Henrietta O’connor
Biographic Data
| ID | 265128 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Henrietta O’connor |
| GIVEN NAMES | Henrietta |
| FAMILY NAME | O’connor |
| SIGNATURE | O’CONNOR H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Leicester |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1851-6307 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 320 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
From Nottinghamshire to Notting Hill: Contemporary Lessons from Pearl Jephcott’s Ethnographies of ‘Troubled Areas’
The work of largely forgotten sociological researcher Pearl Jephcott is increasingly being recognised for its methodological complexity and innovation, and community-orientated approach. Here we revisit two of Jephcott’s lesser-known works. Yet again both working around issues that attracted great sociological interest in the 1950s and 1960s but were in many ways pioneered by Jephcott. The authors begin by exploring her study of youth delinquency…
Returning to YTS: The long-term impact of youth training scheme participation
Shortly after leaving Leicester for Scotland Andy Furlong began to wrestle with the complexities of school to work transitions as captured by the 1986 sweep of the British Cohort Study (BCS). His analysis was published as Schooling for Jobs. Although a relatively short text, this book was vitally important as it documented in detail, for the first time, the changes to career preparations of British secondary school children at the mid-point of a …
Methodological Uncertainty and Multi-Strategy Analysis: Case Study of the Long-Term Effects of Government Sponsored Youth Training on Occupational Mobility
Sociological practitioners often face considerable methodological uncertainty when undertaking a quantitative analysis. This methodological uncertainty encompasses both data construction (e.g. defining variables) and analysis (e.g. selecting and specifying a modelling procedure). Methodological uncertainty can lead to results that are fragile and arbitrary. Yet, many practitioners may be unaware of the potential scale of methodological uncertaint…
Pearl Jephcott: Reflections, Resurgence and Replications
The social sciences are replete with past research studies, worthy of a ‘second look’ but which have often become lost in the mists of academic time. Once cutting-edge research produced by innovative researchers seemingly passed over in pursuit of the ‘new’. In this introductory paper, we reflect on why valuable studies have come to be disregarded by focusing on the work of Pearl Jephcott. We offer a brief biographical sketch before reflecting on…
Exploitation or opportunity? Student perceptions of internships in enhancing employability skills
Internships are now widely promoted as a valuable means of enhancing graduate employability. However, little is known about student perceptions of internships. Drawing on data from a pre-1992 university, two types of graduate are identified: engagers and disengagers. The engagers valued internship opportunities while the disengagers perceived these roles as exploitative and worthless. Few were able to distinguish paid, structured internship oppor…
Norbert Elias's Lost Research: Revisiting the Young Worker Project
Based on the re-discovery of a lost sociological project led by Norbert Elias at the University of Leicester, this book re-visits the project: The Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles. Norbert Elias's Lost Research makes use of the interview booklets documenting the lives of nearly 900 Leicester school leavers at the time, to give a unique account of Elias's only foray into large-scale, publicly funded research. Covering…
Bringing it 'Home'? Sociological Practice and the Practice of Sociology
Since Sociology was established in 1967, the journal has assumed a significant role in shaping the discipline. In the interim years it is often said that the very practice of sociology has now 'spun out' beyond the dedicated departments that were once the centres of sociological practice. This raises questions as to the relationship between sociology and other disciplines, questions that are compelling and arguably distinct from a welcome recogni…
Contextualising the Research Process: Using Interviewer Notes in the Secondary Analysis of Qualitative Data
In this paper we argue that for the secondary analysis of qualitative data to be effective, researchers need to subject any accompanying interviewer notes to the secondary analysis process. The secondary analysis of interviewer notes can provide important insight into the research process and the attitudes, experiences, and expectations of those collecting the data. Such information is essential if meaningful analyses are to be offered. Using int…
Norbert Elias and social theory
Reviewed by Henrietta O’Connor, David Ashton, and Daniel R. SmithNorbert Elias has recently been described as ‘the most important thinker you’ve never heard of’ (Pinker 2011, 59). Such a descriptio
Pearl Jephcott: The Legacy of a Forgotten Sociological Research Pioneer
