Over the past 30 years Robert Dingwall has published an influential series of articles on the professions, especially law and medicine. This represents a substantial and coherent body of work in an important sub-discipline of sociology. This volume assembles the best of these writings in one single accessible place. The ten essays are republished in their original form, each bearing the traces of the time and place it was written. In sum, they provide a fascinating account of an academic j...

This title was first published in 2001. With critical observations on past approaches to this issue and the proposal of alternative lines of inquiry, this book is concerned with the attempts made by sociologists (and to a lesser extent, doctors) to account for patterns of social conduct that are observably associated with periods of illness. The author argues that medical sociologists have confused the proper realms of biological and sociological inquiry, and that it is this confusion that...

In recent years the study of nursing history in Britain has been transformed by the application of concepts and methods from the social sciences to original sources. The myths and legends which have grown up through a century of anecdotal writing have been chipped away to reveal the complex story of an occupation shaped and reshaped by social and technological change. Most of the work has been scattered in monographs, journals and edited collections.The skills of a social historian...

Robert Dingwall's classic and original study of the training of health visitors (public health nurses) in the UK is now available in a convenient ebook edition, featuring linked notes, all tables from the print edition, linked subject index, and active Contents. This book has not been easily available in print for many years but has long been regarded as an important contribution to the study of professional socialization. It was one of the first studies to incorporate ideas from ethnometh...

Covering the entire research process – from understanding theory to writing up your project – this book provides you with an easy-to-follow introduction to qualitative methods in nursing and healthcare.It offers straightforward guidance on key issues such as ethics and equips you with practical tools for approaching steps like searching and reviewing the literature. It also:Provides a clear historical overview of nursing and healthcare research, helping you deepen you...

Robert Dingwall and Philip Lewis's renowned compilation of diverse studies—written by internationally recognized theorists and empirical researchers into the sociology of the professions—was groundbreaking when first published in 1983 and has influenced scholars, practitioners, and professionals since. Not limited to one occupation or field, as are most such works, this collection examines across traditional fields the idea and practice of professions and professionals.The 2014 dig...

This classic study of law and social work in action (by Robert Dingwall, John Eekelaar and Topsy Murray) is based on the most extensive investigation of child abuse and neglect ever carried out in Great Britain. The authors followed the course of numerous cases from the first detection of ill-treatment to the resolution (or otherwise) of the problem. Famous for coining the much-used (and misunderstood) phrase "the rule of optimism," this book is updated with an extensive Postscript from 19...

This title was first published in 2001. A classic ethnographic study of the interactions between paediatricians and parents of children thought to be neurologically handicapped. Strong used this work to systematize the often chaotic ideas of Erving Goffman, to explore the connections between micro and macro analysis in sociology and to reflect on the nature of medical practice in modern liberal societies. The book stands as a testament to Strong’s pursuit of methodological rigour in qualit...

A social science which has become so remote from the society which pays for its upkeep is ultimately doomed, threatened less by repression than by intellectual contempt and financial neglect. This is the message of the authors of this book in this reassessment of the evolution and present state of British sociology.Their investigation analyses the discipline as a social institution, whose product is inexorably shaped by the everyday circumstances of its producers; it is the concret...

Children Act 1989 introduced the most radical changes to child care law for a generation. Eekelaar and Dingwall provide a concise, practical guide to the legislation for all professionals practising in this area.

First published in 1992, Quality and Regulation in Health Care employs socio-legal ideas concerning regulation to examine the methods used to influence the quality of health care in the US, UK, and Western Europe. Throughout the Western world, health care systems, both public and private, are grappling with the problems of assuring quality while containing costs. On the one hand, governments and insurers argue that there must be some limit to the apparently endless growth of healt...

When health and safety regulatory frameworks took their present form in the 1970s, they were seen as a triumph of welfare state intervention. Since then, as heavy industry has declined and office and retail employment have expanded, new ways of working have radically altered the context of health and safety policy. Many people have come to see health and safety interventions as an obstacle to innovation.This book aims to address the changing context of health and safety policy, exp...