Law and the middle class

This paper draws upon ethnographic evidence from a suburb of New York City to address the relationship between social class and the use of law. In the community studied, middle-class people are less likely than working-class people to complain to legal officials about the conduct of their personal associates such as relatives and neighbors. It appears that the greater transiency and atomization of middle-class people militate against their use of law by reducing the amount of negative information antagonists have about one another and by making avoidance a more attractive means of conflict management. Beyond this, the higher social status of middle-class people itself seems to result in a greater reluctance to use law in personal matters: Because they are generally equal or superior to legal officials in social standing, middle-class people are less willing than lower-status people to submit to their judgment. In light of this, it may be necessary to qualify the prevailing view that higher-status people have a greater propensity to use law as a means of conflict management. Where personal matters among themselves are concerned, the opposite may be the truth.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Association, Madison, Wisconsin, June 1980. For commenting upon various aspects of the work presented here, I would like to thank Donald Black, Kai Erikson, Sally Engle Merry, Frank Romo, Susan S. Silbey, and Stanton Wheeler.     

Family systems and the foundations of class in Ireland and England

The article examines the history and development of family systems in England and Ireland, with special attention to the role of moral constructions in establishing differential advantage among family members and to the consequences for society of such differentiation. It is argued that the English system of primogeniture contributed to the proliferation of bureaucracy and entrepreneurship, the growth of a middle class, and the creation of a landless and mobile laboring class. The Irish system of preferential inheritance with some partibility, on the other hand, deterred the rise of such class differentiation and concentration of wealth. Both societies developed a “bifocal morality” with respect to heirs and nonheirs or lesser heirs, a morality situated in economics and politics in England and nurtured within the family in Ireland.     

Family systems and the foundations of class in Ireland and England

The article examines the history and development of family systems in England and Ireland, with special attention to the role of moral constructions in establishing differential advantage among family members and to the consequences for society of such differentiation. It is argued that the English system of primogeniture contributed to the proliferation of bureaucracy and entrepreneurship, the growth of a middle class, and the creation of a landless and mobile laboring class. The Irish system of preferential inheritance with some partibility, on the other hand, deterred the rise of such class differentiation and concentration of wealth. Both societies developed a “bifocal morality” with respect to heirs and nonheirs or lesser heirs, a morality situated in economics and politics in England and nurtured within the family in Ireland.     

Medical devices; retention of three preamendment class III devices in class III--FDA. Final rule

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is retaining the following three preamendments class III devices in class III: Lung water monitor, powered vaginal muscle stimulator for therapeutic use, and stair-climbing wheelchair. The agency is taking this action because insufficient information exists to determine that special controls would provide reasonable assurance of their safety and effectiveness, and/or these devices present a potential unreasonable risk of illness or injury.     

我国中产阶层的形成与发展

我国中等收入阶层已显端倪,中产阶层的出现是改革开放和发展市场经济的结果。中产阶层产生后社会贫富差距逐步拉大,中国已跨入居民收入很不平等的国家行列,收入分配不公现象已成社会关注焦点。中产阶层的形成与发展有利于加快我国实现小康社会的步伐。     

New tainted-blood class actions in Québec and Alberta

In two cases in Québec and Alberta, people infected with HIV and HCV through infected blood and blood products have successfully defended motions to strike out all or parts of their legal actions against federal and provincial governments and the Canadian Red Cross Society (CRCS). On 16 January 2003, the Québec Superior Court ruled that the plaintiffs in a class action could rely on the Krever Commission Report in their application for certification of a class proceeding. On 20 February 2003, the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench dismissed an application brought by the Canadian and Alberta governments to strike out the legal action brought against them. These cases illustrate that the settlement schemes proposed by the federal and provincial governments and the CRCS, and approved by the courts, have not put an end to the civil and constitutional claims brought by people seeking compensation for infection through tainted blood.     

