Despite the growing significance of social movements worldwide, scholarship on the subject remains largely Western in nature, with studies written primarily by Western scholars and based on the experiences of Western cultures and societies. This book makes an important contribution to the study of social movements in non-Western societies by examining their development in Iran. With a particular focus on the recent environmental movement, the author sheds new light on the implications and significance of these movements. Drawing on in-depth original research, the case study of the environmental movement is integrated into a historical and comparative analysis. Implementing the new social movement theory of Touraine and Melucci in the Iranian context, the author shows that although the reform movement of Iran is unique, in some aspects it is a continuation of the past social movements. She places emphasis on the role of women in recent Iranian social movements, exploring the significance of social movements in civil society and in instigating social change. Using the case of Iran to offer a critical framework for studying social change and transformation of non-European countries, this book fills an important gap in the existing literature on the topic. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars and students of sociology, political science and Middle Eastern studies.

Elite Schools in Globalizing Circumstances foregrounds the richly theoretical and empirically-based work of an international cast of scholars seeking to break out of the confines of the methodological nationalism that now governs so much of contemporary scholarship on schooling. Based on a 5-year extended global ethnography of elite schools in nine different countries-countries defined by colonial pasts linked to England-the contributors make a powerful case for the rethinking of elite schools and elite class formation theory in light of contemporary processes of globalization and transnational change. Prestigious, high-status schools have long been seen as critical institutional vehicles directly contributing to the societal processes of elite selection and reproduction. This book asserts that much has changed and that these schools can no longer rest on their past laurels and accomplishments. Instead they must re-cast their heritages and tradition in order to navigate the new globally competitive educational field enabling them to succeed in a world in which the globalization of educational markets, the global ambitions and imaginations of school youth, and the emergence of new powerful players peddling entrepreneurial models of curriculum and education, have placed contemporary schooling under tremendous pressure. This insightful and though-provoking volume provides a well-researched perspective on the nature of contemporary schooling in the globalizing era. This book was originally published as a special issue of Globalisation, Societies and Education.

We live in a world that is ever on the move, as is increasingly recognised within research on mobilities. Yet studies of mobility have failed to 'go to sea' with the same enthusiasm as mobilities ashore. When we consider mobility, we most often examine those movements that evidently form part of our everyday lives. We forget to look outwards to the sea. Yet ships have played - and continue to play - a significant role in shaping socio-cultural, political and economic life. This book turns our attention to the manifold mobilities that occur at sea through an exploration of the mobilities of ships themselves as well as the movements of objects, subjects and ideas that are mobilised by ships. The Mobilities of Ships brings together seven chapters that tack through unexplored waters and move between diverse case studies, including pirate ships, naval vessels and luxury yachts. In so doing, The Mobilities of Ships offers a rich insight into the world of shipping mobilities past and present. This book was published as a special issue of Mobilities.

Small in number but great in influence, mobile elites have shaped the contours of global capitalism. Today these elites continue to flourish globally but in a changing landscape. The current economic crisis-and rising concerns about the moral legitimacy of extreme wealth-coincides with stern warnings over the risks posed by climate change and the unsustainable use of resources. Often an out-of-bounds topic in critical social science, elites are thought of as too inaccessible a group to interview and too variable a minority to measure. This groundbreaking collection sets out to challenge this perception. Through the careful examination of the movements of the one per cent through the everyday spaces of the ninety-nine per cent, Elite Mobilities investigates the shared zones elites inhabit alongside the commons: the executive lounge in the airport, the penthouse in the hotel, or the gated community next to the slum. Bringing together the pioneer scholars in critical sociology today, this collection explores how social scientists can research, map, and 'track' the flows and residues of objects, wealth and power surrounding the hypermobile. Elite Mobilities sets a new benchmark in social science efforts to research the powerful and the privileged. It will appeal to students and scholars interested in mobilities, transport, tourism, social stratification, class, inequality, consumption, and global environmental change.

Originally published in 1887, Edward Carpenter's England's Ideal and other Papers on Social Subjects is a collection of his essays in the field of Social Science with a focus on English society at the time of writing. His writing was so influential that there was a near constant demand in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for this work to be reprinted with this particular edition being published in 1919. Papers included in this volume discuss issues such as labour, trade and property and all provide insight into the English class structure as well as illuminating Carpenter's socialist values. This title will be of interest to students of sociology.