While the lives and works of many sociologists have now been well documented, numerous sociologists at the 'coal face' of social research remain ignored. Consequently, beyond the contributions of those more 'well-known' scholars, considerably more needs to be done to examine the history of our discipline and reassess the significant contributions made by 'other' researchers so that we may reappraise what can be learnt from these 'pioneer scholars…
Notions of fantasy and reality in the adjustment to retirement
During the early 1960s, Norbert Elias led a research project on the adjustment of young workers to work situations and adult roles. The data from this project, which consisted of 851 interviews with young people, were recently rediscovered and the participants, now approaching retirement, were re-interviewed as part of a restudy. In this paper we argue, that, in the context of the dramatic changes to the transition to retirement that have taken p…
Beyond ‘average’ family life: A secondary analysis of atypicality in 1960s families
This article is based on data gathered in the 1960s, which included information on household composition and family formations. We explore different family formations and structures represented in this data and the meaning attached to issues around a number of ‘unusual’ family compositions encountered by the researchers at that time. We also examine the significance attached to atypical family units by both the respondents and the interviewers
The Ethical Dilemmas of Restudies in Researching Youth
Since 2000, we have been undertaking a restudy of Elias’s ‘Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles’ project (1962–64). We experienced a number of ethical dilemmas/questions in undertaking the restudy and in this article, we outline these and discuss how we resolved them as the project developed. In doing so, we focus our discussion around three central questions: ( i) how did we reuse this data and balance the conflict betw…
Ordinary Lives: Typical Stories' of Girls' Transitions in the 1960s and the 1980s
Since 2000 we have been engaged in restudies of transitions projects from the 1960s and 1980s and we have used historic data to problematise past experiences of school to work to question assumptions around complexity and linearity. Yet, in our own analyses, we have perhaps followed too closely the dominant transition discourses, concentrating only on those young people for whom transitions were not straightforward thus privileging the non-linear…
Revisiting Norbert Elias's Sociology of Community: Learning from the Leicester Re-Studies
Since 2001 we have been engaged in a re-study of three linked Leicester projects: The Employment of Married Women in a Leicester Factory (1959-1962), The Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles (1962-1964) and The Established and the Outsiders (1965). The three projects contain a number of striking overlaps, not least Elias's formulation of communities as figurations through which communal behavioural standards are establis…
Resisters, mimics and coincidentals: Intergenerational Influences on Childcare Values and Practices
The rapid increase in the rate of female participation in the labour market in the post-war period is a well-documented trend. However, the experiences of mothers balancing paid work and childcare responsibilities have received academic attention only in recent decades. Working class mothers, who have a long history of combining paid work and domestic responsibilities, have been neglected in the literature. There has also been a lack of research …
Utilizing data from a lost sociological project: Experiences, Insights, Promises
In 2000 data from a little known sociological study was 're-discovered', stored in an attic office. The archived data comprised original interview schedules that documented the early work experiences of Leicester's youth in the 1960s. Forty years on, the original respondents have been traced and re-interviewed as they make the transition from work to retirement. This article examines the complex methodological issues associated with reanalysing, …
Through the Interviewer's Lens: Representations of 1960s Households and Families in a Lost Sociological Study
In this paper we aim to use the interviewer notes from a lost sociological project (The Young Worker Project) to answer two broad, interrelated, questions: i) how was family life documented and represented by the researchers in their interviewer notes and ii) what does analysing interviewer notes in this way add to our understanding of families and households? The answers to these questions are considered in the context of a further question - wh…
Continuity and change in the experiences of transition from school to work
Using previously unanalysed data from Norbert Elias’s lost study of young workers in Leicester —the Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles (1962–1964), and data from a subsequent restudy of the same respondents in 2003–2005, this paper focuses on three main themes. First, we critically examine the concept of transition as it is currently used in education and youth research. We argue that the vast majority of what is writt…
Norbert Elias and the Lost Young Worker Project
