Pip Jones

Work and Non-Work

Much of our social and material fabric rests on the work that we do, whether paid or not, so it is not surprising that work has been of central interest to sociology. This chapter examines the relationship between work and non-work and the variety of experiences associated with both. It tries to help students to understand how the nature of work changed in the shift from pre-modern to modern societies, and the pivotal role played by industrial capitalism in this process. In pre-modern times, social activity was much less clearly demarcated into periods of ‘work’ and ‘leisure’, and the physical location of work in a separate domain was largely absent. Industrial capitalism transformed the definition of work and the experience of the worker, while at the same time recasting people as consumers of leisure. The chapter returns time and again to the question of how the experience of work and non-work in modernity is mediated by age, race and ethnicity, and, especially, by gender.

Globalisation and Modernity

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.

Sociologists, Modernity and Progress

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.

Health, Illness and Medicine

This chapter introduces the reader to the main sociological approaches to health, illness and medicine. The intention is to show how the distribution, experience, definition and treatment of illness cannot simply be understood, as most people think, in physical or biological terms. Health, illness and their medical management are part of wider cultural systems and as such are closely associated with processes of social control, by both professions and the state. The sociology of medicine has strong links here to recent analyses in the sociology of the body.

Theorising Modern Family Life

This chapter attempts to identify the agencies at work in modern society which promote nuclear family living. Different perspectives on the virtues of this form of family are examined and the assumptions about individual freedom and obligation underpinning these are explored. Recent evidence about an increase in diversity in family living offers an opportunity for alternative theories of modern family life to be articulated, and these are the subject of the chapter’s concluding section.

Knowledge, Belief and Religion

This chapter introduces the student to one of the major debates concerning the emergence of modern social life: does the rise of rationalism, represented by scientific thinking and practices, mean that modern human beings have access to a way of thinking and, consequently, a kind of knowledge, which is markedly superior to any other kind?

Race and Ethnicity: Inequalities and Identities

This chapter introduces the sociological analysis of racial and ethnic divisions. It takes an avowedly ‘constructivist’ position throughout, arguing that these divisions should be studied as ongoing, social and political constructions rather than fixed, naturally occurring phenomena. Understanding something as a socially construction is not, however, to imply that it is of no importance. On the contrary, as the chapter shows, racial and ethnic divisions are highly influential. The chapter considers this influence under two broad headings: Inequality: there is a clear, although sometimes complex, relationship between differences of wealth, income, status, power and other life chances on the one hand and racial and ethnic divisions on the other. Social identity: racial and ethnic differences are an important element of our sense of sameness and difference.

Principles of Sociological Research

This chapter introduces the reader to some of the basic principles of doing sociological research and discusses the key concepts and concerns that have shaped sociological inquiry. After reading this chapter, you should understand the relationship between and assumptions lying behind methodologies and methods. You should recognise how conventional research approaches in the discipline are challenged by feminism and postmodernism, though perhaps not fatally so.

Making Social Life: Theories of Action and Meaning

This chapter focuses on the following questions: How do people create and re-create social life? What skills and resources do they use to make and remake their social world? How far is this action known to actors and under their control? What is the nature of social identity in the contemporary world? Can we each take charge of remaking our own social lives and identities? It explores these questions by covering a range of contrasting theories which address issues of action, meaning and language: The chapter begins by looking at theories where actors are shaped by society. It then centres on active social action: the creative construction of social life by action in settings. In the second part the emphasis shifts to language and discourse as the key to social life. Finally, recent theories of the self and identity reinstate a belief in reflexive social action, in opposition to the postmodern ‘death of the subject’.

Varieties of Social Theories: A Brief Introduction

This chapter explores the ideas of the classic sociological theorists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries — Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx and Max Weber — and then examines twentieth-century developments insociological theorising. The aim is to provide a brief history of sociological thought and to introduce the reader to the core concepts of the discipline which will be encountered in the other chapters in the book.