Intellectual Continuities and New Directions

This chapter reviews and summarises the key intellectual debates and findings of research since 1979. It traces the various new directions proposed and their challenges to the established approaches, showing that an overall continuity in diversity can be discerned. Topics reviewed include the diversity of theoretical positions, the disputes over quantitative methods, and research on health, the body, and sexuality, stratification, race and ethnicity, crime, and science and technology studies.