Forty years ago, between 1962-1964, fieldwork was carried out on the research project Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles. Using archived materials relating to the little known Norbert Elias project, this paper has two aims. First, to introduce this largely unknown aspect of Elias’s work to a wider audience. Second, to explore in detail Elias’s contributions to the project by piecing together his ideas and hypotheses fr…
Parenting gone wired: Empowerment of New Mothers on the Internet
This is the authors' final draft of the paper published as Social and Cultural Geography, 2006, 7(2), pp.199-220. The definitive version is available from www.informaworld.com, via DOI: 10.1080/14649360600600528
Mothers in the making? Exploring liminality in cyber/space
This paper makes a case for cyberspace and geographical space coexisting simultaneously as an interconnected dyadic cyber/space combining the virtually real and the actually real. Based on empirical evidence from a study examining the role of the Internet in the life of new mothers, we investigate the simultaneity of online/onsite experiences through an exploration of cyberspace as a performative liminal space, one where the women 'tried out' dif…
Exploring Complex Transitions: Looking Back at the 'Golden Age' of From School to Work
Using data from a little known project, ' Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles', carried out in Leicester between 1962 and 1964, this article aims to re-examine the extent to which transitions during this time were complex, lengthy, non-linear and single-step and explores the assumed linearity and uncomplicated nature of school to work transitions in the 1960s. It is argued that earlier research on youth transitions has …
Online methods in geography educational research
Geographers are fully engaged in the debate surrounding the impact of new information and communication technologies (ICT) and there has been a proliferation of research on the impact of ICT on geo
My mum's thirty years out of date
It is now widely recognized that the use of the Internet as a source of self-help and support, particularly for health-related matters, is increasing. The recent growth in the number of websites aimed specifically at parents suggests that this group are increasingly accessing the Internet to seek information and advice not only for themselves but also for their children's health and well-being. This paper presents findings from the Cyberparents r…
Parenting gone wired: Empowerment of New Mothers on the Internet
This is the authors' final draft of the paper published as Social and Cultural Geography, 2006, 7(2), pp.199-220. The definitive version is available from www.informaworld.com, via DOI: 10.1080/14649360600600528
Mothers in the making? Exploring liminality in cyber/space
This paper makes a case for cyberspace and geographical space coexisting simultaneously as an interconnected dyadic cyber/space combining the virtually real and the actually real. Based on empirical evidence from a study examining the role of the Internet in the life of new mothers, we investigate the simultaneity of online/onsite experiences through an exploration of cyberspace as a performative liminal space, one where the women 'tried out' dif…
Exploring Complex Transitions: Looking Back at the 'Golden Age' of From School to Work
Using data from a little known project, ' Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles', carried out in Leicester between 1962 and 1964, this article aims to re-examine the extent to which transitions during this time were complex, lengthy, non-linear and single-step and explores the assumed linearity and uncomplicated nature of school to work transitions in the 1960s. It is argued that earlier research on youth transitions has …
My mum's thirty years out of date
It is now widely recognized that the use of the Internet as a source of self-help and support, particularly for health-related matters, is increasing. The recent growth in the number of websites aimed specifically at parents suggests that this group are increasingly accessing the Internet to seek information and advice not only for themselves but also for their children's health and well-being. This paper presents findings from the Cyberparents r…
Norbert Elias and the Lost Young Worker Project
Forty years ago, between 1962-1964, fieldwork was carried out on the research project Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles. Using archived materials relating to the little known Norbert Elias project, this paper has two aims. First, to introduce this largely unknown aspect of Elias’s work to a wider audience. Second, to explore in detail Elias’s contributions to the project by piecing together his ideas and hypotheses fr…
Cyber-Mothers: Online Synchronous Interviewing using Conferencing Software
The potential of the Internet as a valuable methodological tool for social science research is increasingly being recognised. This paper contributes to the debate surrounding virtual synchronous interviews and the value of online research. Specifically it introduces the use of a software conferencing technique - Hotline Connect - and discusses the implications of using the technique for Internet- based research. In particular issues of interview …
On‐line with e‐mums: Exploring the Internet as a medium for research
