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In the Irish context and internationally a good deal of attention has been paid to the performance of masculinity among school students. However with a small number of notable exceptions, relatively little attention has been paid to masculinities in academic organisations. Drawing on a qualitative study in one university, this article proposes a tentative typology of masculinities in such an organisation. This typology involves two axes: career commitment and relationship commitment (with respondents classified as strong or weak on each dimension). Four types of masculinities are identified: Type 1: Careerist masculinity: Strong career and weak relationship commitment; Type 2: Enterprising masculinity: Strong career and strong relationship commitment; Type 3: Pure scientific masculinity: Weak career and weak relationship commitment; Type 4: Family oriented breadwinning masculinity: Weak career and strong relationship commitment. The titles careerist masculinity and family oriented breadwinning masculinity reflect generic characteristics. The titles of the other two types reflect the data derived from this particular sample. Since one of the important contributions of this article is an understanding of masculinities in an academic organisation, labels which relate to that context have been used. Although three of these types modify hegemonic careerist masculinity, they all reflect the persistence of an underlying system of male privileging in the changing landscape of higher education. This typology is seen as potentially having implications for theories and practices of motivation and management in academic organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article argues that policy-related research needs to question the assumption that policy questions can be addressed through the use of research methods that examine the issues through one lens only. It proposes that mixed methods research designs work well when they exploit the potential to see different things, and recognize the limits and the potential that each method offers. In this regard it suggests paying particular attention to team composition, organization, and team work. Drawing on two exemplar studies of policy-related research, the article identifies key ingredients in their mixed methods research designs; the equality of status given to the different research approaches used; the importance of tailoring research questions in relation to their own epistemological and methodological assumptions; the importance of distinguishing between different forms of explanation in the process of comparing and presenting quantitative and qualitative data. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines some methodological issues relating to an embedded case study design adopted in a comparative cross-national study of working parents covering three levels of social context: the macro level; the workplace level; and the individual level. It addresses issues of generalizability, in particular the importance of criteria for the selection of cases in the research design and analysis phases. To illustrate the benefits of the design the article focuses on the level of individual biographies. Three exemplars of biographical trajectories and experiences are presented and discussed. It is argued that a multi-tiered design and a comparative biographical approach can add to the understanding of individual experience by placing it in context and thus yield knowledge that is of general sociological relevance by demonstrating the interrelatedness of agency and structure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article draws upon biographical interview material from a mixed-method British study of workers caring for vulnerable children: residential social workers, family support workers, foster carers and community childminders. It has two aims: (1) to identify the contexts - the particular events, circumstances and life course phases - that precipitated a move into their first occupation working with vulnerable children and young people; and (2) to analyse the main narrative resources that informants employed in explaining how they developed a commitment to care in general. It thereby suggests how workers are drawn to caring and when and why they take up this important work that is generally undervalued in the British context. In particular, it demonstrates how childhood constitutes a critical interpretive resource suggesting the importance of negative as well as positive formative experiences in creating a commitment to care for others, vulnerable children in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent article in Sociology, Anderson et al. (2005) explore the plans Scottish young adults formulated for their future lives, drawing largely on survey evidence. They do so in the context of taking issue with qualitative research conducted by Brannen and Nilsen (2002) concerning how British young people and young Norwegians think about the future. This article compares the respective studies in greater depth. First, it examines the different aims of the respective studies and their conceptualizations. Second, it looks at issues of methodological difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon biographical-narrative research involving case studies of British families in which four generations were alive at the same time, the article examines change and continuity among fathers and sons, focusing in detail upon one family. The article examines the scheduling of fatherhood in the life course of three generations; the ways in which they talked about fathering' and fatherhood when their children were young; and the transmission of fathering within families. The particular case, a family of low-skilled men, demonstrates how structural changes and cultural resources combine in the negotiation of a model of hands-on fathering' in the current father generation. The article draws out some theoretical aspects of the analysis; in particular, how structural and cultural changes and gender intersect differently for different social classes. The theoretical insights depend upon a biographical approach which emphasized the changing context and the ways in which each generation acted upon that context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intergenerational transfers in families are increasingly a topic of interest in the context of reductions in the welfare state and increased longevity. This paper draws upon data from a study of four-generation families which afforded an opportunity to examine the transfer of material and care resources across family generations. It explores ways in which family members from different generations talked about family obligations and the relevance of the concept ‘cultures of transmission’ in classifying these discourses. It addresses the questions: How far are cultures of transmission familial in the sense of typifying particular families? And how far are they shaped by life course phase and by historical context? