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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social groups & communities > Social classes > General
With the onset of a more conservative political climate in the 1980s, social and especially labour history saw a decline in the popularity that they had enjoyed throughout the 1960s and 1970s. This led to much debate on its future and function within the historical discipline as a whole. Some critics declared it dead altogether. Others have proposed a change of direction and a more or less exclusive focus on images and texts. The most constructive proposals have suggested that labour history in the past concentrated too much on class and that other identities of working people should be taken into account to a larger extent than they had been previously, such as gender, religion, and ethnicity. Although class as a social category is still as valid as it has been before, the questions now to be asked are to what extent non-class identities shape working people's lives and mentalities and how these are linked with the class system. In this volume some of the leading European historians of labour and the working classes address these questions. Two non-European scholars comment on their findings from an Indian, resp. American, point of view. The volume is rounded off by a most useful bibliography of recent studies in European labour history, class, gender, religion, and ethnicity.
Hardbound. This book examines the relationship between elites, minorities, and economic growth. The novelty of the book lies in its focus on the interaction between social and economic changes during economic growth. This is an undeveloped subject because it crosses disciplinary lines. The first part of the book contains essays on the role of economic and political elites in America, Europe and the Middle East. The second part of the book contains essays on the role of minorities in past and present industrialization in Europe and Asia. And the final part contains more theoretical approaches that build on the historical essays earlier in the volume.Elites, Minorities and Economic Growth is particularly useful for macroeconomists interested in economic growth, economic historians, sociologists interested in elites, minorities and social mobility and historians of industrialization and economic growth.
In this study, a group of working-class women narrate their own stories, lives, and "place" in Belfast, showing how the geography, community, and--perhaps most of all--conflict becomes deeply intertwined with identity. These women, who have been socially excluded and economically disadvantaged, describe their lives during war and a now precarious peace. Challenging traditional methods of conducting research in the social sciences, McIntyre enlists Participatory action research to understand how these women see themselves, their world and their place in it. Participatory action research includes creative and interactive projects--collages, painting, poetry, and photography--to enable free expression. We see in this volume how the Belfast women negotiate and struggle with the intersections of violence, politics, gender, parenting, community work, religion, fear, humor, friendship, and their deeply held views of what it means to be an Irish woman.
"Social Inequality -- examining our present while understanding our
past
Black Middle-Class Women and Pregnancy Loss: A Qualitative Inquiry is the first qualitative research case study of its kind on Black Infant Mortality (BIM) to focus on a target group of black American-born middle-class professional married women who have all lived through the experience of infant loss. This target group allows Lisa Paisley-Cleveland to examine the BIM phenomenon outside the poverty paradigm and issues attached to teenage pregnancy, as well as to explore contributing factors attached to the persistent black and white disparity in infant mortality rates, which according to CDC s January 2013 report are 12.40 and 5.35 respectively. This book raised the following question: given the disparity in the infant mortality rates among middle-class black and white women, are there factors attached to the pregnancy experience of middle-class black women that could help us understand the adverse birth outcomes for this target group? While investigating the answer to this question, Paisley-Cleveland provides readers entry into the pregnancy experiences of eight women from pregnancy planning to infant loss, and the book examines feelings, events, circumstances, interactions, behaviors, culture and history embedded in their pregnancy stories to explicate possible factors connected to adverse birth outcomes. It links the women s personal stories to clinical, and psychosocial factors, placing their experiences at the center of the research, and demystifying assumptions. The study s narratives and conclusions are built into a literary structure which helps to make a complex subject relatable and understandable to a wide audience. Black Middle-Class Women and Pregnancy Loss will be an invaluable resource for medical professionals; professionals in public health, mental health, and social work; sociologists; and anyone working or invested in women's health.
Social Problems and Inequality explores integrated and root-cause-based explanations of complex social problems. Written in clear and understandable language, allowing it to be used for classroom purposes, it addresses the most fundamental principles of how humans, acting through social units, create, and eventually can remedy, social problems. With a central focus on the problem of inequality and the manner in which this is manifested in crime, social class and stratification, this book examines the key theoretical perspectives relevant to the study and solution of social problems, whilst drawing upon rich illustrations and case studies from the US and Europe to offer a thorough examination of the nature, common root causes and social remedies of social problems. Providing discussions of both theoretical approaches and concrete applications, Social Problems and Inequality investigates the sources of various prejudices and attitudes that contribute to social problems and the associated issues of globalization, economic greed and imperialism. Accessible in style and comprehensive in its coverage, this book will appeal to students and scholars of social problems across the social sciences.
