Skip to main content

Scotland and Scottish society

Sociologists of a certain age will recall the courses on ‘The Social Structure of Modern Britain’ that many of us followed as students or taught as lecturers. Most such courses have now disappeared. However, there are distinct advantages in pursuing a course that is focused on the key structures constituting a particular national society- and, of course, its global context.
 Perhaps such courses are now taught mainly in those places where national identity has become a critical political issue. Scotland is a society in which these issues of national identity have always been strong and where they have acquired a particular salience in recent years. Devolution, the independence referendum, and Brexit have all ensured that the autonomy of Scotland and Scottish institutions have been important matters of political debate. It is not surprising, therefore, that Scottish society has been an important focus for teaching within Sociology Departments in Scotland.
 David McCrone has produced a major new book that not only meets teaching needs for such courses but also makes a significant contribution both to substantive debates in sociology and to current political discussions. The New Sociology of Scotland (Sage Publications) brings together a wealth of material on all aspects of Scottish society, placing this in a historical context of developing national identity and a global context of Scotland’s place within Britain and Britain’s place within the world.

 The book’s first three chapters discuss the overall shape of Scottish society and problematises the ideas of ‘society’ and ‘nation’, which have often been questioned as suitable objects for sociology. The book then explores the regional and demographic character of Scotland before arriving at central chapters on power and the economy and on inequality and social class. Lindsay Paterson adds a chapter on education to complement McCrone’s account of social mobility. Major chapter then follow on gender, ethnicity, and religion that pursue the identities that are alternative and complementary to class. This exploration of structurally based identities allows McCrone to proceed to consider the cultural aspects of identity and the role of history and landscape in the formation of a sense of community and national cohesion. These chapters address the central issues of identity politics that have been raised in contemporary sociology. They lead into an account of ways of representing and expressing Scottish identity in sport and the mass media. A final chapter on ‘Scotland and the World’ considers the implications and consequences of globalisation.

 Despite its presentation as a textbook, the book is very much a self-consciously personal account, written from the basis of the author’s own career within Scotland and his reflections on the future of his society. It will be an interesting and important read for all who are interested in the issues of identity, nationalism, and political self-determination, wherever they live.


Originally Posted May 23 2017.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

This post has now moved. Please now check at  https://www.johnscottcbe.com/blog/ All my existing posts have been archived at the new site, which is now regularly updated as part of my expanded sociology website. Please consult the site for information on social theory, the history of sociology, social structure (especially elites, power, class, and economic sociology), and research methods (especially social network analysis). Thanks John Scott
Post a Comment
Read more

Narratives of Nothing

It is often remarked that you can have a sociology of anything. It is not so often said that you can have a sociology of nothing, but this is exactly what Susie Scott of Sussex University is trying to develop. We are familiar with ideas about non-places since the work of Marc Augé and Rob Shields, and George Ritzer has elaborated ideas of non-things and non-people in his book on  The Globalization of Nothing , but Susie aims at a far more general approach to nothing at all.  As part of her project on the Sociology of Nothing, extending her interactionist work on everyday life, she is collecting personal stories of non-doing, non-being, and non-having, exploring ideas and feelings about those things that are lost, missing, or have never happened. Details on the project can be found at  https://nothingnarratives.wordpress.com/about     Stories submitted to the website on Narratives of Nothing include:  a mother wanting space to ‘do nothi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Integration and Social Structure

In my previous post I set out a view of the relationship between the interaction order and social structure. I want now to discuss the forms of integration or malintegration that exist at each level. These issues were famously discussed by David Lockwood in an article of 1964 through his distinction between ‘social integration’ and ‘system integration’ (in  Explorations in Social Change , edited by Zollschan and Hirsch). My claim is that social integration should be seen as relating to the interaction order and system integration as relating to the macro-level social structure. A state of social integration exists when interacting individuals and groups establish shared understandings that permit a coordination of their actions. They produce a negotiated order that underpins their joint action. Where there are failures in mutual understanding and a resulting lack of coordination, there is social disorder, rather than social order, and the potential for social disintegration. This...
Post a Comment
Read more