This paper draws on empirical research into the recruitment, training, and management of female flight attendants, working primarily in the transatlantic business travel sector of the contemporary airline industry. We argue that whilst the ‘ skills’ which flight attendants are required to deploy are denied, being treated as somehow inherent abilities and thus neither trained nor remunerated, they are nevertheless managed in a directive way. This management involves, in particular, a focus on a flight attendant’s figure, and ‘dieting’ – what Naomi Wolf has referred to as ‘the essence of contemporary femininity’ (Wolf 1990:200) – as a recruitment, training and managerial strategy. The work of a female flight attendant involves adhering to culturally prescribed norms on femininity as well as organisational regulations governing her figure – its presentation and performance – whilst undertaking work which involves, at least in part, serving food to others. We conclude that this aspect of the work of flight attendants is thus ‘a symbolic representation of the subordination of women . . . a concrete expression of their position as servers and carers of men’ (Charles and Kerr 19 88:84).

This paper questions recent attempts by feminists to move theory beyond patriarchy, addressing the charge by Pollert that the concept of patriarchy impoverishes analysis of gender and class. In place of patriarchy, the author advocates an alternative feminist historical materialist analysis of hegemonic practices as the means for excavating gender and class from lived experience. This mode of historical materialist theorising rejects the concept of patriarchy as unnecessarily abstract and unable to advance knowledge about the construction of gender in practice. A theory of practice can make sense of the mess of everyday life, and focus research on gendered bodies, spaces and experiences.

The paper argues that the class legacy has had profoundly negative consequences for accounts of material gender inequality, and that even where gender theorists have attempted to move beyond class, they have been hampered by the fragments of class theory. It will be argued that whilst gender has posed a fundamental challenge to class analysis, the reconstructions which have been attempted have not escaped the central assumptions of class theory. The weakness of such reconstructions – hindered by flaws inherited from both the Marxian and neo-Weberian traditions of class analysis – has led some post-modern writers to question the very idea of a determinate, structural account of gender. At the time of writing, deconstruction – rather than reconstruction – is in the ascendent. However, whilst a structural account of gender can and should be defended, past attempts show that this cannot be achieved by clinging to the assumptions of class analysis, or by developing additive ‘class-plus-gender’ explanations. Only those approaches which reject the economistic assumptions of class, by placing emphasis on the social space as a differentiated and determinate social whole, can overcome the limitations of current accounts of gender.

In a recent article in Sociology, Mouzelis argues that Lockwood’s distinction between system integration and social integration is, with some modifications, still to be retained because of its logical coherence and its methodological virtues . While its basic value is recognised, this article reconsiders the distinction in the light of some recent achievements in social theory. It is argued that the distinction does not merely offer two different perspectives on society but that, in the actual social world, both dimensions are intertwined in a number of ways. In particular, reflexive actors can draw the distinction themselves which raises questions about the objective status of ‘incompatibilities’. The implications are developed through some reflections on the nature of social processes as well as the role of institutions, strategic action and conflicts. On the one hand, it is shown that system integration is an important objective for social agency, since many actions are aimed at controlling the performance of processes. On the other, social integration has a decisive impact on those processes because conflict and co-operation transform the institutional preconditions those processes are based upon. The social–system integration distinction offers therefore interesting insights into how social actors themselves attempt to cope with their worlds. Apart from being a methodological tool, the distinction expresses a substantial characteristic of society.

This paper outlines and evaluates recent contributions by Nicos Mouzelis and Margaret Archer to the structure–agency debate. Mouzelis offers an internal reconstruction of Giddens’s structuration theory; Archer an external alternative. I show that, although representing an advance on Giddens’s position, Mouzelis’s account fails because he relies on the former’s definition of structure as comprising rules and resources. I then examine Archer’s solution to the problem. I argue that her definition of activity-dependence makes her account of the relationship between agents and structures unclear. I outline an alternative account in terms of supervenience, and argue that it contains the minimum ontological claim necessary for a realist understanding of the structure–agent relationship.

There has been a recent resurgence of interest in the everyday among social theorists from Habermas and Giddens to de Certeau and Maffesoli. Taking Habermas as a benchmark, it is argued that recent accounts of the everyday in divergent traditions of analysis converge on two suspect theses: that of the everyday as ‘taken-for-granted’ and that of the everyday as ‘living history’. These two theses are related to Minotaur-like concepts of the everyday that are hybrids of ‘form’ and ‘substance’. It is suggested that three myths – of unity, life and resistance – give life to the Minotaur of the everyday. The Minotaur of the everyday thus carries a great weight of theoretical baggage and its monstrosity serves, paradoxically, to preserve the homogeneity and purity of the social domain. It is argued that the mythologies of the everyday can be dissolved if a more far-reaching and monstrous heterogeneity is allowed to the social (or socio-technical) world.