'Manufactured' Masculinity should be considered essential reading for scholars in the humanities and social sciences at every level and in all parts of the academic world. It weaves together brilliantly the elements of the 'manufacture' of masculinity in the period world-famous 'public' school system for the privileged which serviced the largest empire, the world has ever known, at the zenith of its control and which has had a significant influence in the formation of the modern world. This authoritative study of the making of British imperial masculinity shines light on the period of Muscular Christianity, Social Darwinism and Militarism as meshed ideological instruments of both power and persuasion. This magisterial study reveals the extraordinary and paramount influence of games fields as the 'machine tools' in an 'industrial process' with the schools as 'workshops' containing 'cultural conveyor-belts' for the production of robust, committed and confident servants of empire, and templates for imperial reproduction in imperial possessions. Mainly on efficient 'production belt' playing fields of the privileged minds were moulded, attitudes were constructed and bodies shaped - for imperial manhood. Earlier 'manliness' was metamorphosized, morality was redefined and militarism at the high point of imperial grandeur was an adjunct. Professor Mangan outlines this unique process of cultural conditioning with a unique range of evidence and analysis. This book was published as a special double issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.
In India, caste groups ensure their durability in an era of multiculturalism by officially representing caste as cultural difference or ethnicity rather than as unequal descent-based relations. Challenging dominant social theories of caste, this book addresses questions of how caste survives the system that gave rise to it and adapts to new demands of capitalism and democracy. Based on original fieldwork, the book shows how the terrain of culture captured by a new grammar of caste revitalizes castes as cultural communities so that the culture of a caste is produced, organized and naturalized in the process of transforming jati (fetishized blood and kinship) into samaj (fetishized culture). Castes are shown to not be homogenous cultural wholes but sites of hegemony where class, gender and hierarchy over-determine the meanings and materiality of caste. Arguing that there exists a new casteism in India akin to a new racism in the USA, built less on biology and descent and more on purported cultural differences and their rights to exist, the book presents an extended critique and a search for an alternative view of caste and anti-casteist politics. It is of interest to students and scholars of South Asian culture and society.
Heritage, Labour and the Working Classes is both a celebration and commemoration of working class culture. It contains sometimes inspiring accounts of working class communities and people telling their own stories, and weaves together examples of tangible and intangible heritage, place, history, memory, music and literature. Rather than being framed in a 'social inclusion' framework, which sees working class culture as a deficit, this book addresses the question "What is labour and working class heritage, how does it differ or stand in opposition to dominant ways of understanding heritage and history, and in what ways is it used as a contemporary resource?" It also explores how heritage is used in working class communities and by labour organizations, and considers what meanings and significance this heritage may have, while also identifying how and why communities and their heritage have been excluded. Drawing on new scholarship in heritage studies, social memory, the public history of labour, and new working class studies, this volume highlights the heritage of working people, communities and organizations. Contributions are drawn from a number of Western countries including the USA, UK, Spain, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand, and from a range of disciplines including heritage and museum studies, history, sociology, politics, archaeology and anthropology. Heritage, Labour and the Working Classes represents an innovative and useful resource for heritage and museum practitioners, students and academics concerned with understanding community heritage and the debate on social inclusion/exclusion. It offers new ways of understanding heritage, its values and consequences, and presents a challenge to dominant and traditional frameworks for understanding and identifying heritage and heritage making.
First published in 1976, this book is concerned with the nature of classification in the social sciences. Its thesis is that classifications are dependent upon and are derived from theoretical explanations. Classification is not a theoretically neutral typification or ordering of social forms. This is because objects classified a " societies, social institutions a " are not given to knowledge independently of the categories which construct them and because the categories of classification are themselves the products of theories.
