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Caught up in current social changes, we do not fully understand the reshaping of social life. In sociological analyses there is a conceptual gap between subjectivities and social structural processes, and we face real difficulties in understanding social change and diversity. Through analysis of key areas of social life, here, Sarah Irwin develops a new and exciting resource for better understanding our changing social world. Breaking with conventional approaches and reconnecting the subjective with the objective, Irwin's book develops a new conceptual and analytical perspective with social relationality, interdependence and social context at its heart. The new perspective is developed through grounded analyses of empirical evidence, and draws on new data. It explores and analyzes: * significant changes in family forms, fertility, gender relations and commitments to employment, children and care, both now, and with comparisons to early twentieth century developments * the meshing of norms and social relations in contexts of change * diverse values, norms and perceptions of fairness, analyzed with respect to diversity over the life course, and in respect of gender, ethnicity and social class. Through analysis of context, Irwin offers new insights, and tackles puzzles of explanation. Reshaping Social Life offers a fascinating and innovative way of slicing into and re-interrogating our changing social world, and is sure to become a landmark resource for students, scholars and researchers.

Lay perceptions of social structure and economic distribution have a particular salience in the current era of widening inequalities which has characterised Britain since the 1980s. Research into subjective beliefs has generated puzzles: people underestimate the extent of inequalities, see themselves as being situated 'near the middle' irrespective of their objective position, and allegedly hold an a-social view of the underpinnings of socio-economic inequalities. This article presents a new qualitative analysis of lay perceptions of inequality. It does so with a particular focus on context, biographical experience and social change. The qualitative and temporal perspectives reveal that people are more sophisticated analysts of social process, and of their own situatedness within the wider social structure, than often thought. This has implications for sociological understanding but also holds relevance for renewing political options for intervention. Additionally, the evidence offers insights into lived experiences of inequality through a period of significant restructuring.

There has been a significant growth in the infrastructure for archiving and sharing qualitative data, facilitating reuse and secondary analysis. The article explores some issues relating to ethics and epistemology in the conduct of qualitative secondary analysis. It also offers a critical discussion of the importance of engaging with the situatedness and contextually embedded nature of data, and ways in which contexts (including research designs and disciplinary and methodological assumptions) are themselves embedded in primary data. I illustrate some strategies for addressing these matters with reference to analyses of two different areas, drawing on research conducted as part of ESRC Timescapes, and highlight some issues for development research.

This Open Space section presents exemplars of qualitative secondary analysis in practice along with discussion of the challenges of, and strategies for, conducting such analysis. The articles share an historical as well as sociological dimension in their focus. Two of them centre on aspects of change in familial and intergenerational relationships, and the wider societal contexts in which these are shaped. Throughout, the articles examine questions of secondary analytic method alongside substantive and conceptual puzzles.

There has been a proliferation of interest in cultural processes amongst those seeking to explain the role of family life in the reproduction of class-related educational inequalities. Analysts of macro level quantitative and micro level qualitative evidence share an interest in internal family dynamics and resources, yet they generate very different pictures of family level processes, and their articulation with broader structures of social inequality. This article critically explores insights and gaps afforded by the differing perspectives. Since qualitative research is well placed to access salient cultural processes in action and interaction, some proposals are made about enhancing such a programme of research, locating the specificity of evidence, confronting class diversity, and better grounding claims about the nature of social reproduction.

The paper develops a new analysis of attitudes to aspects of work and caring for children. The paper reports on analysis of data generated through a small scale survey designed and conducted with pilot study funding to follow up aspects of research by the ESRC Research Group for the study of Care, Values and the Future of Welfare. The survey research takes as a focus a specific point in the life course of parents: when they have children in the early years at primary school. The paper develops an analysis of the coherence of people's attitudes and their social location, with particular reference to social inequality. It also reports on new linked analysis of British Social Attitudes Survey data. In contrast to recent arguments of increasingly 'autonomous' subjectivities the research contributes to a broader theoretical understanding of the mutuality of subjectivities and extant social relations.

Within sociological and demographic research many argue that recent demographic transformations can be explained, at least in part, by a growth in individualism. Such approaches, with their emphasis on growing individual autonomy, offer a model of human action in which the social recedes from analysis. This paper offers an alternative framework for analysing processes shaping demographic change, taking as a particular focus aspects of changing patterns of fertility in the UK. Interpretations of the fertility decline at the turn of the twentieth century emphasise the importance of changing patterns of inter-dependence across generations and between women and men. It is argued that in parallel, although to a lesser degree, recent decades have manifest a change in the social positioning of these groups. Change in the reproductive regime is offered as a concept for denoting this restructuring of inter-dependencies. We are witnessing a reconfiguration of social ties and not their displacement. It is as an integral part of such changes that developments in fertility are best interrogated.

Over the past decade research into youth and the transition to adult status has focused on the relationship between labour force and domestic life course trajectories, in the context of employment restructuring and declining demand for youth labour. Some writers have addressed a hypothesis of deferral amongst recent cohorts of young people in the timing of transitions from the partial dependence of youth to forms of adult independence. This hypothesis has been explored through consideration of significant life course events, particularly the attainment of independence from the parental home, cohabitation, marriage and birth of the first child. Critics have argued that research has not fully succeeded in locating youth and transition in relation to general social arrangements. It is argued that this problem arises as a consequence of a conceptual framework which foregrounds the issue of transitions from dependence to independence but undertheorises the relationship between them. The approach argues that employment and household resourcing arrangements together shape `dependence' and `independence'. Change in patterns of transition is integral to change in these general arrangements. The argument is developed through an analysis of change in the structure of rewards to employment and patterns of delay in family formation.

This chapter sketches some key developments in the framing of youth and early adulthood as life course stages, and situates the influence of the recent economic recession with reference to longer-term trends including increased social inequality. The authors explore different aspects of youth and early adulthood as these relate to labour market and family transitions and inter-generational relationships. These are illustrated by developments across the European nations represented in the book, specifically Norway, the UK, Germany, Greece, Portugal and Italy. The authors discuss the theoretical foundations of youth studies and life course research and set the context for the collection as well as framing the chapters in the book.

The current paper takes as a focus some issues relating to the possibility for, and effective conduct of, qualitative secondary data analysis. We consider some challenges for the re-use of qualitative research data, relating to researcher distance from the production of primary data, and related constraints on knowledge of the proximate contexts of data production. With others we argue that distance and partial knowledge of proximate contexts may constrain secondary analysis but that its success is contingent on its objectives. So long as data analysis is fit for purpose then secondary analysis is no poor relation to primary analysis. We argue that a set of middle range issues has been relatively neglected in debates about secondary analysis, and that there is much that can be gained from more critical reflection on how salient contexts are conceptualised, and how they are accessed, and assumed, within methodologies and extant data sets. We also argue for more critical reflection on how effective knowledge claims are built. We develop these arguments through a consideration of ESRC Timescapes qualitative data sets with reference to an illustrative analysis of gender, time pressure and work/family commitments. We work across disparate data sets and consider strategies for translating evidence, and engendering meaningful analytic conversation, between them.

The article presents an analysis of new empirical evidence on parenting values and orientations to children's education and social class. A survey of parents with children involved in organized activities was undertaken, followed by a series of semi-structured interviews with a sample strategically identified with reference to both social class and subjective orientations to education. We argue that within recent literature there has been a tendency towards overstating the internal homogeneity of middle-class and working-class experiences. Our data reveal diverse parental orientations to their children's education within, as well as across, classes. We analyse this diversity in relation to varied circumstances, and draw out some implications for theories of inequality.