The primacy of education in development agendas is unquestioned. With the gradual acknowledgement of the potential benefits that migration can hold for development, the relationship between migration and education is a growing area of research. Migration, Education and Socio-Economic Mobility explores how the decisions people make in terms of both their migration choices and educational investments, mediated as they are by gender, class, caste and nationality, can potentially contribute to earning incomes, building social and symbolic capital, or reshaping gender relations, all elements contributing to the process of economic and social mobility. Much of the existing literature examining the links between migration and education focuses either on the investment of migrant remittances in the education of their children back home or on 'brain drain' that refers to the migration of skilled workers from the developing to the developed world. Most of these discussions are firmly rooted in materialist arguments and while undeniably important, tend to underplay the social processes through which migration and education interact to shape people's lives, identities and status in society. Along with economic security, people also aspire to social mobility and status enhancement. The ideas presented in this book take a more varied and nuanced view of the relationship between education and migration. This book was originally published as a special issue of Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education.

What does it mean to be an intellectual in Egypt today? What is expected from an 'authentic scholar'? Hatsuki Aishima explores these questions byexamining educated, urban Egyptians and their perceptions of what it means to be 'cultured' and 'middle class' - something that, as a result of the neoliberal policies of Egyptian government, is widely thought to be a shrinking sector of society. Through an analysis of the media representations of 'Abd al-Halim Mahmud (1910-78), the French-trained Sufi scholar and the Grand Imam of al-Azhar under president Anwar al-Sadat, Aishima discusses the connection of Islam to these middle-class considerations and makes an original contribution to the debate on the commodification of religious teaching and knowledge. Public Culture and Islam in Modern Egypt is thereby aunique addition to the fields of anthropology, Middle East and media studies.

Nearly 16% of India's population - or over 100 million people - are untouchables. Most of them, despite decades of government efforts to improve their economic and social position, remain desperately poor, illiterate, subject to brutal discrimination and economic exploitation, and with no prospect for improvement of their condition. This is the autobiography, first published in 1979, of Muli, a 40-year-old untouchable of the Bauri caste, living in the Indian state of Orissa, as told to an American anthropologist. Muli is a narrator who combines rich descriptions of daily life with perceptive observations of his social surroundings. He describes with absorbing detail what it is like to be at the bottom of Indian life, and what happens when an untouchable attempts to break out of his accepted role.

This monograph - which was very well received when originally published in France - contains a great deal of detailed information about the attitudes towards learning and written culture among members of the nobility in different parts of Europe in the Middle Ages. An encounter between a warring knight and the world of learning could seem a paradox. It is nonetheless related with the Twelfth-Century Renaissance, an essential intellectual movement for western history. Knights not only fought in battles, but also moved in sophisticated courts. Knights were interested on Latin classics and reading, and writing poetry. Supportive of "jongleurs" and minstrels, they enjoyed literary conversations with clerics who would attempt to reform their behaviour, which was often brutal. These lettered warriors, while improving their culture, learned to repress their own violence and were initiated to courtesy: selective language, measured gestures, elegance in dress, and manners at the table. Their association with women, who were often learned, became more gallant. A revolution of thought occurred among lay elites who, in contact with clergy, began to use their weapons for common welfare.This new conduct was a tangible sign of Medievalist society's leap forward towards modernity.

Filling an important gap in a neglected area of Russian history, namely the 1880s and early 1890s, this volume, originally published in 1987, examines the labour movement from the perspective of the politicized workers themselves. It examines not only their attitudes toward student intellectuals but also toward the rank and file workers, as well as themselves. These attitudes are essential to understand the extent and the focus of the 'workers intelligentsia's' political and cultural activities. The period the book focusses on was one of relative labour calm whilst at the same time being a period of rapid industrial development. St. Petersburg was chosen because it was the largest city and also the locale of Russia's most technologically advanced industries.

First published in 1969, this book presents a one-volume anthology of Charles Booth's Life and Labour of the People in London, the classic early study of the poor in the urban environment. The original text consists of a vast compendium of descriptions of families, homes, streets, conditions of work, cultural and religious practices, much of it illustrated with charts, maps and statistics - giving the public an idea of the dimensions and meaning of poverty. The editors have selected the extracts in this book for their vividness, readability and intrinsic interest, and their introduction conveys the context of 1880s London - relating Booth's investigations to contemporary concerns.