First published in 1982, Professor Bauman's discussion of the mechanism of class formation and institutionalisation of class conflict argues that our understanding of changes in social and political structure has been hindered by the freezing of concepts of class in the ice-age of industrial society. He investigates the impact of historical memory on the early transformation of rank into a class society, and on the current confusion in the analysis of the 'crisis of late-industrial society'. The book traces the formation of a class society back to the patterns of 'surveillance power' and control, and shows how these patterns preceded and made possible the industrial system. Subsequently 'economised' into the industrial system, these same patterns of control have now proved to be inadequate under social conditions brought about by this economisation of the power conflict.
This is the first book to explore the phenomenon of glamour and celebrity in contemporary Russian culture, ranging across media forms, disciplinary boundaries and modes of inquiry, with particular emphasis on the media personality. The book demonstrates how the process of 'celebrification' in Russia coincides with the dizzying pace of social change and economic transformation, the latter enabling an unprecedented fascination with glamour and its requisite extravagance; how in the 1990s and 2000s, celebrities - such as film or television stars - moved away from their home medium to become celebrities straddling various media; and how celebrity is a symbol manipulated by the dominant culture and embraced by the masses. It examines the primacy of the visual in celebrity construction and its dominance over the verbal, alongside the interdisciplinary, cross-media, post-Soviet landscape of today's fame culture. Taking into account both general tendencies and individual celebrities, including pop-diva Alla Pugacheva and ex-President and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the book analyses the internal dynamics of the institutions involved in the production, marketing, and maintenance of celebrities, as well as the larger cultural context and the imperatives that drive Russian society's romance with glamour and celebrity.
Rising exclusion rates indicate the continuing marginalisation of many young people in education in the UK. Working-class boys, children living in poverty, and children with additional/special educational needs are among those experiencing a disproportionate rate of exclusion. This book traces the processes of exclusion and alienation from school and relates this to a changing social and economic context. Jean Kane argues that policy on schooling, including curricular reform, needs to be re-connected to the broad political pursuit of social justice, and presents compelling case studies of excluded pupils, showing the multi-faceted identities of pupils, with a particular focus on masculine and feminine identities. This invaluable contribution to the literature offers an alternative analysis where the social identities of pupils are shown to be tied up with their exclusion from school. Themes investigated include: the meanings of school exclusions social class, gender and schooling social identities of excluded pupils negotiating identities in school: moving towards exclusion exclusions and young people's lives improving participation in schooling. Providing fascinating reading for teachers, social workers, researchers and policy-makers this book considers how educational disadvantage might be addressed through recognition of the gender and class identities of pupils.
This is a study of gender and power in Victorian Britain. It is the first book to examine the contribution made by women to the public culture of the British aristocracy in the nineteenth century. Based on a wide range of archival sources, it explores the roles of aristocratic women in public life, from their country estates to the salons of Westminster and the royal court.
First published in 1976, this book is concerned with the nature of classification in the social sciences. Its thesis is that classifications are dependent upon and are derived from theoretical explanations. Classification is not a theoretically neutral typification or ordering of social forms. This is because objects classified a " societies, social institutions a " are not given to knowledge independently of the categories which construct them and because the categories of classification are themselves the products of theories.
Symbolizing both commerce and culture, London has always been a magnet for the ambitions of the middle classes. However, the past three decades have witnessed a dramatic fragmentation in inner-city London's social map. New and highly distinctive middle-class neighbourhoods have sprung up where embattled workers seek to combat the deleterious effects of long working hours, travel, and stress on traditional family values. This book is the first to explore the powerful impact of globalization on London's economy and those who are caught up in it. More and more people are responding to the negative effects of working life as well as the lack of structure in their lives and particularly those of their children. The gentrification of certain areas and the differences among them directly reflects this desire to impose cultural values and structure on urban surroundings. How do these areas reflect middle-class values, ideologies, lifestyles, social backgrounds and occupational choices, and how have old neighbourhoods been refashioned and made amenable to middle-class life? In what ways has family life been affected by this new emphasis on values, structure and security, and what does the future hold?This fascinating book provides the first sustained analysis of the profound effects of globalization on city dwellers. Its original account of the relationship between urban space and cultural reproduction will inspire new research for years to come.
