Graham Crow
Biographic Data
| ID | 156208 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Graham Crow |
| GIVEN NAMES | Graham |
| FAMILY NAME | Crow |
| SIGNATURE | CROW G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Southampton |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8225-4378 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 66 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 487 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 65 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
Vignette Research: Research Methods
Vignette research is an innovative qualitative, narrative and phenomenological research methodology that has gained international recognition, sparking interest from a wide range of individuals and institutions in global contexts. Vignettes are concise narratives, which capture human experiences in real life settings. They reveal surprising or intriguing facets and intangible moments. The experiential narratives resonate with readers and reduce t…
Amusing and Fun', 'Arresting', or 'The Wrong Pictures'? Methodological Lessons from Using Photo-Elicitation in a Study of Academic Retirement
This article reports on the use of photo-elicitation in a mixed methods study of academics' later careers and retirement. Interviewees, who were either in their later career stage or retired from university work, were asked during the interviews to discuss the resonance that pre-selected images had with their understanding of retirement. Despite reluctance on some participants' part to engage with the images, the majority took the opportunity to …
Historical Perspectives on British Sociology's Future: An Interview with John Scott
John Scott's career as a sociologist spans more than 50 years, during which time he has written or edited more than 40 books among a total of more than 200 publications. The breadth of his interests and his service to the discipline in various roles including as President of the British Sociological Association and chair of the Sociology sub-panel for the Research Assessment Exercise and the Research Excellence Framework make him particularly wel…
In search of role models of successful academic retirement
Academics retire with varying degrees of enthusiasm or reluctance, as is apparent in a variety of data sources. Autobiographies and biographies of academics report diverse trajectories, from treating retirement as a fresh start to continuing or even intensified scholarly endeavour. Fractional contracts and flexible retirement ages in most United Kingdom universities have expanded the range of possibilities available to the latest generation of re…
Hedgehogs, foxes and other embodiments of academics’ research career trajectories
Academics’ career trajectories follow diverse paths, and understanding them is challenging. Animal metaphors, notably the contrast between hedgehogs and foxes, have helped to distinguish patterns but need reappraisal as universities change. Reflecting on prominent sociologists’ careers, the argument is developed that academic trajectories differ according to whether work is blue skies or applied, and how it relates to innovation and consolidation…
Collaborative research and the emotions of overstatement: Four cautionary tales but no funeral
Collaborative research has grown remarkably in social science, bringing many benefits. Arguments for collaborative research are sometimes overstated, however, and this risks counterproductive consequences. In particular, the presentation of how collaborative research relates to other approaches to research may be problematic. Four issues are explored, concerning the potential consequences of: paying insufficient attention to history; conflating d…
A rejoinder to Hanley and Flinders
Anxious women or complacent men? Anxiety of statistics in a sample of UK sociology undergraduates
One of the most commonly identified obstacles in the learning-teaching of quantitative material is statistics anxiety. Of the factors analysed in relation to statistics anxiety, age and gender have received a substantial proportion of the research focus. Yet there is limited work that systematically examines the possibility of an interrelationship, or interaction, between age and gender and reported statistics anxiety. This article aims to direct…
Biographical interviews and imagined futures essay writing: Users of two methods in conversation
This article reports on a conversation between users of two research methods, biographical interviews and imagined futures essay writing. A dialogue form is used to discuss these methods and their potential to be combined. The value of comparing research methods is discussed, and then the two methods are described and points of connection and contrast are explored. Although one method emphasises looking back while the other looks forward, the two…
Norbert Elias's extended theory of community: From established/outsider relations to the gendered we-I balance
Norbert Elias and John Scotson's analysis of the interconnection between positive and negative community identities in The Established and the Outsiders is well-known. Elias's subsequent writing about community offers a more rounded analysis, going beyond established/outsider configurations by exploring community's gendered character and the forces involved in the 'we-I balance' that counteract the pervasive process of individualization. Elias's …
Domestic Sphere
The domestic sphere is associated with privacy, family, intimacy and self‐expression. Domestic life takes place away from the public gaze but is nevertheless associated with public issues of gender, work, and safety. The history of domestic life reveals that a variety of social and economic forces have prompted significant change over time in what home life involves and the types of people who participate in it.
