Paradigms,Theories, and Methods in Contemporary Rural Sociology: A Critical Reaction to Critical Questions

Abstract The content analysis by Falk and Zhao (1989) of theoretical orientations shown in Rural Sociology articles during the span 1976–1985 is critically evaluated as to its methodological adequacy and substantive conclusions. The former is shown as suspect and, therefore, the latter become moot. Discussion is particularly focused on the elaboration by Falk and Zhao on the wisdom of the metatheoretical underpinnings of the field in the decade explored. While they are less critical in judgment of rural sociology's performance than was the earlier study being “replicated” (Picou et al. 1978a), the assertion made by Falk and Zhao is still fundamentally misdirected. Until rural sociology faces the issue of data quality, its improvements in “theory” activity will not be substantial.     

Do People with a Mental Handicap Have Rights?

The notion of 'rights' in relation to people with a mental handicap has become increasingly fashionable in policy statements in Britain and elsewhere. However, the concept has rarely been used in a clear way, and the application of it has been weak. This article distinguishes between 'claim rights' and 'moral rights' and relates each to specific discriminatory domains. It is argued that in Britain, people with a mental handicap are routinely denied both types of rights, and that this is a sobering context within which to set policies structured upon 'normalisation' principles. It is suggested that more conceptual analysis is needed, alongside a clearer commitment to enforcement through a code of practice and the application of adult rights.     

Access and Child Contact Centres in England and Wales: An Ethnographic Perspective

SUMMARY. Access centres are a recent development in service provision for families facing difficulties over child contact following divorce or separation. The author has worked for over two years as a volunteer at an access centre and provides a personal view of key issues in the organisation and operation of access centres. Discussion of detailed case material throws light on the paradoxes which arise when a pro-access ideology is exercised in an informal setting.     

Reviews

Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French Village, 1294–1324, translated by Barbara Bray (1978), xvii+383 (The Scolar Press, £12.50).

Alan Macfarlane, The Origins of English Individualism. The Family, Property and Social Transition (Oxford, 1978), xvi+216 (Basil Blackwell. £8.50).

Thomas A. Brady, Jr., Ruling Class, Régime and Reformation at Strasbourg 1520–1555 (1978), xxi+458 (Brill, Leiden, 124 guilders).

Andrew B. Appleby, Famine in Tudor and Stuart England (1978) x+250 (Liverpool University Press, Liverpool, £10.75). Victor Skipp, Crisis and Development. An ecological case study of the Forest of Arden, 1570–1674 (1978) xii+132 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £6.50).

Patricia Branca, Women in Europe since 1750 (1978), 233 (Croom Helm, £8.95, paperback £3.95).

John W. Blassingame (ed.), Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies (1977), lxv+777 (Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, paperback £7.50).

Jonas Frykman, Horaa i bondesamhället (1977), 230 (Liber Läromedel, Lund, 24 Sw. cr.). (The Whore in Peasant Society)

Helmut Bleiber (ed.), Bourgeoisie uad bürgerliche Umwälzuagin Deutschland 1789–1871 (Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR: Schriften des Institute für Geschichte, 50, 1977) xii+525 (Akademie‐Verlag, East Berlin, 48M). (Bourgeoisie and Bourgeois Upheaval in Germany 1789–1871)

A. P. Donajgrodzki (ed.), Social Control in Nineteenth‐Century Britain (1977)! 258 (Croom Helm, £8.50).

Anthony S. Wohl (ed.), The Victorian Family (1978), 224 (Croom Helm, £7.95).

M. J. Daunton, Coal Metropolis Cardiff 1870–1914 (1977), 260 (Leicester University Press, Leicester, £12.00).

W. A. Speck, Stability and Strife: England 1714–1760 (1977), viii+311 (Edward Arnold, £9.95, paperback £3.50).

Howard Newby, The Deferential Worker: a study of farm workers in East Anglia (1977), 462 (Allen Lane, £9.00).

John Stevenson and Chris Cook, The Slump: Society and Politics during the Depression (1977), 348 (Jonathan Cape, £8.95).     

In support of evidence-based management and research-informed HRD through HRD professional partnerships: an empirical and comparative study

This article describes a programme of practice-grounded empirical management research set within an NHS Trust Hospital in the UK that was conducted as part of an HRD Professional Partnership of the kind advocated by Jacobs (1997). The research was concerned with identifying the criteria of managerial effectiveness at the middle and front-line levels of management using critical incident technique and factor analytic methods. The results are compared against those from an equivalent partnership research study carried out previously by the author within one part of the British Civil Service, namely the Anglia Collection of HM Customs & Excise. The findings lend support to the notion of the 'universally effective manager', and provide empirical support for the potential development of evidence-based and research-informed approaches to management and human resource development within the case-study NHS Trust Hospital, and possibly beyond.     

Acting ethically,responding culturally: framing the new reproductive and genetic technologies in Sri Lanka

The spread of new reproductive and genetic technologies to the developing world stimulates reflection on the ethical issues they generate. The ‘built-in-ness’ of assumptions about personhood and relationality within these technologies means that local professionals must, perforce, engage with attempts to make sense of new technology with reference to local meanings and traditions or take positions which reject them. This paper explores such attempts to indigenise bioethics in contemporary Sri Lanka with reference to ethical/ cultural conflicts surrounding two practices: donor insemination and consanguinity counselling. The former is discussed in relation to the now defunct practice of polyandry and the latter in relation to matrilateral cross-cousin marriage. The final discussion takes up the consequences of this detailed parsing of local relationality for the larger project of rendering bioethics in some sense comparative.