WestEnd

The article deals with the intergenerational transmission of interpretive patterns and action orientations in families who have been living in socially excluded poverty for several generations. We firstly explain our theoretical starting points and...

The article starts from the debate about the simultaneity of opposed tendencies in the current transformations of gender relations and argues that we can observe not only contradictory but paradoxical developments. Taking the examples from the...

The Broken Promise of Meritocracy? German middle classes’ perceptions of upward social mobility in the Era of rising inequality. Based on a mixed-methods design, the article investigates German upper and lower middle class members’ perceptions...

Besides the functions and normativity of property, the value of property forms a third feature. This article argues that the value of property is based on, firstly, the propriation of time and, secondly, on the corresponding rationalization of an...

It is a basic assumption in sociology that people fight for the improvement of status. The paper discusses some implications of this general assumption. While the notion of status-oriented action is not always empirically supported, alternative...

The article pursues the issue of which social and cultural mechanisms support the emergence of negative affectivity in late-modern forms of life. It interprets the transformation from industrial to late-modernity along the parameters of...

Exclusion has primarily been analyzed with reference to the practical methods that create exclusivity through social closure. But mechanisms of exclusion can also have inclusive characteristics when the ability to integrate diversity becomes a...

The article focuses on the cultural dimension of status maintenance based on interviews with two middle class-families with a family-run company. An exemplary analysis shows that family narratives and specific occupational fields have an impact on...