In light of the recent financial crisis and changing economic landscape, McNamara and Williamson present and analyze the possibility of working longer. Including a range of potential policies (e.g., further increasing the age of eligibility for full Social Security benefits, allocating more government resources to retraining and job search assistance for older workers), this is one of the major approaches currently being discussed by policy analysts inside and outside of the government. Emphasizing the role of inequalities and diversity among older adults, this book provides a framework for thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of working past the current retirement age. This book is for Sociology of Aging, Social Inequalities, and Social Problems courses.

Inclusion and Exclusion of Young Adult Migrants in Europe presents analyses of research carried out during the course of the EUMARGINS research project, exploring the inclusion and exclusion of young adult immigrants across a range national contexts, including the Nordic welfare states, old colonial countries, Southern European nations and the Eastern European region. Scrutinising legal, policy and historical sources, as well as participation in labour market and education systems, this volume engages with multiple social arenas and spheres, to integrate research and provide a cohesive investigation of the dynamics of each national setting. In addition to the chapters focused on individual national contexts (Estonia, France, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the UK), the book also provides a comprehensive transnational analysis, developing a comparative perspective and explaining the overarching research framework. A carefully organized and comprehensive exploration of the exclusion and inclusion of young adult migrants in Europe, Inclusion and Exclusion of Young Adult Migrants in Europe will appeal to social scientists with interests in migration, population change, integration and exclusion.

By the middle of the twenty-first century, more than fifty per cent of the world's population will live in an urban environment. Most of this new urban growth will take place in Asia and Africa, yet most governments in these two continents seem woefully unprepared for the challenges they will face in providing their urban citizens with the basic services and security from poverty, environmental degradation and crime. It is in this context that in-depth studies which lay bare the contours and characteristics of society and institutions in the urban setting of Third World countries assume importance and urgency. Most studies on urbanisation in developing countries concentrate on slums and shanty towns in isolation from the rest of the society. By contrast, Social Formation in Dhaka, 1985-2005 analyses urbanisation and urban society in a holistic manner, connecting the poor with the non-poor and delineating the change agents of the city. As the first longitudinal study of the social structure of any Third World Megacity, this book will be of interest to urban sociologists, policy-makers, NGOS, and researchers engaged in understanding the development in cities in the global south.

This is the most comprehensive and up-to-date synthesis of the current state of our knowledge of the social conditions, experiences and reactions of working people during the period 1750xxx;1850.

Populations of visible ethnic minorities have steadily increased over the past few decades in immigrant-receptive societies. While a complex calculus of push and pull factors has motivated this increase, one of the main impetuses for this migration has been the search for employment, better wages and a higher standard of living. It is therefore not surprising that the educational attainments of the first generation and beyond have achieved convergence with, or exceeded the non-ethnic minority cohort. These outcomes may suggest a greater propensity for visible ethnic minorities to attain labour market success and to fully integrate within the community. However, the narrative derived from statistical analysis, interviews and participant observation suggest an uneasiness boldly to claim this as the most convincing conclusion at this juncture. The Ethnic Penalty argues that a penalty has impeded the occupational success of ethnic minorities during the job search, hiring and promotion process. As a result, ethnic minorities have a lower income, higher unemployment and a general failure to convert their high educational attainments into comparable occupational outcomes. In this context, the book examines whether explanatory factors such as discrimination, an individual's social network, a firm's working culture, and a community's social trust are major contributing reasons behind this apparent penalty, whilst also making suggestions for improving the integration, education delivery, and labour market outcomes of visible ethnic minorities.

There are approximately ten million Roma in Europe, making them the continent's largest non-territorial minority. Despite this fact, the Roma continue to experience routine discrimination and marginalization in European countries. As a result they are seldom engaged in national political activism and are frequently at the bottom of the economic and social ladder. The severity of exclusion experienced by the Roma in societies which have long paid heed to the notion of individual, universal human rights - combined with their geographical dispersal and heterogeneous nature - makes the study of the Roma highly informative. This book examines the theoretical debate concerning the most appropriate way of protecting the fundamental human rights of the Roma, which also illuminates ways in which the rights of minority groups can be protected more generally. As a result, this work will be a valuable resource for social scientists and practitioners in the field of human rights.

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.

