The purpose of this theoretical article is to analyse the social construction of order in two connected markets in the production flow of the global garment industry. The consumer market is identified as a status market, while the production market is defined as a `standard' market. In a `status' market, order is maintained because the identities of actors on both sides of the market are ranked according to status, which is a more entrenched social construction than the commodity traded in the market. In a market characterized by `standard', the situation is the reverse: the commodity is a more entrenched social construction than the identity rankings of actors in the market. The study ties together consumption and production of garments through several markets.
Studies of the professions clearly illustrate the intricate interplay between general conceptions of society and history, sociological theory, definitions of social categories, empirical research and political values – or, more briefly, between theory, ’facts’ and politics. In this article the interplay is illustrated by the two dominant theory-constructions on professions in sociology. The first is the functionalist or ’naive’ tradition, the second the neoweberian or ’cynical’ alternative. It is argued that both traditions are permeated by several shortcomings. In particular, they have universalistic claims, but are in fact outcomes of professionals’ own self-images during specific and limited social and historical circumstances. Sociologies of professions turn out to be ideologies of professionals. In a concluding section the preconditions for a more realistic approach to the professions are outlined.
The paper takes up two basic concepts in a structural theory of social exchange: the structuring of exchange systems and unequal exchange. The latter is conceptualized in terms of structural consequences of ex change activity. The two concepts are used to analyze the role of exchange activity in the production and reproduction of social structure and cor responding exchange systems.The intentional structuring of exchange systems is the focus of the second part (Structuring exchange systems) with two examples from inter national political economy: the structuring of England/Portugal trade re lations in the seventeenth century and the formation of Bretton Woods economic institutions. The third part (Social structure and unequal ex change) examines the reciprocal relationship between social structure and unequal exchange processes. A general model is formulated and applied to exchange systems at different societal levels: husband/wife exchange. capitalist employer/labor exchange, and exchange between enterprises of developed and those of less developed countries. The fourth part (Ques tions for the future) refers to two matters for future research: the trans formation of unequal exchange systems and the role of social context in structuring the logic of social action and meaning in exchange activity.
The article documents how dual-earner families employ different household strategies when managing time and childcare in everyday life. In particular, the focus is the unforeseen consequences of household strategies, that is, novel emerging problems, cultural ideals and subjectivities. In this ethnographic study of eight middle-class couples in Sweden, I analyse three household strategies: delegating, alternating and multitasking. While parents apparently use these strategies to juggle the multiple demands of everyday life in a time-efficient way, they also comply with a norm of involved parenthood. Thus, when employing household strategies, the parents balance between enacting themselves as involved parents and running the risk of being understood as uninvolved.
Aspiring artists are uncertain about how their work’s quality will be evaluated by gatekeepers on artistic markets. Learning to evaluate the quality of one’s work and its prospects on the artistic market is central to artistic careers, yet often overlooked in research. An analysis of 47 interviews with aspiring writers in Sweden shows that they use what in this article is coined appraisal devices to deal with this market uncertainty. Appraisal devices offer trusted and knowledgeable appraisals of their work’s chances of success and failure on the artistic market. Appraisals from assessors become appraisal devices when assessors are trusted and seen as knowledgeable about how works are evaluated on the artistic market and are able to produce such evaluations. Appraisals from competitions become appraisal devices when the writer sees the evaluation as reflecting how the writer’s work will be evaluated on the artistic market. In contrast to judgment devices, which take the perspective of cultural consumption, appraisal devices take the perspective of cultural production. Aspiring artists use appraisal devices to deal with the uncertainty of their chances of success on the artistic market.
Although demanding, badly paid, and of uncertain value for a creative career, there exists a curious attraction to precarious “creative jobs.” While attracted to the job’s creative aspects, workers often find themselves without control or final authority over their creative output, which is instead in the hands of management or clients. Michael L. Siciliano’s ambitious book Creative Control: The Ambivalence of Work in the Culture Industries details this affective and aesthetic attraction to “cool” but precarious jobs.
How is art education valued in society? In Swedish public discourse the value of educational trajectories is often equated with their usefulness for employability. With competitive winner-takes-all labour markets for artists, art education is largely perceived as a worthless credential and form of education. But what kinds of worth does art education have among students themselves? This article draws on the approach of pragmatic sociology and individual and group interviews with 62 Swedish folk high school participants within the arts, to understand the meanings participants assign to post-compulsory education within the aesthetic realm. The students’ accounts belong to three broad themes, where art education is described as: (a) being a ‘stepping stone’ to becoming an artist, (b) allowing them to have ‘unique’ experiences while being in a particular state of creativity or (c) offering them a chance to regain health and general well-being after a difficult period. These results are discussed in relation to the relative institutional autonomy the folk high school possesses in the Swedish education system, as well as the possibilities of challenging the hegemonic ideas of ‘learning for earning’ that largely reject non-instrumental regimes of self-discovery and artistic creativity.
Classical sociology has long served as a locus for the discipline's self-understanding, and is a phenomenon increasingly studied in its own right. The growing literature is synthesised in Peter Baehr's renowned framework for scrutinising reception and formation processes. By theorising on the trajectories of multiple classics, Baehr has helped pave the way for sociology’s understanding of how classicality becomes established. This paper deploys this framework in order to appraise neglected work with classicality potential in early sociology, namely the bulky production of Sweden's main candidate for a classic, Gustaf F. Steffen (1864–1929), with special attention given to his magnum opus Sociology: A general theory of society (1910–1911). The analysis exposes some of the conceptual ambiguity in Baehr's framework, while proposing that both the notion of a ‘classic’ and the sole focus on reception and formation need to be expanded. This article also argues that our understanding of classicality could be advanced if we were to distinguish between author, text, and theory, since each of these plays different roles in reception, formation, and neglection processes.