Revisiting Divisions of Labour: The Impacts and Legacies of a Modern Sociological Classic
Race, Community and Conflictas a methodological classic
Rex and Moore's Race, Community and Conflict: A Study of Sparkbrook has the status of a modern sociological classic. The argument presented here is that this can be attributed in part to its methodological underpinnings. The use of a combination of methods to collect material on the lives of Sparkbrook residents in the 1960s allowed a more rounded account to be developed than would have been possible had only the originally planned survey been un…
The Sociology of Community
The Sociology of Community
Community is one of British sociology’s most enduring concepts and fields of study. Its history has been an uneven one, with periods of both vibrancy and dormancy. At one particularly low point Philip Abrams perceived that the concept of community was ‘slowly being evicted from British sociology’ (1978, p. 13). He was in a good position to judge, from his vantage point as editor of the British Sociological Association’s journal Sociology as well …
Community Life
First published in 1994. The sociology of community is currently undergoing something of a revival, and this book has been written with the aim of contributing to this process in a number of ways. First of all, it draws attention to the burgeoning literature on sociological aspects of community life. Secondly, its bring together the various studies considered here into a more coherent whole than they possess as simply a collection of separate pie…
But is it Innovation: The Development of Novel Methodological Approaches in Qualitative Research
Focusing on three case studies of novel approaches about which claims of innovation have been made, this paper explores the process of methodological innovation and the response of the social science community to innovations. The study focuses on three specific innovations: ‘netnography’, ‘child-led research’ and ‘creative methods' and draws on interview data with researchers who have developed these approaches and those who have engaged with the…
Going back to re-study communities: Challenges and opportunities
Community re-studies can inform our understanding of what members of communities want from research and the extent to which they feel that they get it. The history of community research suggests that what is expected of researchers by community members can differ from what it is felt that they actually deliver, especially if the published reports have a critical edge. Challenges relating to this legacy of previous studies can be encountered by re…
Methodological innovation and research ethics: Forces in Tension or Forces in Harmony
This article is an exploration of the tensions inherent in the interaction between ethics and methodological innovation. The authors focus on three cases of innovation in qualitative research methods in the social sciences: netnography, child-led research and creative research methods. Using thematic analysis of data collected through semi-structured interviews with the innovators and commentators on the innovations, they discuss issues of ethica…
Working with material from the Sheppey archive
This article reflects on the experience of working with archived data in the Living and Working on Sheppey project which revisited material from Ray Pahl’s research on the Isle of Sheppey, published in the modern sociological classic, Divisions of Labour (1984). The article considers the reasons for revisiting archived material and some of the opportunities and challenges of working with archived material. For this discussion, we focus on one par…
Our work is about trying to create democratic learning spaces: An Interview with Angie Hart, Community University Partnership Programme, University of Brighton
Our work is about trying to create democratic learning spaces":An Interview with Angie Hart, Community University Partnership Programme, University of Brighton Graham Crow (bio) and Angie Hart Angie Hart is the academic director of the award-winning Community University Partnership Programme at the University of Brighton. She is also professor of child, family and community health in the School of Nursing and Midwifery in the Faculty of Health an…
Community Re-Studies: Lessons and Prospects
Community re-studies have played an important role in the development of knowledge about social relationships and social change although they have had a chequered history. Assessments of their value vary according to whether they are approached as replications of earlier studies or as a different type of project. Re-studies have the potential to undermine the credibility of earlier studies but they can also fill in gaps and provide the basis for …
The Challenges and Opportunities of Re-Studying Community on Sheppey: Young People's Imagined Futures
The 'Living and Working on Sheppey: Past, Present and Future' project took its starting point from the research undertaken by Ray Pahl and his team three decades ago on the Isle of Sheppey. In 2009-11, we revisited some of Pahl's archived material, collected new (including some replicated) data and produced new materials, working collaboratively with community members of the Blue Town Heritage Centre on Sheppey. In this article, we examine the me…
Community Re-Studies and Social Change
Community
“Community” is concerned with people having something in common, although there is much debate about precisely what that thing is. The most conventional approach relates to people sharing a geographical area (typically a neighborhood), an idea captured in references to local communities. Place is central to such an understanding because of the assumption that people are necessarily brought together by the fact of living in close proximity. This v…
The Use of the Concept of 'Strategy' in Recent Sociological Literature