Ironies of inclusion: social class and deinstitutionalization

This paper discusses changes in the social organization of mental institutionalization as they relate to developments in the wider social and economic environment. Despite dramatic changes in the system of inpatient psychiatric care during the last three decades, the historic division of labor between the private and the public system (with the latter treating the poor, the unemployed, and the nonwhite) has not ceased to exist. At the same time, under the influence of the postwar trend towards greater political integration of disadvantaged and marginal groups into society's central value systems, treatment of the mentally ill has become less segregated and more voluntary. An important implication of these two interacting trends--the changed legal position of the patient vis-à-vis the provider and the deteriorating economic position of the user of public psychiatric facilities--has been the exceeding irrelevance of one of the basic tenets of psychiatric care: that clinical treatment precedes social functioning. With two vignettes of chronic patients the article illustrates how symptoms and survival are fused in the contemporary, inclusionary system of care.     

Godparents,witnesses, and social class in mid-nineteenth century sweden

“Providing for the children's future” is a problem that parents should solve by the time children reach adulthood. In the case of a peasant family, the solution involved giving children part of the estate. In the Pyrénées, landownership as well as social status were bequathed to a single heir, while the other children had to leave the family house. What became of these others and where do they go? A small village from the Adour plain has been chosen to show how the system functioned during the nineteenth century, which was replete with economic crises. The study shows that roles and the duties connected with them changed during this century: internalization of local social norms was no longer going to be as successful as in the past. Also, the meaning of the family changed. Earlier, a simple domestic group working for the House, the family began to take on more autonomy as a production unit and started a long trend towards being a haven, a protector of the weak, old and unmarried members of the family.     

Ideology, class and the National Health Service

Since the start of the British National Health Service, disputes between the government and the medical profession have become formalized battles with well-recognized rules. But between 1974 and 1976 the consensus underlying the conflict was challenged by the Labour Government's policy on private practice and pay beds. This paper examines the course of the conflict and analyzes the factors underlying the eruption of this issue. It draws attention to the role of the trade-unions in activating the Labour Party's latent ideological commitment on private practice. Although the issue appears to conform to a class-conflict model, this simple symmetry becomes blurred on closer analysis. In conclusion the paper argues that while socio-structural factors extrinsic to the health service explain the appearance of private practice on the political agenda, it is factors endogenous to the NHS which explain the outcome of the dispute. In turn, however, these endogenous factors have little to do with the fact that the NHS is delivering a commodity called "health." Instead, what is important is that the NHS is a complex organization and, as such, depends on the co-operation of a variety of groups--ranging from the medical profession to laundry workers. The analysis, therefore, concludes that the power of the medical profession derives not from its elite status but from its position as an organized group in a complex industry.     

Untangling race and class effects on juvenile arrests

This study employed a synthesis of conflict and labeling theory to reexamine the often observed links between race, social class, and arrest. Using longitudinal data on a representative sample of U.S. teens, random effects negative binomial regressions detected direct and indirect effects of race and class on arrest. In support of main effects hypotheses, racial minority status and low SES increased arrests, controlling for demographic and legal items. Consistent with research on “out of place” effects for minority youth in high SES contexts, and counter to expectations, interactions showed that racial minority status increased arrest risk for high SES youth significantly more than it did for low SES youth. Somewhat reminiscent of research on the “Latino paradox,” the effect of minority status on arrest at low-income levels did not exert the same interactive effect for Hispanics as it did for Blacks. Implications for theory, policy, and future research are discussed.     