This paper contributes to the emerging debate about the value of on‐line research. Drawing on the experience of an Internet‐based Cyberparents project, it explores the possibilities and limitations of web‐based questionnaire surveys and on‐line synchronous interviews. It discusses some of the implications of conducting research in the virtual arena, with particular emphasis on sampling, on‐line interactions and computer‐mediated conversations. Al…
Revisiting Norbert Elias's Sociology of Community: Learning from the Leicester Re-Studies
Since 2001 we have been engaged in a re-study of three linked Leicester projects: The Employment of Married Women in a Leicester Factory (1959-1962), The Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles (1962-1964) and The Established and the Outsiders (1965). The three projects contain a number of striking overlaps, not least Elias's formulation of communities as figurations through which communal behavioural standards are establis…
Online methods in geography educational research
Geographers are fully engaged in the debate surrounding the impact of new information and communication technologies (ICT) and there has been a proliferation of research on the impact of ICT on geo
Pearl Jephcott: The Legacy of a Forgotten Sociological Research Pioneer
While the lives and works of many sociologists have now been well documented, numerous sociologists at the 'coal face' of social research remain ignored. Consequently, beyond the contributions of those more 'well-known' scholars, considerably more needs to be done to examine the history of our discipline and reassess the significant contributions made by 'other' researchers so that we may reappraise what can be learnt from these 'pioneer scholars…
Continuity and change in the experiences of transition from school to work
Using previously unanalysed data from Norbert Elias’s lost study of young workers in Leicester —the Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles (1962–1964), and data from a subsequent restudy of the same respondents in 2003–2005, this paper focuses on three main themes. First, we critically examine the concept of transition as it is currently used in education and youth research. We argue that the vast majority of what is writt…
Notions of fantasy and reality in the adjustment to retirement
During the early 1960s, Norbert Elias led a research project on the adjustment of young workers to work situations and adult roles. The data from this project, which consisted of 851 interviews with young people, were recently rediscovered and the participants, now approaching retirement, were re-interviewed as part of a restudy. In this paper we argue, that, in the context of the dramatic changes to the transition to retirement that have taken p…
Utilizing data from a lost sociological project: Experiences, Insights, Promises
In 2000 data from a little known sociological study was 're-discovered', stored in an attic office. The archived data comprised original interview schedules that documented the early work experiences of Leicester's youth in the 1960s. Forty years on, the original respondents have been traced and re-interviewed as they make the transition from work to retirement. This article examines the complex methodological issues associated with reanalysing, …
Bringing it 'Home'? Sociological Practice and the Practice of Sociology
Since Sociology was established in 1967, the journal has assumed a significant role in shaping the discipline. In the interim years it is often said that the very practice of sociology has now 'spun out' beyond the dedicated departments that were once the centres of sociological practice. This raises questions as to the relationship between sociology and other disciplines, questions that are compelling and arguably distinct from a welcome recogni…
Exploitation or opportunity? Student perceptions of internships in enhancing employability skills
Internships are now widely promoted as a valuable means of enhancing graduate employability. However, little is known about student perceptions of internships. Drawing on data from a pre-1992 university, two types of graduate are identified: engagers and disengagers. The engagers valued internship opportunities while the disengagers perceived these roles as exploitative and worthless. Few were able to distinguish paid, structured internship oppor…
Through the Interviewer's Lens: Representations of 1960s Households and Families in a Lost Sociological Study
In this paper we aim to use the interviewer notes from a lost sociological project (The Young Worker Project) to answer two broad, interrelated, questions: i) how was family life documented and represented by the researchers in their interviewer notes and ii) what does analysing interviewer notes in this way add to our understanding of families and households? The answers to these questions are considered in the context of a further question - wh…
Pearl Jephcott: Reflections, Resurgence and Replications
The social sciences are replete with past research studies, worthy of a ‘second look’ but which have often become lost in the mists of academic time. Once cutting-edge research produced by innovative researchers seemingly passed over in pursuit of the ‘new’. In this introductory paper, we reflect on why valuable studies have come to be disregarded by focusing on the work of Pearl Jephcott. We offer a brief biographical sketch before reflecting on…
