Intimacy as a Concept: Explaining Social Change in the Context of Globalisation or Another Form of Ethnocentricism?

This article focuses on intimacy in terms of its analytical potential for understanding social change without the one-nation blinkers sometimes referred to as 'methodological nationalism' and without Euro-North-American ethnocentrism. Extending from the concept of family practices, practices of intimacy are sketched and examples considered across cultures. The cultural celebration and use of the term 'intimacy' is not universal, but practices of intimacy are present in all cultures. The relationship of intimacy to its conceptual relatives is clarified. A brief discussion of subjectivity and social integration restates the relevance of intimate relationships and practices of intimacy to understanding social change in an era of globalisation, despite the theoretical turn away from embodied face to face relationships. Illustrations concerning intimacy and social change in two areas of personal life, parental authority and gender relations, indicate that practices of intimacy can re-inscribe inequalities such as those of age, class and gender as well as subvert them and that attention to practices of intimacy can assist the need to explain continuity as well as change.Love and Intimacy, Globalization, Ethnocentric, Social Change, Inequality, Discourse, Family Practices

Growing up in rural Scotland

Sweep 1 of GUS provides some evidence that children in rural areas may be more likely to live in favourable socio-economic circumstances than their urban counterparts. This is associated with greater exposure to positive parental behaviours, such as breastfeeding, among rural babies. However, in many other respects the early experiences of children in urban and rural areas in terms of service use, health problems and contact with significant others are not very different. Moreover, other evidence suggests that families in rural areas may be relatively disadvantaged in respect of easy access to ante-natal classes and having grandparents living nearby, for example

Case study in the development of the modern family : urban Scotland in the early twentieth century

This thesis is based upon interviews with 87 working-class and middle-class men and women born between 1896 and 1910 and brought up in urban Scotland. In these interviews I took respondents through their childhood and youth, and focused in particular on their relationship with their parents. These oral histories of growing up in early 20th century Scotland are used to evaluate accounts of the development of 'the modern family' in the work of Parsons, Goode, Zaretsky, Stone, Shorter, Aries, Lasch and Donzelot. It is argued that these authors agree on four distinctive features of 'the modern family' - 'child-centredness', ' separation-off', an emphasis on the individual and exaggerated sex-role segregation - and, in general, agree that these are to be found first of all in the middle class. Individual authors differ, however, on the particular sequences of the emergence of these features. In four successive chapters I examine the extent to which my respondents' families exhibited these features, and whether the families of working-class and middle-class respondents differed. The conclusions reached in these chapters are used to establish whether 'the modern family', as the above authors understand it, existed in early 20th century Scotland, and I conclude that it largely did not. The particular pattern of presence and absence of features I found was more damaging to some authors' accounts than others

Solo-Living, Demographic and Family Change: The Need to Know More About Men

Solo-living is analytically separate from 'being single' and merits separate study. In most Western countries more men are solo-living than women at ages conventionally associated with co-resident partners and children. Discussions of 'demographic transition' and change in personal life however typically place women in the vanguard, to the relative neglect of men. We draw on European Social Survey data and relevant qualitative research from Europe and North America demonstrating the need for further research.Family Friendship Gender Intimacy Solo-Living One-Person Household

Blending Business and Recreation Courses

Leisure professionals support the inclusion of business courses in the recreation/leisure studies curriculum. This support has been chiefly instigated by financial exigencies experienced by the public sector. Exploring methods of blending commercial recreation and business curricula requires an examination of changes which include public-private commonalities, trends and humanization of business. Further exploration of the problems in blending these two different disciplines revealed the industrial bias of most business curriculums. A final look at the possible solutions to reflect appropriate business skills into recreation curricula reveals several approaches that may be appropriate. In conclusion, the effective inclusion of business curricula relies upon further research into competencies that reflect the field

Analysis of the Flagellar Membrane Proteins of Chlamydomonas moewusii

This investigation was concerned with the analysis of the proteins isolated from the gamone (flagellar membrane vesicles isolated from the medium) of Chlamydomonas moewusii. SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of gamone isolated from (+) and (-) cell types indicated possible differences between vegetative and gametic gamone within mating types and a degree of similarity within vegetative and gametic gamone of both mating types. Electrophoretic analysis of several molecular weight standards indicated that the major proteins from all gamone types are glycoproteins of relatively high molecular weight (100-150, 000 D.) Con A affinity chromatography of membranes solubilized in 1% DOC in 10 mM Tris, pH 8.2, showed that 4.2% of the proteins isolated from the (-) gamone and 7.35%-16.4% of the proteins isolated from the (+) gamone bound to Con A. These proteins could subsequently be eluted with 2% α-methylmannoside. Attempts to recover the proteins from the Con A affinity chromatography column were unsuccessful