First published in 1982, Professor Baumana (TM)s discussion of the mechanism of class formation and institutionalisation of class conflict argues that our understanding of changes in social and political structure has been hindered by the freezing of concepts of class in the ice-age of industrial society. He investigates the impact of historical memory on the early transformation of rank into a class society, and on the current confusion in the analysis of the a ~crisis of late-industrial societya (TM). The book traces the formation of a class society back to the patterns of a ~surveillance powera (TM) and control, and shows how these patterns preceded and made possible the industrial system. Subsequently a ~economiseda (TM) into the industrial system, these same patterns of control have now proved to be inadequate under social conditions brought about by this economisation of the power conflict.
During the past decade, life in post-socialist states has been fraught with instability and conflict. This book focuses on changing rural-urban relations - and growing divisions between them - in the context of the reforms. Contributions to this volume explore responses to capitalist-oriented policies and reasons for rural disenfranchisement. The work takes an ethnographic approach to exploring how 'global' processes engage with local, rural concerns in the post-socialist world.
"This major new contribution to the study of consumption examines how dominant groups express and display their sense of superiority through material and aesthetic attributes, demonstrating that differences from one society to another, and across historical periods, challenge current understandings of elite distinction"--Provided by publisher.
Jonathan Jansen is die voormalige Rektor van die Universiteit van die Vrystaat, met 'n formidabele reputasie vir transformasie en 'n diepgewortelde verbintenis tot versoening in gemeenskappe wat met die erfenis van apartheid saamleef. In hierdie boek, Jansen se persoonlikste en mees intieme boek tot op hede, daag Suid-Afrika se geliefde professor die stereotipes en stigma uit wat so maklik op Kaapse Vlakte-ma's van toepassing gemaak word as luidrugtig, wellustig en sonder tande – en bied hy dié deernisvolle verhaal aan as 'n lofsang vir ma's oral wat op moeilike plekke gesinne moet grootmaak en gemeenskappe moet bou. As jong man het Jansen gewonder hoe ma's dit regkry om kinders onder moeilike omstandighede groot te maak – en toe besef die antwoord is reg voor hom in die vorm van Sarah Jansen, sy eie ma. Deur haar vroeë lewe in Montagu en die gevolge van apartheid se gedwonge verskuiwings na te speur, werp Jansen lig op hoe sterk vroue nie slegs daarin geslaag het om gesinne bymekaar te hou nie, maar hulle kinders ook met integriteit groot te maak. Met sy kenmerkende fynsinnigheid, humor en eerlikheid, volg Jansen sy ma se lewensverhaal as 'n jong verpleegster en ma van vyf kinders, en wys hy hoe dié ma's hulle verlede verwerk het, hulle huise ingerig het, sin gemaak het van die politiek, die liefde bestuur en kernwaardes gekommunikeer het – hoe hulle hulle lewens gelei het. Om sy eie herinneringe te balanseer, het Jansen hom op sy suster, Naomi, beroep om haar eie insigte en herinneringe te deel, en daardeur spesiale waarde tot hierdie roerende memoir toe te voeg.
Of late, there has been a growing interest in how non-Western peoples have been and continue to be depicted in the literatures of the West. In anthropology, attention has focused on the range of literary devices employed in ethnographic texts to distance and exoticize the subjects of discourse, and ultimately contribute to their subordination. This study eschews the tendency to regard virtually all depictions of non-Western "others" as amenable to the same kinds of "orientalist" analysis, and argues that the portrayals found in such writings must be examined in their particular historical and political settings. These themes are explored by analyzing the voluminous literature by military authors who have written and continue to write about the "Gurkhas", those legendary soldiers from Nepal who have served in Britain's Imperial and post-Imperial armies for more than two centuries. The author discovers that, instead of exoticizing them, the military writers find in their subjects the quintessential virtues of the European officers themselves: the Gurkhas appear as warriors and gentlemen. However, the author does not rest here: utilizing a wealth of literary, historical, ethnographic sources and the results of his own fieldwork, he investigates the wider social and cultural contexts in which the European chroniclers of the Gurkhas have been nurtured. |
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