Towards a ‘virtual’ world: Social isolation and struggles during the COVID‐19 pandemic as single women living alone

This article is a personal reflection of how the current COVID‐19 pandemic affects our working lives and wellbeing, as single female academics who live alone in the UK. We offer a dialogue of our daily lives of being confined at home with lockdown measures extended. In particular, we focus on the experience of, and coping with, isolation and loneliness. Is isolation making us more socially connected? Through ‘virtual’ working and changing learning environments for us as teachers and learners, we explore changes in our working life and subsequent changes in the domestic environment. By capturing our lived experiences, we create an intellectual and safe space to voice our emotional struggles — as ‘invisible’ isolated individuals containing and consuming loneliness on our own. We foster alternative conversations as to how we might engender new perspectives from single female academics to combat social isolation in the workplace.     

Reluctant entrepreneurs: musicians and entrepreneurship in the ‘new’ music industry

Changing labour conditions in the creative industries – with celebrations of autonomy and entrepreneurialism intertwined with increasing job insecurity, portfolio careers and short‐term, project‐based contracts – are often interpreted as heralding changes to employment relations more broadly. The position of musicians’ labour in relation to these changes is unclear, however, given that these kinds of conditions have defined musicians’ working practices over much longer periods of time (though they may have intensified due to well‐documented changes to the music industry brought about by digitization and disintermediation). Musicians may thus be something of a barometer of current trends, as implied in the way that the musically derived label ‘gig economy’ is being used to describe the spread of precarious working conditions to broader sections of the population. This article, drawing on original qualitative research that investigated the working practices of musicians, explores one specific aspect of these conditions: whether musicians are self‐consciously entrepreneurial towards their work and audience. We found that, while the musicians in our study are routinely involved in activities that could be construed as entrepreneurial, generally they were reluctant to label themselves as entrepreneurs. In part this reflected understandings of entrepreneurialism as driven by profit‐seeking but it also reflected awareness that being a popular musician has always involved business and commercial dimensions. Drawing on theoretical conceptions of entrepreneurship developed by Joseph Schumpeter we highlight how the figure of the entrepreneur and the artist/musician share much in common and reflect various aspects of romantic individualism. Despite this, there are also some notable differences and we conclude that framing musicians’ labour as entrepreneurial misrepresents their activities through an overemphasis on the economic dimensions of their work at the expense of the cultural.     

Rock ‘n’ Roll Music as a Timepiece

This essay illustrates the value of time in understanding baby boomers' experiences of rock ‘n’ roll. In a distinctively interactionist style, I use time as a sensitizing concept in my research on this phenomenon. The orientation that guides this research is methodological tourism, by which the researcher treats something as common and taken‐for‐granted as rock ‘n’ roll music in everyday life as strange if not exotic. Structurally, songs about time constitute the most visible temporal structures in the world of rock ‘n’ roll. Interactionally, I will argue that the concept of the cohort is more useful than that of the decade for an interpretive analysis of musical nostalgia, a key feature of the phenomenon in question. Illustrations of the reflexive relationship between rock ‘n’ roll and time in middle age include using awareness of recent deaths of rock ‘n’ roll performers to interpret the existential significance of aging; using rock ‘n’ roll songs as benchmarks for significant events such as birthdays and anniversaries, as well as gift giving for these events; and using rock ‘n’ roll music to pass the time.     

‘Big Society’ in the UK: A Policy Review

Alongside the UK Coalition Government’s historic public spending cuts, the ‘Big Society’ has become a major narrative in UK political discourse. This article reviews key features of Big Society policies against their aims of rebalancing the economy and mending ‘Broken Britain’, with particular reference to their implications for children and young people, and for the voluntary and community sector working with them. Although many positives are acknowledged, flaws are identified in the lack of attention paid to the unique position of children in society, and in an inconsistent conceptualisation of the voluntary sector on which Big Society policies rely.     

