This chapter examines the ways in which occupational classes (the middle and working classes) have been reproduced over generations, and the ways in which this has depended on a stable, nationally determined labour market. It goes on to suggest how this reproduction is weakened through the impact of global processes at the national level. The implications these changes have for established jobs, new recruits to the labour market and social mobility are discussed, as are the effect these changes have on class identities.
This chapter introduces the student to the ideas of the classic sociological theorists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries — Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx and Max Weber — and then to twentieth-century developments in sociological theories. After reading this chapter, the student should have an introductory knowledge of the history of sociological thought and be equipped with a vocabulary of concepts and terms with which to understand the other chapters in this book.
This chapter discusses and illustrates the concept of globalisation — the process whereby political, social, economic and cultural relations increasingly take place on a global scale. In doing so, it highlights the following: That globalisation has its roots in modernity and that, in turn, we can now see the globalisation of modernity. That globalisation is a process not a state, that is, that social life is becoming more and more globalised. That globalisation challenges existing sociological agendas and raises new questions about social life. Globalisation has uneven and varied impacts. Studying globalisation effectively involves appreciating the tensions between global and local processes. The future of the world is not predictable simply because of the emergence of globalisation: there are many possible futures.
We open this chapter by recapping some of the main features of modernity in order to understand how key founding sociologists shaped theories in response to this new society. Focusing throughout on social structure, the chapter asks how far sociologists have been able to sustain a belief in social progress backed by scientific knowledge. We see how deep-seated doubts about the consequences of modernity in the twentieth century replaced earlier optimism. Finally we discuss current theories which claim that sociology must once again come to terms with a profound transition to a new society: that is, the emergence of postmodernity.
This chapter provides an overview of some of the social processes that shape gender relations in contemporary societies. It emphasises that there are many forms of masculinity and femininity. It describes and assesses two major accounts of the individual acquisition of gendered identity, and argues for the necessity of viewing gender as a property of social institutions and of culture as much as of individuals. Therefore, the chapter examines in some detail the way that key institutional areas — divisions of labour, the social organisation of childbirth and childcare, sexuality and popular culture and the media — have been permeated by gender, and considers some of the implications of this for contemporary gender relations.
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