Disability, disparate impact, and class actions

Following Title VII's enactment, group-based employment discrimination actions flourished due to disparate impact theory and the class action device. Courts recognized that subordination that defined a group's social identity was also sufficient legally to bind members together, even when relief had to be issued individually. Woven through these cases was a notion of panethnicity that united inherently unrelated groups into a common identity, for example, Asian Americans. Stringent judicial interpretation subsequently eroded both legal frameworks and it has become increasingly difficult to assert collective employment actions, even against discriminatory practices affecting an entire group. This deconstruction has immensely disadvantaged persons with disabilities. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), individual employee claims to accommodate specific impairments, such as whether to install ramps or replace computer screens, have all but eclipsed a coherent theory of disability-based disparate impact law. Moreover, the class action device has been virtually nonexistent in disability discrimination employment cases. The absence of collective action has been especially harmful because the realm of the workplace is precisely where group-based remedies are needed most. Specifically, a crucial but overlooked issue in disability integration is the harder-to-reach embedded norms that require job and policy modifications. The Article argues that pandisability theory serves as an analogue to earlier notions of panethnicity and provides an equally compelling heuristic for determining class identity. It shows that pandisability undergirds ADA public service and public accommodation class actions in which individualized remedy assessments have been accepted as part of group-based challenges to social exclusion. The Article also demonstrates that this broader vision of collective action is consistent with the history underlying the class action device. Taking advantage of the relatively blank slate of writing on group-based disability discrimination, it offers an intrepid vision of the ADA's potential for transforming workplace environments. In advocating for a return to an earlier paradigm of collective action in the disability context, the Article also provides some thoughts on challenging race- and sex-based discrimination. Future workplace policies should plan for "all jobs to include some physical activity" unrelated to job qualifications in order to "dissuade unhealthy people from coming to work at Wal-Mart."     

The costs of class actions: allocation and collective redress in the US experience

Once a preserve of the American legal landscape, the class action device today transcends geographic boundaries. In the past decade, efforts have intensified to establish collective litigation instruments in diverse legal terrains outside the United States—including Europe—often with the common goal of allowing some form of collective legal redress while avoiding perceived disadvantages of class actions in the American experience. Today more than ever, from legislators to litigants to scholars, European reformers face the challenge—and the opportunity—of making fundamental choices about the scope and shape of the collective legal remedies they wish to make available. Choices about the shape of the class action device reflect foundational judgments about the proper allocation of costs, and there is much from the US experience that can inform Europe’s prospective reformers. This article describes the history and current status of class action rules in the US, and then compares class actions and another form of extra-compensatory damages—one type of punitive damages—as means of doing the same thing. Although neither punitive damages of this sort nor class actions generally have traditionally existed in civil law systems, they both—and especially this particular form of punitive damages—can, from an economic view, be made to vindicate the same kind of social cost accounting goals. By considering these legal devices together, we hope to shed light on crucial choices facing Europe as it grapples with how best to provide collective legal redress in light of the lessons of the US experience with class actions.     

The interpretation of shoeprint comparison class correspondences

The underlying principles involved in the interpretation of shoeprint comparisons have become a topical subject due to criticisms in the 2009 National Academy of Science (NAS) report on forensic sciences [1]. Difficulties in the application and understanding of these principles were also highlighted in a recent court ruling [2–5]. We report here a survey that may inform some aspects of this interpretation and discuss the implications of findings from this survey in the light of that court ruling and more importantly the NAS report.Five hundred shoeprints taken from student volunteers in Auckland, New Zealand were compared against each other for the presence of any pattern correspondences. Comparisons were undertaken of the full outsole and of smaller portions of the more common patterns.Of the 500 shoe impressions collected 488 (97.6%) were ultimately represented only once in the survey. The greatest number of corresponding patterns was for the most common brand of shoe (Converse Chuck Taylor All Star) and occurred in 3 of 500 observations. No instances of an imitation brand matching the authentic brand were found. Smaller sections of the common patterns showed a greater number of corresponding prints. However, the greatest number of matching partial patterns was again for the most common brand of shoe (Converse Chuck Taylor All Star) and occurred in 29 of 500 observations.We conclude that pattern match alone is of considerable evidential value even when the print is partial.     

论构建和谐阶层关系

构建和谐阶层关系具有十分重要的意义,本文通过对我国阶层关系的现状的揭示及其产生原因的分析,提出了构建和谐阶层关系的目标和主要举措。