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In this paper I seek to delineate how the relationship between social work and sociology has been regarded in more recent years as represented by textbooks. In the light of such writing, I review the nature, themes and extent of sociological interest in social work in the past and the present. I set out a partial and provisional agenda for interlacing disciplinary and professional work.

This review examines key dimensions of contemporary sex work, particularly prostitution. Most research focuses exclusively on street prostitution and female workers, with much less attention devoted to indoor prostitution, male and transgender workers, customers, and managers. Furthermore, most of the literature examines prostitution where it is illegal, neglecting contexts where it is legal and regulated by the government. The review demonstrates how research on these topics can enrich our understanding of contemporary sex work.

This essay is a response to the call for a discussion about future trends in sociology by focusing broadly on the sub-discipline of work and employment. In doing so the piece directly engages with earlier interventions made by John Scott (2005) and Gayle Letherby (2005) in Sociological Research Online. It examines the current state of the sociology of work by charting its foundation and subsequent development. It suggests that there is currently a problem in the area caused in part by intellectual trends and fragmentation. It argues that those sociologists working in the field need to engage collectively in a reflective process to refocus the subject combining elements from its 'golden age' as well as from more contemporary sources.

This paper attempts to clarify the concept of relational work for understanding economic life as proposed by Viviana Zelizer. To do so, it first compares the concept to similar notions used in other disciplinary fields. Second, it reinterprets some exemplary economic sociology studies by using the relational work lens to clarify the concept's utility for empirical analysis. Third, it speculates about the place of relational work in the theoretical toolkit of economic sociologists, in particular its relation to embeddedness. The paper concludes by arguing for the utility of the concept to integrate structural, cultural, and power-focused analyses of economic life, to highlight the often-overlooked role of emotions in economic exchange, and to ground an alternative to rational action theory in economic sociology.

AbstractThis paper explores the potential that visual methods, approaches, and resources offer to the sociologist of work. It looks at the way work is represented in a range of publications and asks questions about what the visual can add to our understanding of the workplace, workers, and work processes. It argues that we need to develop and expand a sociological language of the visual in order to better understand cultural and other aspects of work and employment.

This paper describes two teaching strategies from our workshop, "Teaching the Sociology of Gender and Work," that can help students understand the mechanisms and consequences of workplace gender inequality at the macro- and micro-levels. Cynthia Anderson's class project uses wage and sex composition data that allows students to learn actively how data are used to study general trends and changes over time. It encourages students to explore the reality of their possible careers and fields in terms of wages, proportion of women and men, and other factors. Sharon Bird's class exercise requires students to consider the interactional dynamics of everyday work life and encourages them to see the subtle processes of marginalization and exclusion while also thinking about how to overcome gender biases. Some of this information will contribute to student angst about inequality in the workplace; thus, we conclude with suggestions for decreasing potential student distress and increasing student empowerment.