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we seek to explore a tendency in current sociological thought to highlight notions of choice and autonomy in writings about contemporary Western societies. We wish to draw attention to some of the consequences of leaving out discussions of the structural aspects of societies and people's lives, for individuals as well as for the development and application of sociological theory and its ability to understand the connection between history and individual biography. Our discussion is based on qualitative research that we have conducted in recent years, and draws on focus groups with young people in Norway and Britain. From this critique we seek to demonstrate how concepts that take account of context and structure as well individual subjectivities can create a better ‘fit’ with complex and diverse realties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reproblematizes time in relation to the concept of the `extended present' by drawing upon empirical material from a methodological study of work-family boundaries, the article examines the effects of workplace change in a call centre on employees' negotiation of these boundaries. Through detailed analysis of one of the cases discussed it shows how a female employee and her partner blur the boundaries between work and family life and how the woman concerned felt that she exercised control over time but also felt driven by it. The article sheds insight into the conditions that generate feelings of autonomy and its illusory nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws upon new analysis from a qualitative study of four-generation English families. It takes a historical generational perspective and explores perspectives on the childhoods of three generations of women. The article also offers a number of theoretical and methodological reflections upon the interpretation of life stories: the need to make sense of accounts in relation to life course phase; the need to examine the nature of the account being given and the time frames to which different parts of an account refer; the problems in treating accounts as reflections of historical conditions; and the difficulties in contextualizing accounts where context is assumed or ignored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines three bodies of theory: individualization, the lifecourse, and concepts of time. It interrogates these theories with respect to the following questions: how young people speak about the future: and the bearing of young people's situations and time perspectives upon the way they envisage the transition to adulthood, It draws upon empirical research from a five-country European study, in particular material from focus group discussions conducted with young people in two west-European countries, Britain and Norway. It analyses variations in young peoples' ways of thinking about their future lives, and proposes. as a basis for further research, three ideal typical models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the orientations of young people to family and employment. Work and family in Europe; Views of young adults on family; Conclusions; Implications.

This article considers the theoretical and empirical neglect of children's contribution to household work. It draws upon a two-stage study of the transfer of responsibility from parents to their sixteen year-olds: a questionnaire survey of 843 young people and an interview study of parents and young people in 64 households. It considers the frequency and nature of young people's contribution to housework and changes taking place between the questionnaire and the interview studies, and makes the distinction between family-care and self-care. Drawing on the interview accounts, it examines parents' general expectations of young people in respect of housework and, more specifically, the ways these negotiations work out in practice with respect to a number of criteria - gender, cultural values, age and birth order, mothers' employment and young people's employment and education. These factors were also found to structure the survey data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the effects of research on participants. Participants are affected at all stages of the research process from the theoretical framework to the research methods and the findings themselves. Different research designs and methods serve to construct participants as subjects of research in different ways. From a methodological standpoint the success of research is dependent on the willingness of people to take part and their definitions of what participation means. In the study discussed in the paper the participants' motivations were clearly apparent: mothers' concern about their children's development and their desire to gain an understanding of the broader political and practical context of day care. The article has suggested the ways in which research participants are socially constructed through the theoretical focus of the research, in this case the taken for granted assumption that the mother was the spokesperson for the household and the omission of fathers as key participants. It has suggested that such omissions have political as well as methodological consequences since they reinforce dominant ideologies of motherhood and fatherhood. By failing to engage men as fathers in the research process itself they also prevent the possibility of innovation in individual households.

This note examines some research issues raised by stud,es of sensitive topics and the disclosure of highly personal and confidential reformation. The first part focuses on the research method of in-depth interviewing and covers some theoretical and methodological problems associated with the method, together with a discussion of some strategies adopted by researchers and respondents in the interview setting. The second part discusses some of the hazards of this type of research and argues for the need to protect respondents and researchers alike. These issues are discussed with reference to the author's own fieldwork experiences of three research projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]