One notable feature of recent sociological writing is the growing frequency with which actions are interpreted as forming part of a strategy. All sorts of social actors, from lowly individuals, through households, family businesses, social movements and classes, to mighty multi-national corporations and nation-states, have been represented as employing strategies, and sociologists' usage of the concept of 'strategy' is now sufficiently common to …
The Management of Confidentiality and Anonymity in Social Research
This article explores the ways in which social researchers manage issues of confidentiality and the contexts in which deliberate and accidental disclosures occur. The data are drawn from a qualitative study of social researchers’ practices in relation to informed consent. It comprised 31 individual interviews and six focus groups as well as invited email responses with researchers working with vulnerable groups or with an interest in research eth…
Neither Busybodies nor Nobodies: Managing Proximity and Distance in Neighbourly Relations
This article reflects on empirical findings from research into neighbour relations conducted in a small town on the south coast of England. Competing accounts exist of the changing nature of relations between neighbours, and of the sources of pressures for relations with neighbours to combine privacy and sociability. The empirical findings reported on here shed light on the reasons behind people's involvement with or detachment from neighbours, i…
Informed consent, gatekeepers and go‐betweens: Negotiating consent in child and youth‐orientated institutions
Gaining informed consent from research participants is widely regarded as central to ethical research practice. This article reports on research which sought to identify contemporary practice in this area amongst researchers working in fields where research participants are often constructed as vulnerable within the research process, and where their potential involvement tends to be mediated by institutional gatekeepers. Drawing on telephone inte…
Research Ethics and Data Quality: The Implications of Informed Consent
Patterns of research governance are changing rapidly in the field of social research. In current debates about these changes one issue of particular concern is the impact that new patterns of research governance will have on the quality of the data collected. The ‘optimistic’ scenario on this issue is that more ethical research practice will lead to better‐quality data, but a more ‘pessimistic’ scenario exists in which the unintended outcome is p…
Researching researchers: Lessons for Research Ethics
There is widespread debate about ethical practice in social research with most social researchers arguing that situational relativist approaches are appropriate for resolving the ethical issues that emerge. In this article, we draw on research conducted on an ESRC-funded study of informed consent in social research to explore the ethical issues that are raised when conducting research with one's peers. The study involved conducting focus groups a…
Friends, Neighbours and Distant Partners: Extending or Decentring Family Relationships
[No abstract]
Community Types, Community Typologies and Community Time
`Community' continues to be a key concept in social science, but frequently the types of community being identified are treated in an unsystematic way. Distinctions between community's spatial, social structural and interpretive dimensions go some way towards remedying this situation, but community's temporal dimension tends to be neglected. Considering `community time' as community's fourth dimension allows more sophisticated analyses of the int…
Changing perspectives on the insider/outsider distinction in community sociology
This article reports on a community study which explores the nature of the distinction between insiders and outsiders in contemporary community life. Although the presence of this distinction is reported in many community studies, detailed examination of how it operates in practice reveals that insider status is open to negotiation. A person's claims to be an insider may be based on other grounds besides length of residence, for example the degre…
Ray Pahl's Sociological Career: Fifty Years of Impact
The history of a discipline records the careers of its practitioners as well as providing an account their ideas. Studying these careers reveals much about the particular people and their work, and also provides insights into general questions such as how disciplines evolve, and how impact can be achieved amongst and beyond academic peers. This article focuses on the career of R. E. (Ray) Pahl. It argues that his position in British sociology ove…
Methodological innovation and research ethics: Forces in Tension or Forces in Harmony
This article is an exploration of the tensions inherent in the interaction between ethics and methodological innovation. The authors focus on three cases of innovation in qualitative research methods in the social sciences: netnography, child-led research and creative research methods. Using thematic analysis of data collected through semi-structured interviews with the innovators and commentators on the innovations, they discuss issues of ethica…
Informed Consent and the Research Process: Following Rules or Striking Balances
Gaining informed consent from people being researched is central to ethical research practice. There are, however, several factors that make the issue of informed consent problematic, especially in research involving members of groups that are commonly characterised as 'vulnerable' such as children and people with learning disabilities. This paper reports on a project funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) which was concerne…
Community Studies: Fifty Years of Theorization
This paper reviews the ways in which sociologists in the second half of the twentieth century attempted to make sense of the major trends unfolding in their societies. It focuses in particular on the way in which sociologists have responded to the legacy of the founding figures in terms of their identification of trends such as rationalization, bureaucratization, and proletarianization. The proliferation of other trends captured by words ending w…
