Abstract
Nicolas Bacon is Professor of Human Resource Management and Editor of the Industrial Relations Journal. His research interests include employment relations in SMEs, teamworking, trade unions, management buyouts and shareholder value management. Address: Nottingham University Business School, Jubilee Campus, Wollaton Road, Nottingham, NG2 6LE. Email:
Erik Bihagen is a research fellow (financed by the Swedish Research Council) at the Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI), Stockholm University. His research interest focus on class analysis, economic inequalities and career mobility. Publications include articles in Acta Sociologica (2005), Sociological Research on Line (2001), Work, Employment & Society (2000), Poetics (2000).
Paul Blyton is Professor of Industrial Relations and Industrial Sociology at Cardiff Business School and a Research Associate, ESRC Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society (BRASS). His main research interests include workers' response to work organisation change, their experience of different work time schedules, and the implications of working time patterns for non-work life. Recent publications include Work-Life Integration: International Perspectives on the Balancing of Multiple Roles (co-edited with Betsy Blunsdon, Ken Reed and Ali Dastmalchian) Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Address Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU.
Julia Brannen is Professor of the Sociology of the Family, Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London. She is also Adjunct Professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Bergen. Her research focuses on family sociology including children and young people in families. She has special interests in the work-family interface and in methodology. She is a co-founder and co-editor of International Journal of Social Research Methodology: Theory and Practice (with Rosalind Edwards). Recent books include Working and Caring over the Twentieth Century: Change and continuity in four-generation families (Palgrave 2004) and Young Europeans, Work and Family: Futures in Transition (ESA Routledge 2002).
Chris Brickell lectures in gender studies and sociology at the University of Otago, and his research on gender, sexuality and consumer culture combines sociological and historical perspectives. His writing has appeared in a number of edited collections, as well as Gender, Place and Culture; Sexualities; Journal of Consumer Culture; Journal of Design History and Journal of Communication Inquiry.
Will Gibson is a lecturer in the School of Culture, Language and Communication, University of London, Institute of Education. He is interested in the examination of the social organization of work practices and the role of technology as a feature of work. This has involved the examination of varied empirical fields, including music making, face-to-face educational discussions, and online computer-mediated communication. His publications include ‘The Digital Revolution in Qualitative Research: Working with Digital Audio Data through Atlas.ti’ Sociological Research Online: 10(1), Gibson, W. Campbell, M. Hall, A. Richards, D. and Callery, P. (1995) and ‘Topicality and the Structure of Interactive Talk in Face-to-face Seminar Discussions – Implications for Research in Distributed Learning Media', British Journal of Educational Research 32(1): 77–94, Gibson W, Hall, A, Callery, P (1996).
Marita Ohls is a PhD Candidate at the Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI), Stockholm University. Her research interest focus on wage and career mobility with a special interest in gender differences (
Lynne Pettinger is a lecturer in Sociology at the University of Essex, having previously been post-doctoral fellow at City University, London. She is now researching work in the field of cultural production and is co-editor of ‘A New Sociology of Work?’ one of the Sociological Review monograph series published by Blackwells.
Anne Skevik (b. 1970) is a senior research fellow at NOVA – Norwegian Social Research – in Oslo, Norway. She holds a doctorate degree in sociology from the University of Oslo (2001). Her research interests include lone parenthood, comparative family policy, and child poverty. Publications in English include ‘Children of the Welfare State: Individuals with Entitlements, or Hidden in the Family?’ Journal of Social Policy 32 (3): 423–440, 2003 and ‘The New Family's Vulnerable Vanguard: Child Maintenance Reform in Norway', Social Policy and Society 3 (1): 11–19.
Carol Smart is Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Morgan Centre for the Study of Relationships and Personal Life at the University of Manchester. She was formerly at the University of Leeds. She is currently working on a book on personal life, intimacy and families for Polity.