‘I just don't want to connect my life with this occupation’: working‐class young men,manual labour,and social mobility in contemporary Russia

A key strand in the Western literature on working‐class masculinities focuses on whether young men are capable of the feminized performances apparently required of them in new service economies. However, the wider literature on processes of neoliberalization – emphasizing the ‘hollowing out’ of labour markets, the cultural devaluation of lower‐skilled forms of employment, and the pathologization of working‐class lives – would suggest that it is as much a classed as a gendered transformation that is demanded of young men leaving school with few qualifications. This dimension of neoliberalization is highlighted by ethnographic data exploring the experiences and subjectivities of young workers in St Petersburg, Russia, where traditional forms of manual labour have not given way to ‘feminized’ work, but have become materially and symbolically impoverished, and are perceived as incapable of supporting the wider transition into adult independence. In this context, young workers attempt to emulate new forms of ‘successful masculinity’ connected with novel service sector professions and the emergent higher education system, despite the unlikelihood of overcoming a range of structural and cultural barriers. These acquiescent, individualized responses indicate that, while ways of being a man are apparently being liberated from old constraints amongst the more privileged, neoliberalization narrows the range of subject positions available to working‐class young men.     

In search of ‘The Family’– analysis of the 1981 United Kingdom Census: a research note

This article reviews previous estimates of the frequency of ‘normal families’ ¹ 1 For a detailed discussion of why terms related to ‘family’ are set within quotation marks, see Bemardes (1981, 1985a, 1985b, 1986). Briefly, the intention is to bracket off such terms to indicate that they are part of everyday usage and are not, in themselves, analytic categories appropriate to the sociological enterprise.
in the UK and USA. Using evidence from the 1981 UK Census it is found that ‘normal families’ account for a very small percentage of all ‘families’ in England and Wales. No single central type of ‘family’ exists and there is therefore an urgent need to develop theoretical approaches which address this issue.     

Becoming ‘Real’ Entrepreneurs: Women and the Gendered Normalization of ‘Work’

This article focuses on the way in which women entrepreneurs legitimate their place in a gendered economy by reifying a divide between ‘real work’ and ‘not‐real work’. Using ethnographic approaches to follow the everyday lives of several women who own and operate small businesses in the USA, our article documents three gendering practices the women use for ‘becoming real workers:’ embodied, spatial and temporal. The study shows that women entrepreneurs become ‘productive workers’ by recasting reproductive work as non‐productive or not‐real work. At the end, we explore two possible alternative conceptualizations of ‘work’ that could contribute to dissolving this gendered divide.     

‘Between authenticity and pretension’: parents', pupils' and young professionals' negotiations of minority ethnic middle‐class identity

Despite an increasing sociological interest in the middle classes and their educational practices, research has largely concentrated on the white middle classes. This paper considers the case of the minority ethnic (ME) middle classes through empirical data from a small, exploratory study conducted in England with 36 minority ethnic, ‘middle‐class’ individuals (parents, pupils and young professionals) from a range of ME backgrounds. It is argued that participants experienced ME middle‐class identity as a profoundly conflictual and precarious space, negotiated through a matrix of relational classed and racialized positionings. ‘Authentic’ middle‐classness remains the preserve of white society due to racial inequalities and the dominance of whiteness as the popularly legitimated marker of middle classness. Moreover, attempts to define an acceptable, legitimate and principled ME middle‐class identity are compromised by the discursive threats of ‘inauthenticity’, ‘pretension’ and ‘misrecognition’.     

‘Bad Mum Guilt’: the representation of ‘work-life balance’ in UK women’s magazines

The social policy climate, labour market trends and gendered arrangements for paid and family work mean that ‘work-life balance’ remains a key social issue in the UK. Media representations of ‘work-life balance’ are a key source for the construction of gender and working motherhood. Despite evidence of gendered representations in media coverage of other social issues, little attention has been paid to the construction of work-life balance in UK women's magazines. Articles from the highest circulating UK women's magazines are analysed using a discursive approach to explicate constructions of work-life balance and working motherhood. The analysis reveals that multiple roles are constructed as a problematic choice leading to stress and guilt. Problems associated with multiple roles are constructed as individual problems, in a way that decontextualises and depoliticises them and normalises gendered assumptions and a gendered division of labour. Parallels can be drawn between this and wider discourses about women's daily lives and to the UK social policy context.     

Precarious work among young Danish employees - a permanent or transitory condition?

There is broad agreement that precarious work is a growing problem, and that it is highly prevalent among young employees. The financial crisis in 2008 has reinforced the need for knowledge about how precarious work affects young employees. This paper explores how the concept of precarious work may apply differentially to different groups of young people at work and whether this challenges the term ‘transition’, which until now has been one of the core elements within contemporary youth research. We examine discursive representations of precarious work, vulnerability and risks among young Danish employees aged 18–24 in the healthcare sector, the metal industry and retail trade captured in 46 interviews involving 74 participants. Results are discussed taking into consideration the Nordic welfare model with an active labour marked policy. We conclude that precarious work is not, in fact, simply a characteristic of young employees’ work as such, but rather it is related to their position in the labour market and the type of jobs in which they are employed. While some are in transition, others are at risk of being trapped in precarious and risky working conditions.     