Family Diversity and Change in Britain and Western Europe
The authors examine recent changes in family relationships in Britain and other countries in Western Europe. To begin with, the authors focus on demographic change, in particular the increased diversity in people's partnership behavior. In considering theoretical accounts that have been given for these changes, the authors explore the ways in which the character of partnership commitment is altering. Particular attention is paid to the growth of …
Community Re-Studies: Lessons and Prospects
Community re-studies have played an important role in the development of knowledge about social relationships and social change although they have had a chequered history. Assessments of their value vary according to whether they are approached as replications of earlier studies or as a different type of project. Re-studies have the potential to undermine the credibility of earlier studies but they can also fill in gaps and provide the basis for …
Privatization, home-centredness and leisure
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 m…
The Challenges and Opportunities of Re-Studying Community on Sheppey: Young People's Imagined Futures
The 'Living and Working on Sheppey: Past, Present and Future' project took its starting point from the research undertaken by Ray Pahl and his team three decades ago on the Isle of Sheppey. In 2009-11, we revisited some of Pahl's archived material, collected new (including some replicated) data and produced new materials, working collaboratively with community members of the Blue Town Heritage Centre on Sheppey. In this article, we examine the me…
Recent rural community studies
This article examines recent rural community studies by considering, in turn: comparisons, methods, theories and community studies as vehicles for developing social scientific arguments. ‘Recent’ is defined as from 1980 onwards. ‘Rural’ is taken to include research conducted in country towns. And ‘community studies’ is understood as an inclusive term embracing various research methodologies. Because this field cannot be covered exhaustively, atte…
But is it Innovation: The Development of Novel Methodological Approaches in Qualitative Research
Focusing on three case studies of novel approaches about which claims of innovation have been made, this paper explores the process of methodological innovation and the response of the social science community to innovations. The study focuses on three specific innovations: ‘netnography’, ‘child-led research’ and ‘creative methods' and draws on interview data with researchers who have developed these approaches and those who have engaged with the…
Going back to re-study communities: Challenges and opportunities
Community re-studies can inform our understanding of what members of communities want from research and the extent to which they feel that they get it. The history of community research suggests that what is expected of researchers by community members can differ from what it is felt that they actually deliver, especially if the published reports have a critical edge. Challenges relating to this legacy of previous studies can be encountered by re…
Developing sociological arguments through community studies
This paper argues that community studies remain an effective medium for the development of sociological arguments, despite well-known criticisms of the genre. Several features of community studies help to explain the continuing popularity of the approach among researchers and audiences, even though they are at odds with the discipline's supposed 'McDonaldization'. First, community studies have the capability of 'placing' sociological arguments. S…
Working with material from the Sheppey archive
This article reflects on the experience of working with archived data in the Living and Working on Sheppey project which revisited material from Ray Pahl’s research on the Isle of Sheppey, published in the modern sociological classic, Divisions of Labour (1984). The article considers the reasons for revisiting archived material and some of the opportunities and challenges of working with archived material. For this discussion, we focus on one par…
Social Solidarities
This study explores the concept of social solidarity by elaborating on five propositions about mutually supportive social relationships. These five propositions are that social solidarity was a key issue for the founding figures of the discipline of sociology in the 19th century; that this sociological interest in social solidarity has continued down to the present day; that in the development of sociological analyses of social solidarity there h…
Rethinking Critical Theory: Emancipation in the Age of Global Social Movements
The Art of Sociological Argument
Home and Family: Creating the Domestic Sphere
Examining the role of home and family in the latter part of the 20th century, this book covers such subjects as the single parent, institutions and homes, the role of the mother in the family, and dom
The Use of the Concept of 'Strategy' in Recent Sociological Literature
One notable feature of recent sociological writing is the growing frequency with which actions are interpreted as forming part of a strategy. All sorts of social actors, from lowly individuals, through households, family businesses, social movements and classes, to mighty multi-national corporations and nation-states, have been represented as employing strategies, and sociologists' usage of the concept of 'strategy' is now sufficiently common to …
Political Powerlessness: Agricultural Workers in Post-War England
Privatization, home-centredness and leisure
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 m…
Working with rural communities
Lone Parenthood: Coping with Constraints and Making Opportunities in Single-Parent Families
Familiar Exploitation: A New Analysis of Marriage in Contemporary Western Societies
Rethinking Critical Theory: Emancipation in the Age of Global Social Movements
Community Types, Community Typologies and Community Time
