations, this article presents quantitative data collected through postal and web-based questionnaires looking at the frequency, location and motivations for the purchase of counterfeit leisure items for consumers in the United Kingdom.The article suggests that the purchase and consumption of counterfeit goods is commonplace across a broader variety of age, gender and socio-economic status categories than often assumed.The study also highlights the value of viewing the consumption of counterfeit goods as social and situated, occurring within existing social networks and familiar locations, and as closely related to other consumption practices.

This article critically considers the `fit' between FairTrade consumption and conceptualizations of the reflexive project of selfhood. By outlining the ways in which FairTrade products are marketed, we argue that a particular and partial reflexivity is invoked and mobilized. Following from recent class debates which apply a Bourdieusian analysis to explore the operations of everyday class distinctions, we explore what such an analysis can offer to the project of critically mapping out the dynamics of this particular reflexivity and ethical consumption. However, FairTrade's emphasis on `just' consumption and invocation of a deserving farmer/worker allows some scope for problematization here too. By turning to an emerging literature on the `moral economy' we reach past the homogenizing tendency in some `new' class analyses to suggest possibilities both for a psychosocial imagining of ethical consumption and for fleshing out the conceptualization of a `situated reflexivity' demanded by recent social theory.

This article examines neglected aspects of coming out that arise for lesbian parents and for their families of origin and considers the ways in which these forms of coming out resonate with the concept of display work. It draws upon a study that examines the family lives of lesbian couples who had their first and subsequent children in the context of their current relationship. Respondents identify having children as a point at which their own parents (and other members of their families of origin) are potentially called upon to negotiate new kin relationships. The lesbian parents' child may also be a grandchild, a nephew or niece, a cousin. I utilize the concept of display work to examine respondents' accounts about how they negotiate recognition and validation as a lesbian parent family with their family of origin and how their families of origin `come out' (or not) within their own social networks.

A parallel is drawn in this article between influential theoretical perspectives on the contemporary culture of romantic intimacy, and Durkheimian interpretations of modernity, individualism and social solidarity.The author sketches generalities of Durkheim's account of individualism and solidarity in modern society; this sketch serves as a heuristic for cataloguing and distilling North American and European theories of contemporary intimacy that have emerged post-1960. Scholarly discourse on intimacy is shown to share rhetorical and substantive ground with Durkheimian understandings of individual interest and social obligation. Self-development and collective ties, and the potential for these to be mutually reinforcing, are central concerns in intimacy theory.Though not commonly engaged in such a manner, perspectives on contemporary intimacy present an opportunity to explore personal relationships in a style uniquely consistent with the generalist inclinations of past sociological traditions, and to move beyond heavily normative claims about individualism in intimacy.

This article examines low pay and the national minimum wage in the UK hotel industry, focusing on the lowest remunerated workers in the industry — room attendants — who have hitherto been overlooked in studies of the industry. It draws on qualitative research from eight case studies and relates this material to other secondary data. By including employees' experience, it reveals the management and employment practices that have limited the effect of the national minimum wage and attempts to alleviate low pay.The article ends by suggesting how this employee experience can be transmuted into political voice to improve the position of low wage workers.