The Ethical Dilemmas of Restudies in Researching Youth
Since 2000, we have been undertaking a restudy of Elias’s ‘Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles’ project (1962–64). We experienced a number of ethical dilemmas/questions in undertaking the restudy and in this article, we outline these and discuss how we resolved them as the project developed. In doing so, we focus our discussion around three central questions: ( i) how did we reuse this data and balance the conflict betw…
Ordinary Lives: Typical Stories' of Girls' Transitions in the 1960s and the 1980s
Since 2000 we have been engaged in restudies of transitions projects from the 1960s and 1980s and we have used historic data to problematise past experiences of school to work to question assumptions around complexity and linearity. Yet, in our own analyses, we have perhaps followed too closely the dominant transition discourses, concentrating only on those young people for whom transitions were not straightforward thus privileging the non-linear…
Resisters, mimics and coincidentals: Intergenerational Influences on Childcare Values and Practices
The rapid increase in the rate of female participation in the labour market in the post-war period is a well-documented trend. However, the experiences of mothers balancing paid work and childcare responsibilities have received academic attention only in recent decades. Working class mothers, who have a long history of combining paid work and domestic responsibilities, have been neglected in the literature. There has also been a lack of research …
Returning to YTS: The long-term impact of youth training scheme participation
Shortly after leaving Leicester for Scotland Andy Furlong began to wrestle with the complexities of school to work transitions as captured by the 1986 sweep of the British Cohort Study (BCS). His analysis was published as Schooling for Jobs. Although a relatively short text, this book was vitally important as it documented in detail, for the first time, the changes to career preparations of British secondary school children at the mid-point of a …
Contextualising the Research Process: Using Interviewer Notes in the Secondary Analysis of Qualitative Data
In this paper we argue that for the secondary analysis of qualitative data to be effective, researchers need to subject any accompanying interviewer notes to the secondary analysis process. The secondary analysis of interviewer notes can provide important insight into the research process and the attitudes, experiences, and expectations of those collecting the data. Such information is essential if meaningful analyses are to be offered. Using int…
Beyond ‘average’ family life: A secondary analysis of atypicality in 1960s families
This article is based on data gathered in the 1960s, which included information on household composition and family formations. We explore different family formations and structures represented in this data and the meaning attached to issues around a number of ‘unusual’ family compositions encountered by the researchers at that time. We also examine the significance attached to atypical family units by both the respondents and the interviewers
Cyber-Mothers: Online Synchronous Interviewing using Conferencing Software
The potential of the Internet as a valuable methodological tool for social science research is increasingly being recognised. This paper contributes to the debate surrounding virtual synchronous interviews and the value of online research. Specifically it introduces the use of a software conferencing technique - Hotline Connect - and discusses the implications of using the technique for Internet- based research. In particular issues of interview …
Work and the Diaspora: Locating Irish Workers in the British Labour Market
Irish migrant workers still make a significant contribution to the UK labour force, but this contribution is confined to particular occupation and industry groups. This paper begins with a brief review of the literature on Irish workers employment and an argument is developed that the work of Irish-born people in Britain is still both racialised and gendered. Then, using data from the UK Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS), the work experiences …
On‐line with e‐mums: Exploring the Internet as a medium for research
This paper contributes to the emerging debate about the value of on‐line research. Drawing on the experience of an Internet‐based Cyberparents project, it explores the possibilities and limitations of web‐based questionnaire surveys and on‐line synchronous interviews. It discusses some of the implications of conducting research in the virtual arena, with particular emphasis on sampling, on‐line interactions and computer‐mediated conversations. Al…
Online methods in geography educational research
Geographers are fully engaged in the debate surrounding the impact of new information and communication technologies (ICT) and there has been a proliferation of research on the impact of ICT on geo
My mum's thirty years out of date