`Community' continues to be a key concept in social science, but frequently the types of community being identified are treated in an unsystematic way. Distinctions between community's spatial, social structural and interpretive dimensions go some way towards remedying this situation, but community's temporal dimension tends to be neglected. Considering `community time' as community's fourth dimension allows more sophisticated analyses of the int…
Taking Stock of Recent Rural Studies in the UK: A Reply to Miller and Cloke
Comparative Sociology and Social Theory: Beyond the Three Worlds
Recent developments have made obsolete the division of the globe into three worlds of capitalist, state socialist and underdeveloped countries. This book traces the interconnectedness of the 'disorgan
Winners' and 'Losers' in Social Transformations
The language of 'winners' and 'losers' is frequently deployed in the discussion of social transformations, but such analyses are less straightforward than they seem. Disagreements exist about which groups might reasonably be designated as 'winners' and 'losers', what the criteria are for identifying a gain or a loss, what time frames are appropriate for the calculation of gains and losses, and what sort of relationship exists between 'winners' an…
Developing sociological arguments through community studies
This paper argues that community studies remain an effective medium for the development of sociological arguments, despite well-known criticisms of the genre. Several features of community studies help to explain the continuing popularity of the approach among researchers and audiences, even though they are at odds with the discipline's supposed 'McDonaldization'. First, community studies have the capability of 'placing' sociological arguments. S…
Family Diversity and Change in Britain and Western Europe
The authors examine recent changes in family relationships in Britain and other countries in Western Europe. To begin with, the authors focus on demographic change, in particular the increased diversity in people's partnership behavior. In considering theoretical accounts that have been given for these changes, the authors explore the ways in which the character of partnership commitment is altering. Particular attention is paid to the growth of …
Changing perspectives on the insider/outsider distinction in community sociology
This article reports on a community study which explores the nature of the distinction between insiders and outsiders in contemporary community life. Although the presence of this distinction is reported in many community studies, detailed examination of how it operates in practice reveals that insider status is open to negotiation. A person's claims to be an insider may be based on other grounds besides length of residence, for example the degre…
Introduction to the Rapid Response on the British Royal Family and its place in the contemporary world
Families, Households, and Society
Patterns of household and family life are changing radically, leading sociologists to develop new conceptualisations and understandings of the relationships involved. This book examines the character of these changes, exploring the growing diversity there is in people's domestic circumstances. It is particularly concerned with the blurred boundaries between households and families, and the tensions that can arise in the solidarities and obligatio…
Community Studies: Fifty Years of Theorization
This paper reviews the ways in which sociologists in the second half of the twentieth century attempted to make sense of the major trends unfolding in their societies. It focuses in particular on the way in which sociologists have responded to the legacy of the founding figures in terms of their identification of trends such as rationalization, bureaucratization, and proletarianization. The proliferation of other trends captured by words ending w…
Thinking and working sociologically: A call for contributions
Neither Busybodies nor Nobodies: Managing Proximity and Distance in Neighbourly Relations
This article reflects on empirical findings from research into neighbour relations conducted in a small town on the south coast of England. Competing accounts exist of the changing nature of relations between neighbours, and of the sources of pressures for relations with neighbours to combine privacy and sociability. The empirical findings reported on here shed light on the reasons behind people's involvement with or detachment from neighbours, i…
Social Conceptions of Time: Structure and Process in Work and Everyday Life
Extended Reviews: People like Us, Places like Ours: Developments in Urban Sociology: Urban Bonds: Social Relationships in An Inner City Neighbourhood
The Art of Sociological Argument
Towards a Sociology of Endings
Sociological commentaries on the future are frequently built around the claim that we are witnessing the beginning of a new social phenomenon as a result of an existing one coming to an end. Recent examples of discussions framed in terms of new beginnings include reference to the emergence of new forms of family, community, politics, slavery and the international division of labour, while the focus on endings includes analyses of the end of marri…
Research Ethics and Data Quality: The Implications of Informed Consent
Patterns of research governance are changing rapidly in the field of social research. In current debates about these changes one issue of particular concern is the impact that new patterns of research governance will have on the quality of the data collected. The ‘optimistic’ scenario on this issue is that more ethical research practice will lead to better‐quality data, but a more ‘pessimistic’ scenario exists in which the unintended outcome is p…
Sociology (57 works) · Political science (32 works) · Social science (28 works) · Epistemology (27 works) · Psychology (26 works) · Social Psychology (18 works) · Law (17 works) · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice (15 works) · Computer Science (14 works) · Public relations (12 works)