Seymour Lipset summarized some evidence suggesting that upwardly mobile individuals in some Nothern European countries, including Sweden, retained the working class loyalties characteristic of their stations of origin to much greater extent than upwardly mobile individuals in some other countries. This paper presents findings from a study designed to test some of the assumptions of Lipset's interpretation of this evidence, and also offers a number of alternative interpretations taking account of macro conditions of Swedish political history and social structure as well as micro processes of ideological conviction through "cognitive vigilance".
This article explores how cohesive labour movements are created. Although overlooked by previous research, strategic labour leaders that act as identity entrepreneurs can play a decisive role in class formation processes. Using the Swedish trade union movement during the crucial period from 1910 through the 1930s as a case, I examine the labour leaders’ strategic actions to create cohesiveness in the movement. Being pressured by emerging left-wing organizations in the 1910s, Swedish labour leaders realized that the Trade Union Confederation needed a strong organizational identity. The threat of the fragmentation of the trade union movement into different organizations fighting over the same members made the leaders formulate and implement a strategy for cohesion. Through an extensive education campaign to teach trade union members the aim and meaning of the reformist union movement, the leaders hoped to solve the fragmentation problem. This article indicates not only that labour leaders actively managed identity formation in the Swedish case, but also that internal education served as a means for creating cohesiveness in the movement.
Proposed theories to explain gender inequality in the labor market and family, such as gender specialization within families and gender segregation in the labor markets, lack consideration for individual preferences. Preference theory accounts for individual choice and gendered preferences but has been substantially criticized, indicating a need for further research. This study uses Swedish longitudinal data to explore how preferences for work and family relate to behavior. We explore three critical issues raised in previous research: gender differences in preferences; the relationship between work and family changes and subsequent preferences; how preferences relate to work and family behaviors. Our results showed small general gender differences in preferences, although women had a stronger preference for both children and work than men. Changes in work status were further related to changes in work preferences, while changes in family status were related to changes in family preferences. Moreover, preferences had poor predictive power in relation to work and family behaviors. Our results indicate that preferences do not explain gender inequality in Sweden. The relationship between preferences and behaviors seems bidirectional and preferences and behavior within the family sphere has little to do with preferences and behavior within the work sphere.
Frames guide the way in which organizations and individuals interpret their surrounding contexts and shape avenues for thought, action, and behavior. This paper tests the individual-level effects of experiencing ‘frame disputes’: the state of holding individual-level frames that are at odds with dominant organizational frames. We hypothesize that on the individual level a frame dispute will be associated with negative effects on outcomes important for an organization’s functioning. The hypothesis is tested using a survey of a battalion of Italian soldiers. Our results demonstrate that, on average, soldiers who experienced frame disputes in that they perceived their mission differently from the dominant organizational frame displayed significantly lower levels of perceived cohesion, performance, and legitimacy. Frame disputes are likely to be widespread phenomena among organizations and social movements, and understanding their effects has theoretical, empirical, and policy relevance beyond the military case under study.
Frames guide the way in which organizations and individuals interpret their surrounding contexts and shape avenues for thought, action, and behavior. This paper tests the individual-level effects of experiencing frame disputes': the state of holding individual-level frames that are at odds with dominant organizational frames. We hypothesize that on the individual level a frame dispute will be associated with negative effects on outcomes important for an organization's functioning. The hypothesis is tested using a survey of a battalion of Italian soldiers. Our results demonstrate that, on average, soldiers who experienced frame disputes in that they perceived their mission differently from the dominant organizational frame displayed significantly lower levels of perceived cohesion, performance, and legitimacy. Frame disputes are likely to be widespread phenomena among organizations and social movements, and understanding their effects has theoretical, empirical, and policy relevance beyond the military case under study.
Medical priority-setting has been discussed heatedly in Sweden since the 1990s. While criteria such as medical need, solidarity and cost-effectiveness were established long ago, they failed to give clear directives to decision-makers on how to apportion priority. The notion of individual responsibility for one's health was suggested as one solution out of the impasse. According to the responsibility principle, anyone who fails to live up to the norms of a healthy lifestyle can legitimately be given lower priority. Although the principle is gaining support, its effectiveness is being hampered by structural problems. We have analysed official reports and pertinent fora of the Swedish debate on priority-setting from the period 1990-2009 and have examined the responsibility principle using a Luhmannian framework. Unlike common criticism emphasizing difficulties of assessing whether individuals can actually be held accountable for their lifestyle, we found that the responsibility principle fails in its current form because it unifies two incompatible logics deeply rooted in the functionally differentiated structure of society: those of medical reasoning (connecting health condition with lifestyle) and political expediency (attributing responsibility). We conclude that future policy-making cannot simply overlook this conflict, but has to acknowledge its presence and constructively utilize its potential.
The 2019 Fridays For Future global climate strikes were extraordinary protest mobilisations in many respects, both in terms of size, age composition and the absence of a specific external triggering event. To properly understand it, one must account for Greta Thunberg's leadership role in the mobilisation – the ‘Greta effect’. We contribute to such an account by linking the ‘Greta effect’ on individual mobilisation to theories of political iconicity and political role models. Empirically, we use unique data from two waves of international surveys of participants in European Fridays For Future protests – on 15 March and 20–27 September 2019 – demonstrating that the perceived individual impact of Greta differs considerably among those who were mobilised in climate strikes. Through multilevel regression analysis, we furthermore show that (a) young women were especially prone to have been inspired and mobilised by Thunberg as a role model and (b) subjectively assessed mobilising influence by ‘Greta’ – in her capacity as a political icon – is positively related to protest participants’ instrumental motivation, sense of solidarity and collective identity. We argue that our results contribute to a better understanding of informal social movement leadership in contemporary political mobilisations.