The Privatisation of Working-Class Life: A Dissenting View

Procter, Ian

doi:10.2307/590868

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…59 Professionals are also three times as likely as manual workers to participate in volunteer endeavours. 63 Moreover, many of these differences are especially relevant for social capital. The latter are likely to join new associations at frequent intervals, accumulating memberships over their lifetimes, while those in the working class join fewer associations but stay in them for long periods of time.…”

Section: The Impact Of Changes In Class Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

Social Capital in Britain

Hall

1999

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

591

327

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Recent findings show an apparent erosion in the United States over the post-war years of 'social capital' understood as the propensity of individuals to associate together on a regular basis, to trust one another, and to engage in community affairs. This article examines the British case for similar trends, finding no equivalent erosion. It proposes explanations for the resilience of social capital in Britain, rooted in educational reform, the transformation of the class structure, and government policy. It concludes by drawing some general lessons from the British case that stress the importance of the distributive dimensions of social capital and the impact that governments can have on it.Political scientists have long been interested in how the organization of society and the structure of social relations might condition the effectiveness of governance and especially the stability, responsiveness or policy performance of democratic governments. Such issues can be approached from at least two perspectives. Some emphasize the importance of organizations more or less 'purpose-built' for the transmission of political demands or deeply implicated in the implementation of policy, such as political parties and the organized interest groups that figure prominently in analyses of pluralism, consociationalism and neo-corporatism. 1 Others stress the effects of a more diffuse set of social relations, whether rooted in the family, community, class structure or associational life, of the sort that are often said to be constitutive of political culture. 2 In recent years, this second line of enquiry has been given new life by a

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Section: The Impact Of Changes In Class Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

Social Capital in Britain

Hall

1999

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

591

327

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Some, such as Laslett and his colleagues (Laslett & Wall, 1972), argued that historically extended families were always uncommon. Others pointed out that a concern for privacy had long been an issue for those trying to sustain social respectability (Pahl & Wallace, 1988;Procter, 1990). More commonly, researchers in the 1950s and 1960s demonstrated that family life was nowhere near as isolated or tightly framed as the dominant theoretical models of family change would have it (Young & Willmott, 1957;Rosser & Harris, 1965).…”

Section: Traditional Theories Of Privatizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Personal relationships in late modernity

Allan

2001

Personal Relationships

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This article is concerned with the significance of personal relationships in contemporary social life, principally drawing on recent British research. After reviewing traditional sociological theories concerning the impact of economic transformations on family and community ties, the author examines the character of couple and family commitment in the context of the radical demographic changes that have been occurring, particularly in patterns of family formation and dissolution. Relating these changes to theories of “late modernity,” the author assesses their implications for the relevance of personal relationships in general, and friendship in particular, in contemporary social formations. The author's argument is that far from becoming socially marginal as dominant theories generally imply, personal relationships are likely to become increasingly significant as social life becomes more fragmented and less predictable.

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“…Thus simply because leisure time is spent in the home does not mean that there is necessarily any absence of sociability, any more than an emphasis on the domestic sphere in people's consciousness implies that their social lives are privatized (Procter, 1990). Indeed the arguments presented earlier in this paper would suggest that the simple distinction between 'public' and 'private' domains is now of limited usefulness for understanding patterns of sociability and leisure.…”

Section: A Trend Towards Privatization?mentioning

confidence: 86%

“…The general theme of the paper is that while 'there is a substantial trend towards family-based leisure' (Clarke and Critcher, 1985, p. 26) with the home now being a 'major site of leisure experience in capitalist society' (Rojek, 1985, p. 19), the spheres of family, home and leisure still overlap far less frequently than the notion of privatization tends to imply. If nothing else, this highlights the dangers of making uncritical assumptions about the continuing pervasiveness of privatization (Procter, 1990).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Privatization, home-centredness and leisure

Allan

Crow

1991

Leisure Studies

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This paper is concerned with the changing relationships between home life, family life and leisure, and sets out to investigate how adequately these are captured by the familiar idea of 'privatization'. Despite its superficial attractiveness, the privatization thesis is found to be wanting in its central proposition of a growing overlap between people's home, family and leisure activities. There are theoretical grounds for suggesting that there must be limits to how far home, family and leisure can coincide, and evidence from a range of recent studies is drawn upon to support the argument that the growth of homecentredness is not necessarily at the expense of wider patterns of sociability. It is concluded that the privatization thesis is insufficiently sensitive to the diversity of people's situations and goals.

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The Privatisation of Working-Class Life: A Dissenting View

Cited by 9 publications

References 2 publications

Social Capital in Britain

Social Capital in Britain

Personal relationships in late modernity

Privatization, home-centredness and leisure

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