It is now widely recognized that the use of the Internet as a source of self-help and support, particularly for health-related matters, is increasing. The recent growth in the number of websites aimed specifically at parents suggests that this group are increasingly accessing the Internet to seek information and advice not only for themselves but also for their children's health and well-being. This paper presents findings from the Cyberparents r…
Mothers in the making? Exploring liminality in cyber/space
This paper makes a case for cyberspace and geographical space coexisting simultaneously as an interconnected dyadic cyber/space combining the virtually real and the actually real. Based on empirical evidence from a study examining the role of the Internet in the life of new mothers, we investigate the simultaneity of online/onsite experiences through an exploration of cyberspace as a performative liminal space, one where the women 'tried out' dif…
Exploring Complex Transitions: Looking Back at the 'Golden Age' of From School to Work
Using data from a little known project, ' Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles', carried out in Leicester between 1962 and 1964, this article aims to re-examine the extent to which transitions during this time were complex, lengthy, non-linear and single-step and explores the assumed linearity and uncomplicated nature of school to work transitions in the 1960s. It is argued that earlier research on youth transitions has …
Norbert Elias and the Lost Young Worker Project
Forty years ago, between 1962-1964, fieldwork was carried out on the research project Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles. Using archived materials relating to the little known Norbert Elias project, this paper has two aims. First, to introduce this largely unknown aspect of Elias’s work to a wider audience. Second, to explore in detail Elias’s contributions to the project by piecing together his ideas and hypotheses fr…
Parenting gone wired: Empowerment of New Mothers on the Internet
This is the authors' final draft of the paper published as Social and Cultural Geography, 2006, 7(2), pp.199-220. The definitive version is available from www.informaworld.com, via DOI: 10.1080/14649360600600528
Continuity and change in the experiences of transition from school to work
Using previously unanalysed data from Norbert Elias’s lost study of young workers in Leicester —the Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles (1962–1964), and data from a subsequent restudy of the same respondents in 2003–2005, this paper focuses on three main themes. First, we critically examine the concept of transition as it is currently used in education and youth research. We argue that the vast majority of what is writt…
Through the Interviewer's Lens: Representations of 1960s Households and Families in a Lost Sociological Study
In this paper we aim to use the interviewer notes from a lost sociological project (The Young Worker Project) to answer two broad, interrelated, questions: i) how was family life documented and represented by the researchers in their interviewer notes and ii) what does analysing interviewer notes in this way add to our understanding of families and households? The answers to these questions are considered in the context of a further question - wh…
Utilizing data from a lost sociological project: Experiences, Insights, Promises
In 2000 data from a little known sociological study was 're-discovered', stored in an attic office. The archived data comprised original interview schedules that documented the early work experiences of Leicester's youth in the 1960s. Forty years on, the original respondents have been traced and re-interviewed as they make the transition from work to retirement. This article examines the complex methodological issues associated with reanalysing, …
Resisters, mimics and coincidentals: Intergenerational Influences on Childcare Values and Practices
The rapid increase in the rate of female participation in the labour market in the post-war period is a well-documented trend. However, the experiences of mothers balancing paid work and childcare responsibilities have received academic attention only in recent decades. Working class mothers, who have a long history of combining paid work and domestic responsibilities, have been neglected in the literature. There has also been a lack of research …
Revisiting Norbert Elias's Sociology of Community: Learning from the Leicester Re-Studies
Since 2001 we have been engaged in a re-study of three linked Leicester projects: The Employment of Married Women in a Leicester Factory (1959-1962), The Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles (1962-1964) and The Established and the Outsiders (1965). The three projects contain a number of striking overlaps, not least Elias's formulation of communities as figurations through which communal behavioural standards are establis…
Beyond ‘average’ family life: A secondary analysis of atypicality in 1960s families
This article is based on data gathered in the 1960s, which included information on household composition and family formations. We explore different family formations and structures represented in this data and the meaning attached to issues around a number of ‘unusual’ family compositions encountered by the researchers at that time. We also examine the significance attached to atypical family units by both the respondents and the interviewers
