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AbstractSince the early days of the Human Genome Project, there has been increasing social scientific research that promises to elucidate the social implications, aspects or dimensions of research on human, animal and plant genetics. This paper discusses the literature on the social aspects of different types of genetic testing technologies and their applications in the contexts of clinical medicine, biomedical research, personal and family genealogy, and criminal justice. Although there are many differences in the practices, purposes and organization of these technologies across such contexts, this paper shows that social scientists' understandings of their social aspects centers on individual and collective experiences of how genetic testing technologies operate in practice.

This article deals with the preliminary findings on some social aspects of embourgeoisement amongst respondents to a social survey in Melbourne, Australia. The sample is stratified into blue collar, white collar and middle class workers. The findings are that whilst there is little or no difference in the source of general `life-satisfactions' and orientation to work across the groups, there are strong differences in the `leisure companion' network, membership of and leadership in `voluntary associations', and `educational aspirations for children'. The same results were found when income was held constant. These findings, taken into conjunction with previous findings about economic differences, lead to the broad conclusion that whilst Australia is affluent in a similar way to Britain and the U.S.A. the social structure is dissimilar and that there is little evidence of the convergence of the social classes.

We are witnessing today in both Europe and America the breakdown of what may be called the nineteenth-century equilibrium, and at the same time the effort to work out a new equilibrium as a basis of life for the twentieth century. The New Deal is the American phase of this movement. We can understand it better if we view it with the search-light of the movements in other countries, and if we make clear to ourselves what is driving them, how they are being driven, and what problems are in their path.The key to recent social developments seems to me to lie in the resurgence of the middle classes. This is a development of the last decade or so, and is largely the result of the failure of the two other major social groups—the capitalists and the workers—to give Western society, especially Western European society, leadership and direction. On the one hand, the capitalistic groups, while concentrating industrial and financial resources, showed a sad incapacity to establish a leadership based on social needs and moral values.

The article reviews the social aspect of the interethnic interaction and considers the issues concerning the tolerance of different ethnic groups.