The Gendering of the British Working Class

How have feminist historians transformed the account of class formation and consciousness articulated in Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class? Deborah Valenze’s The First Industrial Woman, Anna Clark’s The Struggle for the Breeches, Sonya Rose’s Limited Livelihoods, and Ellen Ross’s Love and Toil place the gendering of the British working class at the center of the process and explain the peculiar limitations of the working-class movement. The essay also places these books in the theoretical tradition of socialist feminism and considers them as responses to Joan Scott’s call for a poststructuralist approach to gender, class and power.     

Christianity,Gender, and the Working Class in Southern Dunedin, 1880–19401

This article is a study of the southern suburbs of Dunedin, which during the late nineteenth century became the most industrialized and working class urban area of New Zealand. Analyzing the social composition of fifteen southern Dunedin churches, I question the idea, widely held by New Zealand historians, that the working classes had largely turned their backs on organized religion. In keeping with recent scholarship in the social history of British and Irish religion, I show that unskilled workers were better represented in many southern Dunedin congregations that previous historians have acknowledged and that skilled workers numerically dominated most churches. When women are included in the analysis, working class predominance increases further. Signing the suffrage petition in remarkable proportions, working class Christian women turned the southern suburbs into a world‐leading first wave feminist community. Moreover, varieties of popular Christianity flourished beyond the ranks of active churchgoers. I conclude by suggesting that New Zealand historians need to rethink the old “lapsed masses” and “secular New Zealand” assumptions and to investigate the diverse varieties of Christianity shaping the culture, and their sometimes conflicting this‐worldly meanings.     

A Portrait of Hunger,the Social Safety Net,and the Working Poor

In a study at the largest northeastern Iowa food pantry between 2004 and 2006, we found that neither working nor accessing government benefits has a meaningful impact on lessening the odds that a person will need long‐term food assistance. In other words, the working poor are at greater risk for making recurrent visits to the food pantry than those who do not work. Pantry clients who work are more likely to have sacrificed food to pay for other life necessities. Moreover, government benefits do not seem to provide an adequate food safety net. As a result, nonprofits are experiencing increased pressure to fill the gap. If we wish to maintain the government responsibility to alleviate hunger in our country, benefits for eligible citizens must be increased or food assistance nonprofits need more government support. Otherwise we should face the fact that as an undeclared public policy, our society tolerates hunger.     

Sociology,Religion, and Historians Revisited: Towards an Historical Sociology of Religion

Abstract

Two great movie directors were both born in 1930. One of them, Jean-Luc Godard, revolutionized filmmaking during his 30s and declined in creativity thereafter. In contrast, Clint Eastwood did not direct his first movie until he had passed the age of 40 and did not emerge as an important director until after he was 60. This dramatic difference in life cycles was not accidental, but was a characteristic example of a pattern that has been identified across the arts: Godard was a conceptual innovator who peaked early, whereas Eastwood was an experimental innovator who improved with experience. This article examines the goals, methods, and creative life cycles of Godard, Eastwood, and eight other directors who were the most important filmmakers of the second half of the twentieth century. Francis Ford Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, Stephen Spielberg, and François Truffaut join Godard in the category of conceptual young geniuses, while Woody Allen, Robert Altman, John Cassavetes, and Martin Scorsese are classed with Eastwood as experimental old masters. In an era in which conceptual innovators have dominated a number of artistic activities, the strong representation of experimental innovators among the greatest film directors is an interesting phenomenon.     

新社会阶层党员队伍建设与保持党的先进性

加强新社会阶层党员队伍建设直接关系到党的先进性的具体保持与体现。发展新社会阶层党员队伍是保持党的先进性的必然要求;加强新社会阶层党员队伍建设有利于保持党的先进性;保持党的先进性必须加强新社会阶层党员队伍建设;必须按照“三个代表”重要思想和中共中央关于在全党开展保持共产党员先进性教育活动《意见》的要求,与时俱进地加强新社会阶层党员队伍建设,保持和发展党的先进性。     

Social History Goes to Class

Book reviewed: Peter N. Stearns, Peter Seixas and Sam Wineburg (eds.), Knowing, Teaching, and Learning History: National and International Perspectives     

Childbirth and Social Class in Contemporary Japan

This paper presents data from a larger ethnographic research project on intimacy and reproduction in Japan, a country that faces a “crisis of ultra-low fertility rates” (Jones, Straughan, & Chan, 2009). Proceeding from a symbolic interactionist perspective, the paper analyses the outcomes of interviews with 56 Japanese mothers aged between 29 and 45 from Tokyo and Kanagawa. The analysis identified “maternal instincts” (honnō), children’s schooling, and marriage as three major axes along which an understanding of how social class concerns influence the childbirth experiences and decision-making processes of these mothers could be gained.     

西方新中间阶级的兴起及其社会政治影响

当代西：方发达资本主义国家阶级结构最显著的变化是新中间阶级的兴起。企业规模的扩大、产业结构的升级、政府职能的扩大,都为新中间阶级的发展壮大提供着现实基础,而人们生产能力的提高则是其终极原因。随着新中间阶级逐渐成长为社会的多数群体,学术界对其关注程度在不断增加,但对于新中间阶级阶级属性和社会政治影响的认识却一直存在着激烈争论。本文将尝试对新中间阶级兴起的历史根由及其社会政治影响做出考察和解析。     

周敏教授与移民社会学和亚裔研究学

本文主要介绍和评价了周敏教授在移民社区、移民社会适应和文化同化、移民社会学理论、移民后裔尤其是第二代以及在美国亚裔人口和社区动态等方面的研究成果和探索。同时,还介绍了周敏教授为美国亚裔研究学和华裔研究学新学科的巩固与发展做出的巨大努力。     

Prostitutes,Magdalenes and Wayward Girls: Dangerous Sexualities of Working Class Women in Victorian Scotland

Let anyone walk certain streets of London, Glasgow or Edinburgh, of a night, and without troubling his head with statistics, his eyes and ears will tell him at once what a multitudinous amazonian army the devil keeps in constant field service, for advancing his own ends. The very stones seem alive with lust, and the very atmosphere is tainted.¹     

阿普尔加斯与19世纪英国工人运动的发展

19世纪中期,随着新模范工会在各行业的发展,英国工人运动进入了一个新的历史阶段,在阿普尔加斯等人为代表的新一代工会领导人的努力下,工会不仅成功地克服了1866年谢菲尔德暴行带来的巨大危机,而且在各阶级进步人士的帮助下,推动议会在19世纪70年代相继通过了有利于工会运动的立法,使工会从此成为英国产业制度中一个不可缺少的组成部分。而新模范工会所倡导的自助自制精神、阶级合作和劳资和解的政策,不仅为工会运动的合法化开辟了道路,同时也为19世纪中期英国社会的和谐稳定,经济的繁荣发展提供了保障。