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) results from cerebral damage caused by a blow to the head, for example in a road traffic accident. The frequency of TBI means that it has been characterised as the silent epidemic of modern times. The majority of those who are head-injured are young men. This paper argues that the social reaction to head injury is testament to the latent eugenicist and mentalist suppositions within modernity. The brain-damaged person cannot readily overcome disability with the assistance of the technological aids available to those whose handicapping condition is physical. The consequences that head injury has for the mind and for the ‘self’ entail the special sequestration of those who are head-injured from modernity’s concerns with reflexivity and with the paramount cultural and material importance of the mind, whatever is said about the sociological significance of ‘body matters’. Because TBI brings in its wake the liminality of being ‘neither here nor there’, of young men who become once again ‘children’, the implications for family dynamics are both distinctive and profound. The ‘future’, around which much of modernity revolves, is denied to those whose catastrophe arose from these same modern times.

This paper evaluates the use of the concept of ‘diaspora’ as an alternative way of thinking about transnational migration and ethnic relations to those ways that rely on ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’. It examines the heuristic potential of the concept, as a descriptive typological tool and as a social condition and societal process. Both approaches are described and key elements within each are assessed. It is argued that although very different in emphasis, and though containing different strengths and weaknesses, both approaches are problematised by their reliance on a notion of deterritorialised ethnicity which references the primordial bonds of ‘homeland’. It is also argued that both approaches are unable to attend fully to ‘intersectionality’, that is to issues of class, gender and trans-ethnic alliances. It is concluded that although potentially enabling a broader sweep of questions that can relate to the transnational aspects of population movements and settlement, the concept of ‘diaspora’, as it has been articulated so far, does not overcome fully some of the problems identified with the ‘ethnicity’ problematic.

This paper draws upon an ongoing study into gambling in the United Kingdom to examine off-course betting as a form of social life. Through such an approach it identifies several features of betting shop life that complement and refine the research literature to date: the different sub-groups within the off-course betting population; how they manage their activities in terms of their finances and their domestic and work responsibilities; the often subtle social dynamics of the betting shop. Through an analysis of these features of the punter’s world, the paper investigates the rationality of the activities of loss-making punters, and shows how this differs markedly from the rationalities employed by those who win at the game – bookmakers and professional gamblers. One common concern for many punters is the dream of the ‘big win’ for a little stake – a concern not shared by the other two groups – a dream that undermines their ability to win, and thus compounds their losses. The paper then identifies the different sub-groups involved in off-course betting, and discusses the different times at which they bet and the different strategies they use. In such a way the paper contributes to the debate through identifying groups and social processes not addressed in the literature, and shows how they refine the categories and concepts used to date.

G. Marshall, A. Swift and S. Roberts, Against the Odds: Social Class and Social Justice in Industrial Societies. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997, £40.00, paperback £14.99, xiii+265pp. ISBN 0-19-829239-2 pbk and 0-19-829240-6 hbk.

F. Devine, Social Class in America and Britain. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997, £16.95 pbk, xi+303 pp. ISBN 0-7486-0666-1.

P. Mahony and C. Zmroczek (eds.), Class Matters: 'Working Class' Women's Perspectives on Social Class. London: Taylor and Francis, 1997, £39.000, paperback £12.95, 210 pp. ISBN 0-7484-0541-0 pbk and ISBN 0-7484-0540-2 hbk.

Richard W. Hadden, Sociological Theory: An Introduction to the Classical Tradition. London: Broadview Press, 1997, paperback £17.95, 170 pp. ISBN 0-55111-095-4.

John Holmwood, Founding Sociology? Talcott Parsons and the Idea of General Theory. London and New York: Longman, 1996, paperback £12.50, x+141 pp. ISBN 0-582-29165-8.

W. G. Runciman, A Treatise on Social Theory, Volume III: Applied Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, £50.00 (paperback £17.95), xvii+329 pp. ISBN 0-521-58801-4 pbk and 0-521-24960-0 hbk.

Ian McIntosh, Classical Sociological Theory: A Reader. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997, £45.00 (paperback £14.95), 259 pp. ISBN 0-7486-0809-5 pbk and 0-7486-0873-7 hbk.

Ian Craib, Classical Social Theory: An Introduction to the Thought of Marx, Weber, Durkheim, and Simmel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, £40.00 (paperback £13.99) xxiv+297 pp. ISBN 0-19-878117-2 pbk and 0-19-878116-4 hbk.