Transition Shock and the Relocation of People from Mental Handicap Hospitals and Hostels

The process of deinstitutionalisation has been gathering momentum in Britain and the United States since the mid-1970s. A discussion of these trends provides the background to an examination of “transition shock” as it affects people relocated from mental handicap institutions. The paper explores the theoretical underpinnings of the concept of transition shock and links them to the findings of a follow-up study of the behavioural consequences of relocation.     

Issues Related to Sports Gambling

This paper looks at various issues that are of interest to the sports gambler. First, an expression is obtained for the distribution of the final bankroll using fixed wagers with a specified initial bankroll. Second, fixed percentage wagers are considered where the Kelly method is extended to the case of simultaneous bets placed at various odds; a computational algorithm is presented to obtain the Kelly fractions. Finally, the paper considers the problem of determining whether a gambling system is profitable based on the historical results of bets placed at various odds.     

The Statistics and Registration Service Act

"When we first saw the draft act, we were dismayed." The new Act for the independence of official statistics has now passed into law. Is the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) still dismayed? Tim Holt , President of the RSS, explains the Act, its workings, how parts of it have been changed for the better and what concerns still remain.     

Representations of Labour: Visual Sociology and Work

This paper explores the potential that visual methods, approaches, and resources offer to the sociologist of work. It looks at the way work is represented in a range of publications and asks questions about what the visual can add to our understanding of the workplace, workers, and work processes. It argues that we need to develop and expand a sociological language of the visual in order to better understand cultural and other aspects of work and employment.     

Transformative power: a study in a human service organization

This article focuses upon the relationship between power and organizational change. It specifically considers the question of under what conditions and utilising what tactics can people be induced to see their organizational existence in new ways. At the same time it focuses upon the basis of resistance to the methods employed within the organization and in so doing delineates the limits of such transformative power. For these purposes, it draws upon a three-year study conducted in the probation service and employs Callon's concept of a sociology of translation alongside the ideas of Weber and Foucault. The argument then extends beyond the probation service to note that the form and methods of these tactics are currently being employed throughout the public sector.     

University Administrators as Information Tacticians: Understanding Transparency as Selective Concealment and Instrumental Disclosure

Despite its burgeoning popularity, the concept of administrative transparency has received little attention from interpretivist sociologists. Symbolic interactionism offers a theoretical and methodological agenda for understanding administrative transparency that departs from the more common quantitative‐ and factor‐based approaches. With an emphasis on educational administration, this article defines and examines how university administrators accomplish transparency in their everyday activities. Data from in‐depth semistructured interviews identify administrative transparency as a reflexive act of concealment and disclosure. These activities are further described by what are identified as silent budgetary bargaining and opportunistic budgeting.     

Authors’ response: on the role of data,statistics and decisions in a pandemic

AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis -     

The nostalgia for permanence at work? The end of work and its commentators

This article examines a contemporary trend in the sociology of work that is labelled here the ‘end of work’ debate after Jeremy Rifkin's book of the same name. It explores this trend, suggesting that marked similarities exist between a range of authors in Europe and North America who propose that work regimes and the meaning derived from them are changing fundamentally. This literature is then placed in the context of an older canon on decline in work and employment. Using the insights of newer qualitative studies that have emerged over the last decade it is suggested that much of the ‘end of work’ type of writing over‐generalises a complex situation, suggesting that sociology needs to incorporate macro theorisation with detailed empirical research if it is to properly understand changes in the contemporary world of work.