Long-term marriages: A critical review

Research guidelines are proposed for the study of long-term marriages based on a critical review of existing studies. Current problems in the collection and analysis of the data include the lack of agreement about the minimum length of a long-term relationship, the failure to make couple comparisons, or to follow samples longitudinally. In addition, the response rate is uniformly low and the variables studied are not consistent. Future research should gather data about couples, not just individuals, and should utilize standardized measures. It is important to begin to build a comprehensive and comparable data base of long-term marital relationships.     

Automatic transmission: ethnicity,racialization and the car

This article is based on ethnographic research carried out in Bradford, an ethnically diverse city situated in the north of England. The sample of over 60 participants mostly comprises males of British Pakistani Muslim heritage but varies in terms other markers of identity such as social class, profession and residential/working locale. The article analyses the cultural value and meaning of cars within a multicultural context and how a consumer object can feed into the processes which refine and embed racialized identities. Small case studies reveal the concrete and discursive ways through which ideas around identity and ethnicity are transmitted and how, in particular, racialization continues to feature as a live, active and recognizable process in everyday experience.     

FromMiddletown to Middletown III: A critical review

The two books and over a dozen articles that have come out of the recent Middletown III Project point to the relative lack of social change in Middletown during the fifty years since the Lynds' initial study. What the authors do not note is the extensive change in their view of social science from that of the Lynds. InMiddletown and throughout his career, Robert Lynd criticized the materialism of American culture and demanded that social science play an active role in the creation of a better society. Theodore Caplow and his Middletown III associates, on the other hand, avoid questions about the quality of life and generally praise the community's social institutions. Indeed, their conclusions, especially in their books, are often more complimentary than their own results warrant. The authors of Middletown III have accepted the people of Middletown at their own estimation. In so doing, they have abandoned the Lynds' perspective of the outside, critical observer and joined the chorus of self-satisfied Middletowners. Such a viewpoint represents a crucial shift in the perspective of American social science.     

Decision making in child welfare: A critical review of the literature

The decision to intervene with families has enormous implications for a democratic society. Child protective services must both protect children and families. Practice theory, social policies, and agency procedures have not provided a consensus on the criteria to guide decision making in child welfare. This paper reviews the empirical studies in the decision making literature for the purposes of: identifying variables workers are using to guide their decisions; identifying major professional concerns and issues with this literature; and suggest questions for further research.     

A critical review of theory and practice: the case of Turkey

"This article makes use of empirical research and studies to investigate migration and development in Turkey. The size and nature of the international labor migration from Turkey is presented. The effects of international labor migration on the national, local and regional levels are then discussed in relation to economic development, the congruence between contributions of migration and needs for development and whether the economic system is willing and able to use the potential advantages of migration."     

Sociological contributions to the study of social innovation: A critical review

Sociology has long been interested in innovating solutions to social problems. However, this desire has also been a source of controversy as it can conflict with the discipline's ambition also to be recognized as a hard science. This paper critically reviews sociological contributions to the study of social innovation. It first contextualizes these contributions by discussing the origins of sociology's interest in transforming society, the growing tension between that interest and sociology's other aspiration to create objective knowledge about the social world, and how more sociologists have relocated to business schools where most research on social innovation is now being conducted. Next, it summarizes sociologists' contributions, which emphasize how social innovation is organized by institutions, networks, social movements, and organizations themselves. It then discusses criticisms of this work and responses to these critiques. It concludes by asking whether sociologists' research on social innovation has advanced their discipline's dual mission of reforming and explaining society and what additional studies are needed.     

A sociology classic revisited: religion in Banbury

This is one of a series of articles which document religious change in Britain by updating the data contained in classic British sociological and anthropological community studies,. The statistical and impressionistic observations on religion in Banbury in 1950 and 1967 in Margaret Stacey's Tradition and Change are augmented with data collected in 2010. The article identifies significant problems in interpreting the original Banbury data and offers some general observations on the advantages and difficulties of piggy‐backing on previous research.     

Evaluations of utility residential conservation programs in the Pacific Northwest: A critical review

Pacific Northwest utilities have sponsored the nation's earliest and most thorough residential conservation programs. The Northwest region also leads in the quality, quantity, and usefulness of utility-sponsored program evaluations. This article critically reviews the methods and findings of four major Northwest utility program evaluations. Recommendations for future evaluation and program management efforts also are discussed.     

Researching religion: The vocation of the sociologist of religion

This paper reflects on the vocation or 'calling' of the researcher in the sociology of religion in the light of his experiences of researching transformations in English Catholicism in the last quarter of the twentieth century. It takes as its starting point Weber's two essays. A consideration of religious perspectives on the lay vocation leads to an evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of insider research. The paper reflects on research mistakes, threats and attempts to co-opt the researcher, unexpected surprises and serendipity, and the need for the social scientist to retain control of his/her research. It concludes with inspiration from Havel that the calling of the sociological researcher is socially important and urges renewed commitment to seeking with integrity the extension of certified knowledge and the demystification of powerful institutional structures.     