How important are social networks to daily life? There is now substantial evidence that attachment to a network may be vital in securing employment, in promoting good health, in maintaining positive relationships, and in supporting people in transitions through the life course. Equally, lack of access to networks may lead to problems of various kinds, such as poverty, lack of support in old age, and social isolation. Providing an overview of the social network literature with a particular focus on the USA and Britain, this illuminating volume reviews the range of social issues and concerns associated with the social network perspective. Examples of quantitative and qualitative studies are given using a broad network approach, and the volume concludes with a discussion of the implications for social and public policy of a network perspective.

This book is a sociological study of a societal grouping that has the popular title 'middle class'. It argues that it is more precise to describe the middle classes as dominant groupings, and the book draws upon a wide range of characters from such groupings. In a detailed analysis of cultural practices, those making an appearance include omnivores, carnivores, herbivores, the middle-brow, traditional culture vultures, middle class plunderers, the urban arts eclectic and the English gentleman. There is a particular focus on those expressing the 'silver disposition'; predominantly affluent, middle-aged and white, with a taste for conspicuous consumption and established cultural forms. The book brings together a range of disparate sources on the middle classes and offers a sustained engagement with the concept of 'culture'. It illustrates the extent to which social groups utilize the various assets at their disposal and seek to maintain the legitimacy of their cultural practices. The findings emphasise the continuing link between class and taste. Culture and the Middle Classes will be of interest to those working in the fields of class and culture across a range of disciplines, including sociology, cultural studies, social theory, media studies and cultural anthropology.

This new volume explores the limits and possibilities of economic change in transforming the lives of women in rural Greece at a time of great economic and political change. It is based on ethnographic research conducted in two communities of Western Crete: Nohia and Platanos, where Lazaridis concentrates on three activities women are involved in: handcrafts, market-gardening and olive-growing.

This study, first published in 1979, analyses the attitude of various income and occupational groups to elementary schools both before and after the introduction of compulsory school attendance. It also discusses the efforts made by voluntary organisations to provide school meals, as well as examining the quality of the meals themselves, before the enactment of remedial legislation in the early twentieth century. This title will be of interest to students of history and education.

Anorexia tends to be studied within health disciplines, such as medicine, psychoanalysis or psychology. When the condition is discussed in relation to society more broadly, focus is commonly restricted to considerations about the demise of the traditional family meal or the all-pervading obsession with thinness and media representations of 'size zero' models. But what can sociology tell us about anorexia and how a person becomes anorexic? This book draws on empirical research - both interviews and observation - conducted in and outside medical settings with anorexic girls, medical staff, teachers and other teenagers of the same age. As such, it offers the first fully sociological treatment of the condition, taking the reader closer to the actual experiences of people living with anorexia. It retraces the behaviours, practices and processes that create what is patterned as an anorexic 'career' and reveals the cultural and social characteristics of the people who engage on this path taking them from a simple diet to hospitalization or recovery. Richly illustrated with qualitative research, Becoming Anorexic: A Sociological Approach demonstrates that anorexia can be viewed as a very particular work of self-transformation, which requires specific - and social - 'dispositions'. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and anthropology with an interest in health and illness, the body, social class and gender.

This impressive work, set to become the standard history on the subject, offers a definitive survey of peasant society in Russia, from the consolidation of serfdom and tsarist autocracy in the 17th century through to the destruction of the peasant's traditional world under Stalin. Over three-quarters of Russian society were peasants in these years, and David Moon explores all aspects of their life xxx; including the rural economy, peasant households, village communities xxx; and their political role, including protest against the landowning elites. In the process he presents a fresh perspective on the history of Russia itself. A big book in every way xxx; and compellingly readable.

First published in 1989, this is the third of three volumes exploring the changing notions of patriotism in British life from the thirteenth century to the late twentieth century and constitutes an attempt to come to terms with the power of the national idea through a historically informed critique. This volume studies some of the leading figures of national myth, such as Britannia and John Bull. One group of essays looks at the idea of distinctively national landscape and the ways in which it corresponds to notions of social order. A chapter on the poetry of Edmund Spenser explores metaphorical representations of Britain as a walled garden, and the idea of an enchanted national space is taken up in a series of essays on literature, theatre and cinema. An introductory piece charts some of the startling changes in the image of national character, from the seventeenth-century notion of the English as the most melancholy people in Europe, to the more uncertain and conflicting images of today.