‘Life stage dissolution’ in Anglo‐American advertising and popular culture: Kidults,Lil’ Britneys and Middle Youths

The ‘long road to adulthood’ that supposedly now characterizes the period from the teens to the late twenties (for individuals in developed countries) has been the subject of much recent media and academic commentary. This paper adopts a sociological perspective to review and critique this commentary, and in particular the argument made by certain developmental psychologists that the period between adolescence and fully‐fledged adulthood is now distinct enough to constitute a new stage in the life cycle known as ‘emerging adulthood’. In contrast, it is argued that, rather than anything as significant as a new life stage, what is actually happening is the erosion of established ones. To illustrate this point, the article introduces the new theoretical concept of ‘life stage dissolution’ (and its attendant bi‐directional processes of ‘adultification’ and ‘infantilization’) – a blurring (or more accurately merging) process that makes it increasingly difficult for young people to differentiate and disassociate themselves from the generation immediately ahead of them, and indeed vice versa. The paper argues that, whilst this process takes a number of cultural/psychosocial forms, it is at its most prominent in contemporary Anglo‐American advertising and marketing practices that actively seek to erode traditionally demarcated adult and childhood roles, differences, and oppositions as a new and distinct message within contemporary consumerism.     

‘Here and There’: Children and Youth’s Perspectives of Borders in Mexico–United States Migration

This article explores children’s perspectives regarding migration and family separation on both sides of the Mexico‐U.S. border. ‘Transnational care constellations’¹ that connect separated siblings allow children to imagine the other side of the border and to explore their thoughts and perspectives through the lenses of inequality, as well as through a sense of belonging and family. This article presents ethnographic data of families that capture the dynamism of families that are both ‘here and there’ as children assemble their ideas and narratives of how transnational lives exist.     

‘Recovery work’ and ‘magic’ among long‐term mental health service‐users

Based on an extended period of qualitative research with mental health service‐users in north‐east England, this article considers the various forms of ‘magical work’ and ‘recovery work’ that emerge in the lives of people living with severe mental health problems. Given the now sizeable body of literature which seeks to problematize traditional conceptual boundaries of work, the article asks to what extent these hidden and unusual work‐forms might also be considered legitimate members of the category. Rather than argue for the expansion of the construct to accommodate these activities, the paper attempts simply to problematize the extent to which so‐called ‘mad’ forms of work are irresolvably different to more conventional forms of occupation. In challenging notions of the psychiatric patient as inevitably inactive, new vocabularies for service‐user work are explored. Concluding remarks are also directed to recent policy debates concerning ‘back‐to‐work’ welfare reform for long‐term out of work service‐users.     

Routes to Part‐Time Management in UK Service Sector Organizations: Implications for Women’s Skills,Flexibility and Progression

This article examines the implications of part‐time working for mothers, particularly with regards to their occupational mobility and acquisition of skills, in UK service sector organizations following the implementation of the Part‐time Workers’ Directive in 2000. Through qualitative interviews with women and their managers in five hospitality workplaces, this article explores whether part‐time workers are potentially the ‘losers’ in the ‘winner‐takes‐all’ approach to career development. Discussions focus upon the extent to which part‐time workers can access career paths or, alternatively, whether part‐time management positions are the reserve of highly skilled women who are able to negotiate reduced hours after obtaining a management position full time. In conclusion, this article distinguishes between two forms of working‐time flexibility, which are named optimal and restrictive. The implications of these alternative types of flexibility, in terms of access to skill acquisition and occupational mobility, are then addressed.     

Representations of the ‘Damaged’ Child: ‘Child Saving’ in a British Children's Charity ad Campaign

This article discusses the representation of abused children as ‘damaged’, drawing on a series of three advertising campaigns for a British children's charity. The pictures and text of the advertisements seek to elicit readers’ concern for abused children by portraying them (a) as passive agents in their development and (b) as signifiers of the dangers of the world and the safeness of the home. The portrayal of abused children in the advertisements serves to reinforce a perception of the vulnerability of all children and the need for adult supervision and ‘care’. Without seeking to dismiss the seriousness of abuse or of the work done by children's charities, the article questions the implications of these representations of childhood and ‘damage’, and argues that the dominant representation of abused children drawn on in such campaigns oversimplifies many complexities in the worlds and the lives of children who have been abused.     

