Contributions of Clinical Sociology to the Medical Field

Health care in the United States is a complicated structure of social roles, processes, and communication, involving both patients and professionals. Understanding the social dimensions of the health care process can assist health professionals in providing better care to their patients. This paper analyzes several dimensions of the health care system, as suggested in a paper by Kallen (Kallen D. J. 1984. Clinical Sociology Review 2:78–93.) These include the perceptions of participants in the system; structures of the groups involved, including their roles and norms; the process by which groups, as opposed to individuals, operate; and finally the need for the clinical sociologist as a system maintenance specialist, to deal with these problems.     

Work in the shadow of finance: Rethinking Joan Acker's materialist feminist sociology

To commemorate the life and work of Joan Acker, this article focuses on the jewel in the crown of her extensive oeuvre: ‘Hierarchies, Jobs and Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations'. I take as my focus the significance of ‘Hierarchies, Jobs and Bodies' for the development of theorizations of labour and especially for theorizations of post‐Fordist work and working. In so doing, I trace the impact of Acker's interventions across a number of bodies of research and sets of debates across the nearly three decades since its publication. But in addition to tracing this impact, I ask if the relevance of ‘Hierarchies, Jobs and Bodies' still holds today. Does this relevance still hold in a context where finance institutions rather than work organizations have emerged as the key institutions of societal discipline and control? In opening out this line of questioning my intention is to advance the broad project to which Acker was firmly committed, namely, the project of materialist feminist sociology.     

社会学的春天和社会学家的任务

当今中国进入了社会主义建设的新时期,要构建和谐社会,实现经济社会协调发展,需要社会学的支撑,这给社会学提供了难得的大好发展机遇,社会学的春天来了。社会学家要在迎接社会剧烈变革所带来的机遇和挑战的过程中承担起自己的历史责任,提供社会学理论和方法的支撑、发挥社会学学科描述记叙的功能、加快社会学学科建设。