Lost in data translation: A critical review of datasets on refugees

Quantitative data are the backbone of the international refugee regime. Academic researchers and international organizations have been drawing attention to the problems of refugee data that obscure refugee vulnerabilities. Despite these efforts, the limitations of quantitative refugee data, particularly with regard to gendered aspects of refugee vulnerabilities, have often been overlooked. This article aims to address this issue by examining the major limitations of quantitative refugee data. It focuses on the question of “What are the major limitations of quantitative refugee data regarding gendered aspects of refugee vulnerabilities?” By conducting a systematic review of 67 datasets from international organizations, nation-states, and independent data collectors, it argues that there are five fundamental problems with the data: (1) lack of disaggregation, (2) lack of cross-tabulation and inability to harmonize datasets, (3) inconsistent periodization frequency, (4) lack of sex and gender diversity measurement, and (5) survivor bias. This article highlights the importance of critically analysing the data that informs theories and decisions regarding refugee vulnerabilities.     

The history of social work in Australia: A critical literature review

Historical knowledge plays an important role in the development of social work identity. Yet there has been little analysis of the historical literature on social work and social workers in Australia. Attention is drawn here to both the strengths in the existing literature, and also to the major gaps in our knowledge of social work practice, education, activism and professional organisations. Arguments are considered for a greater prioritising of historical research within the social work profession.     

Invisible no more: White racialization and the localness of racial identity

What does it mean to be white? How do whites see themselves and other white people, racially? These are empirical questions, questions that sociologists have spent decades trying to answer. Among numerous findings, none have been as pronounced as white racelessness; the theory that whites possess invisible, or raceless, identities. Despite its influence on our understanding of race, the construction of whiteness as an invisible identity has been called into question, as a number of scholars, past and present, focus more on the local dynamics of white racialization. For a growing cross-section of whites, modern cultural and demographic change has shattered the illusion of white normality, causing them to confront their own racial identities in intimate and explicit ways. How do these and other whites respond to being seen as white? Though adept at detailing the way whites conceptualize white racial identity, generally, sociologists have been far less successful in examining how whites conceptualize white racial identity, locally. In this article, after reviewing both general and local constructions of white racial identity, I argue that going forward, researchers need to dispense with contextual overgeneralizations and focus more the localness of white identity formation.     

Understanding home: a critical review of the literature

In recent years there has been a proliferation of writing on the meaning of home within the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, psychology, human geography, history, architecture and philosophy. Although many researchers now understand home as a multidimensional concept and acknowledge the presence of and need for multidisciplinary research in the field, there has been little sustained reflection and critique of the multidisciplinary field of home research and the diverse, even contradictory meanings of this term. This paper brings together and examines the dominant and recurring ideas about home represented in the relevant theoretical and empirical literature. It raises the question whether or not home is (a) place(s), (a) space(s), feeling(s), practices, and/or an active state of state of being in the world? Home is variously described in the literature as conflated with or related to house, family, haven, self, gender, and journeying. Many authors also consider notions of being‐at‐home, creating or making home and the ideal home. In an effort to facilitate interdisciplinary conversations about the meaning and experience of home each of these themes are briefly considered in this critical literature review.     

The gender of bruising: A critical literature review on gender in boxing

This article provides a critical review of the scholarship on gender in boxing since the formal recognition of women's boxing internationally in 1994. The article is divided into three parts, each addressing a different aspect of the relationship between gender and boxing. The first part discusses the beginnings of boxing scholarship that mostly focussed on men and masculinity, the second part explores the research on boxing since the inclusion of female boxing in international competitions and examines organizational aspects of boxing, and the last part outlines the scholarship that explores gender identities in boxing. The review is based on qualitative textual analysis and attempts to identify gaps in the scholarship, providing suggestions for future research directions. Overall, the article argues that while the scholarship on gender in boxing is saturated, there are still a few areas that would benefit from further research. These are studies on the relationship between volunteering, refereeing, heterosexuality, and gender in boxing.     

The racialization of privacy: racial formation as a family affair

Theory and Society - A right to family privacy is considered a cornerstone of American life, and yet access to it is apportioned by race. Our notion of the “racialization of privacy”...     

Growth hormone in anti-aging medicine: a critical review

Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) signaling modulation has been associated with increased lifespan in model organisms, while high levels of circulating interleukin-6 (IL-6) are a marker of disability and mortality. In the prospective, population-based “Treviso Longeva”? TRELONG Study from Italy (n?=?668, age range 70–105.5 years at baseline, followed for seven years) we investigated the effects of survival on the IGF-1 receptor (IGF-1R) gene polymorphism rs2229765, the IL-6 gene promoter polymorphism rs1800795, and plasma concentrations of IGF-1 and IL-6, alone or in combination. We found a sex-dependent effect for the IGF-1R rs2229765 polymorphism, as male carriers of the homozygous A/A genotype survived longer, while the IL-6 rs1800795 genotype did not influence overall or sex-specific longevity. Higher IL-6 levels were more detrimental for survival among males than females, while IGF-1 had no dose–response effect. These findings sustain the hypothesis that sex-specific longevity relies on detectable differences in genetic and biochemical parameters between males and females.