Is There a Quest for Identity?*

It is widely assumed that people today experience an imperative quest for identity, and that altruism and work have been displaced as credible routes to self-discovery by the abandonment of inhibition and the attainment of intimacy. A preliminary examination of these premises is made through questions included in a survey of adults in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and in questionnaires administered to students at UCLA, two Australian universities, and one British university. Very few adults in Los Angeles, even in the youngest and most highly educated brackets, acknowledge any preoccupation with the question, “Who am I really?,”though most university students in the four samples do. Both adults and students endorse altruism most frequently, impulse-release least frequently, and intimacy with intermediate frequency as routes to self-discovery. They differ most in their evaluation of work as a medium for self-discovery. All observations apply only to a self-conscious search for identity.     

Cultural determinants of jealousy

I disagree with the practice of defining romantic jealousy in terms of other emotions, on the grounds that it is circular and redundant. Moreover, it appears implausible to me that the variety of private motives for protecting a relationship against an interloper can be accounted for by a unitary source of motivation, such as an emotion of romantic jealousy. I propose that the words romantic jealousy, instead of identifying an emotion of jealousy, refer to the situation characterized by the potential, or actual, loss of a loved one, or a mate, to a real or imagined rival. Reactions in such a situation, whatever they may be, are labeled as jealousy. On the basis of the assumption that individuals create culture to satisfy personal goals and are, in turn, affected by their cultural creations, I identify particular cultural factors as increasing the likelihood that an individual will be threatened by a jealousy event. The individual makes use of culturally sanctioned coping strategies for dealing with the threat. These concepts are discussed in the context of appraisal processes.     

Organizational Careers: An Interactionist Perspective*

The concept of career is both useful and necessary for the study of organizations. Through members' constructions of organizational careers, an organization becomes real and capable of action. Organizational careers intermediate between the programmatic and the symbolic elements of organizational situations. Careers, through their objective and subjective dualism, penetrate both the organization's symbolic order and its objective activity and order, constituting a third and essential element in organizational structure. Careers are highly interdependent upon communication processes, notably as negotiation of joint plans of action and of identity, role and status. Careers, work, and identity are seen as interrelated aspects of the self as a social object. Events and interactions in organizational situations lead to shifts in the moral definitions of the self and others, and to behavior which serves to protect the self from becoming profaned.     

Inclusive Governance and “Minority” Groups: The Role of the Third Sector in Wales

Following the establishment of a national legislature in Wales in 1999 the third sector has entered into a pioneering cross-sectoral partnership with the Welsh government. This paper presents the results of a research project that has studied the new structures of devolved governance through the expectations and participation of voluntary organizations representing three marginalized or minority groupings: women, disabled people, and those from an ethnic minority background. The findings reveal that despite varying levels of expectation expressed by minority voluntary groups, active engagement of minority groups in policy making has been a feature of the Assembly's first months. Nevertheless, formidable challenges face both sectoral partners in the new system of governance, not least in creating organizational structures that facilitate partnership working in the devolved polity.     

‘Who should do the caring’? Involved fatherhood and ambivalent gendered moral rationalities among cohabiting/married irish parents

Drawing on qualitative couple interviews with cohabiting/married mothers and fathers, this paper examines accounts of involved fatherhood in contemporary Ireland. It shows that while the ideal of fathers as heavily involved in day-to-day parenting is widespread, the reality is somewhat different – and this despite increased participation of Irish mothers in the labour market. Given this mismatch between fatherhood ideals and realities, it begs the question: how do we account for this inequitable division of family work? Gender-differentiated parenting experiences, I argue, are strongly influenced by ambivalent attitudes on the part of both fathers and mothers. I argue that mothers draw on ‘primarily mother’ moral rationalities that associates ‘good’ mothering with large amounts of time in direct provision of childcare, while fathers display a ‘primarily worker’ rationality associated with strong commitment to the labour market. It is the clash of these contrasting normative societal demands that gives rise to a pervasive sense of ambivalence about ‘who should do the caring’. This ambivalence, I demonstrate, is especially prominent in single-income families where the father is the sole breadwinner. In dual-income families, several parents go some distance towards reconciling these contradictory claims, these competing moral discourses.