The Ethical Dilemmas of Restudies in Researching Youth
Since 2000, we have been undertaking a restudy of Elias’s ‘Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles’ project (1962–64). We experienced a number of ethical dilemmas/questions in undertaking the restudy and in this article, we outline these and discuss how we resolved them as the project developed. In doing so, we focus our discussion around three central questions: ( i) how did we reuse this data and balance the conflict betw…
Ordinary Lives: Typical Stories' of Girls' Transitions in the 1960s and the 1980s
Since 2000 we have been engaged in restudies of transitions projects from the 1960s and 1980s and we have used historic data to problematise past experiences of school to work to question assumptions around complexity and linearity. Yet, in our own analyses, we have perhaps followed too closely the dominant transition discourses, concentrating only on those young people for whom transitions were not straightforward thus privileging the non-linear…
Notions of fantasy and reality in the adjustment to retirement
During the early 1960s, Norbert Elias led a research project on the adjustment of young workers to work situations and adult roles. The data from this project, which consisted of 851 interviews with young people, were recently rediscovered and the participants, now approaching retirement, were re-interviewed as part of a restudy. In this paper we argue, that, in the context of the dramatic changes to the transition to retirement that have taken p…
Contextualising the Research Process: Using Interviewer Notes in the Secondary Analysis of Qualitative Data
In this paper we argue that for the secondary analysis of qualitative data to be effective, researchers need to subject any accompanying interviewer notes to the secondary analysis process. The secondary analysis of interviewer notes can provide important insight into the research process and the attitudes, experiences, and expectations of those collecting the data. Such information is essential if meaningful analyses are to be offered. Using int…
Norbert Elias and social theory
Reviewed by Henrietta O’Connor, David Ashton, and Daniel R. SmithNorbert Elias has recently been described as ‘the most important thinker you’ve never heard of’ (Pinker 2011, 59). Such a descriptio
Pearl Jephcott: The Legacy of a Forgotten Sociological Research Pioneer
While the lives and works of many sociologists have now been well documented, numerous sociologists at the 'coal face' of social research remain ignored. Consequently, beyond the contributions of those more 'well-known' scholars, considerably more needs to be done to examine the history of our discipline and reassess the significant contributions made by 'other' researchers so that we may reappraise what can be learnt from these 'pioneer scholars…
Norbert Elias's Lost Research: Revisiting the Young Worker Project
Based on the re-discovery of a lost sociological project led by Norbert Elias at the University of Leicester, this book re-visits the project: The Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles. Norbert Elias's Lost Research makes use of the interview booklets documenting the lives of nearly 900 Leicester school leavers at the time, to give a unique account of Elias's only foray into large-scale, publicly funded research. Covering…
Bringing it 'Home'? Sociological Practice and the Practice of Sociology
Since Sociology was established in 1967, the journal has assumed a significant role in shaping the discipline. In the interim years it is often said that the very practice of sociology has now 'spun out' beyond the dedicated departments that were once the centres of sociological practice. This raises questions as to the relationship between sociology and other disciplines, questions that are compelling and arguably distinct from a welcome recogni…
Exploitation or opportunity? Student perceptions of internships in enhancing employability skills
Internships are now widely promoted as a valuable means of enhancing graduate employability. However, little is known about student perceptions of internships. Drawing on data from a pre-1992 university, two types of graduate are identified: engagers and disengagers. The engagers valued internship opportunities while the disengagers perceived these roles as exploitative and worthless. Few were able to distinguish paid, structured internship oppor…
Pearl Jephcott: Reflections, Resurgence and Replications
The social sciences are replete with past research studies, worthy of a ‘second look’ but which have often become lost in the mists of academic time. Once cutting-edge research produced by innovative researchers seemingly passed over in pursuit of the ‘new’. In this introductory paper, we reflect on why valuable studies have come to be disregarded by focusing on the work of Pearl Jephcott. We offer a brief biographical sketch before reflecting on…
Sociology (24 works) · Social science (12 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Gender Studies (9 works) · Social and Cultural Dynamics (8 works) · Sociology and Norbert Elias (8 works) · History (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice (6 works)