Changing Equality Cultures to Move Beyond ‘Women’s Problems’

Conventional equality measures have made a limited impact on women’s position in the workforce. This is not simply the result of measures being inadequately pursued. Instead, this paper argues, there is a more fundamental difficulty with the policy approach: that it focuses on women as having problems which need to be redressed rather than on changing organizations. As a result women are seen as inadequate and men become resentful of the ‘special treatment’ that follows. Changing these perceptions requires cultural change which cannot be achieved via conventional personnel-based equality initiatives. Many organizations are looking for new ways to present and pursue equality programmes such as a stress on providing a ‘business case’ or through a consideration of the value of workforce diversity. The paper assesses the ability of these initiatives to change the culture for equality. It argues that many organizations are merely pursuing a defensive approach which centres on language change and modified initiatives rather than new approaches to winning consent. In contrast it argues that culture change will only be achieved through a more pro-active approach. Various initiatives such as skills audits and training for men are discussed which indicate what can be done in practice.     

Young Peoples’ Representations of ‘Atypical’ Work in English Society

In this paper, we explore young peoples’ normative representations of work. In particular, we are interested in the ways young people view work roles which could be considered ‘atypical’ such as young caring or language brokering. Interviewed were 46 young people (15–18 years) some who did, and some who did not engage in the ‘atypical’ work roles of language brokering or young caring. Findings indicated that young people have a strong representation of what a ‘normal’ childhood comprises and that friends, teachers and parents play a mediational role in cementing this contextually. However, respondents presented two alternative representations around engagement in ‘atypical’ roles, with some individuals holding both views at the same time. On the one hand, they felt that engagement in ‘atypical’ activities would be experienced as a loss of ‘normal’ childhood. On the other hand, a more positive representation of ‘atypical’ childhoods was also drawn on, in which engagement in ‘atypical’ activities was seen as a source of pride and a contributor of additional skills to a child’s development. This opinion was evidenced by both those who had, and those who had not engaged in ‘atypical’ work.     

Why more ‘quality time’ is not on the top of children's lists: the ‘qualities of time’ for children1

For many years the everyday reality of working parents and their children has been captured in notions of ‘quality time’ versus ‘quantity time’. On the one hand it is suggested that what families need is ‘more time’ for parents to spend together with their children and less time working. On the other hand this has been countered with arguments saying that attention has to be paid to how parents spend their time together with their children. As a result quality time is often presented through idealised images of ‘happy families’. Quality time is seen as parents engaging with their children in particular activities or outdoor excursions that create and maintain family enjoyment, care and togetherness. However, such debates are based on assumptions of what would be ‘good’ for today's children and neglect the perspective of children themselves. This paper draws on field research carried out with 10–11‐year‐old children on their understandings and use of time in an urban and a rural setting in the north of England. The paper points to five ‘qualities of time’ identified by children. These qualities suggest that children's views of time spent with their families cannot be seen as separate from the time they spend with friends, at school and on their own. The paper argues that the quality/quantity time conundrum needs replacing by fuller and more representative accounts of the varied aspects of time that matter for children. These need to be situated in the processes through which family, school and work life take place on a daily basis and in relation to children's life course. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The powerful relational language of ‘family’: togetherness,belonging and personhood

This article examines the notion of ‘family’ to consider how it may be understood in people's everyday lives. Certain recurrent and powerful motifs are apparent, notably themes of togetherness and belonging, in the context of a unit that the person can be ‘part of’. At the same time, there may be important variations in the meanings given to individuality and family, evoking differing understandings of the self and personhood. I consider these ideas further through globally relevant but variable cultural themes of autonomy and relationality, suggesting the term ‘social person’ as a heuristic device to distinguish the sense of ‘close‐knit selves’ that may be involved in some understandings of personhood. I argue that this version of personhood may be powerfully expressed through ‘family’ meanings, with a significance which can be at least provisionally mapped along lines of inequality and disadvantage within and between societies around the world. These forms of connectedness may be hard to grasp through those theoretical and methodological frameworks which emphasize the (relational) individual. I argue that, in affluent English speaking societies, ¹ there may be little alternative to the language of ‘family’ for expressing such forms of relationality and connection.