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Faculties & Departments
Research Clusters
Social Networks, Social Institutions and the Life Course
As rapid social change continues to transform social relationships and individual lived experience in Ireland, it becomes imperative to meet the challenges implied in C. Wright Mills’ description of the sociological imagination as the ability “to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society.” In the course of their lives, how have individuals experienced and shaped our changing society? How have their social networks impacted on their actions and behaviour, mediating between biography and history?
This research cluster focuses on the dynamics of social networks, social behaviour and long-term patterns of change over the life course. These networks and life course dynamics are in turn shaped by patterns of embeddedness within social institutions such as households, workplaces and social and political organizations.
News and Events
Dr. Aileen O’Carroll has joined the Life Histories and Social Change project as post-graduate researcher.
The Ballymun Oral History Project has received funding from the Heritage Council, NUIM's Publications Committee and the Dept. of Sociology to publish "Voices of Ballymun: a community-based oral history", due out in late 2006.
Cluster Members and Research Interests
Dr. Laurence Cox. Social movement research (the alterglobalisation movement, activist theorising, movement milieux); working-class studies (community development); social theory (western Marxism, socialist feminism) ; west European societies and politics (modes of structuration from below); new religious movements (western Buddhism, neo-paganism); sociology of knowledge and culture (sociology of intellectuals and theory, new cultural milieux); methodology of interpretive research (research from below, participatory research models, community research)
Dr. Jane Gray. Gender, households and social change; sociology of reproduction; families and personal communities in Ireland; comparative-historical sociology.
Dr. Deirdre M. Kirke. Dynamics of social networks and individual behaviour; social network research; social capital and health issues; substance use in teenagers’ peer networks; friendship patterns and gender in a community; explaining homophily among friends; social support and social networks, developing theoretical explanations for teenagers’ behaviour.
Professor Seán Ó Riain. The transformation of state development strategies and politics within a globalising economy; the emergence of a ‘developmental network state’; the remaking of space, place and regions under conditions of globalisation; the emergence of a network of ‘global regions’ at the core of the international economy; the methodological implications of the challenges posed by globalisation to sociology’s historical identification of ‘society’ with the ‘nation-state’, with particular reference to the issues surrounding the ethnographic study of global processes ; the transformation of work, organisational structures and class and gender relations in the fast growing information technology sectors.
Recent publications by Departmental Staff Relevant to Cluster Research
Corcoran, M. P., J. Gray and M. Peillon. Forthcoming. “Ties That Bind? The Social Fabric of Daily Life in New Suburbs.” In T. Fahey, H. Russell and C. Whelan, eds. The Best of Times.
Cox, L. ed. Forthcoming. Voices of Ballymun: A Community-Based Oral History. Dublin: Eneclann/Ballymun Oral History Association.
Gray, J. 2006. “Gender Composition and Household Labour Strategies in Pre-Famine Ireland.” History of the Family 11, 1: 1-18.
Gray, J. 2004. “The Life Histories and Family Change Project at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth.” In G. Macheski, K.S. Lowney, C. Knudson-Martin and M. Capece, eds. Teaching about Families: A Collection of Essays, Syllabi, Projects, and Assignments, Websites and Bibliographies, 4th edition. Washington, D.C.: American Sociological Association.
Gray, J. 2002. “The Drama of Childbirth.” Pp. 247-259 in Mary P. Corcoran and Michel Peillon, eds. Ireland Unbound: A Turn of the Century Chronicle. Irish Sociological Chronicles, Volume 3, 1999-2000. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration.
Kirke, D. M., 2006a, Teenagers and substance use: social networks and peer influence, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.
Kirke, D. M., 2006b, ‘Gender and chain reactions in teenagers’ social networks’, Connections, 27, 1, 15-23.
Kirke, D. M., 2004, ‘Chain reactions in adolescents’ cigarette, alcohol and drug use: similarity through peer influence or the patterning of ties in peer networks?’ Social Networks, 26, 1, 3-28.
Kirke, D. M., 1996, ‘Collecting peer data and delineating peer networks in a complete network’, Social Networks, 18, 4, 333-346.
Kirke, D. M., 1995, ‘Teenage peer networks in the community as sources of social problems: a sociological perspective’, in Brugha, T. S. (ed.), Social support and psychiatric disorder: research findings and guidelines for clinical practice, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 174-194.
Freeman, L. C., Webster, C. M. and Kirke, D. M., 1998, ‘Exploring social structure using dynamic three-dimensional color images’, Social Networks, 20, 109-118.
S. Ó Riain, forthcoming, 2006. “No Deal or New Deal? Knowledge Workers in the Information Economy” in J. Anman, T. Carpenter and G. Neff (eds). Surviving the New Economy Paradign Publishers: New York.
S. Ó Riain, 2000. ‘Net-Working for a Living: Irish Software Developers in the Global Workplace’ chapter in M.Burawoy et al. Global Ethnography (University of California Press).
Reprinted in R.Baldoz, C.Koeber and P.Kraft, eds. Critical Studies of Work (Temple University Press, 2000)
Reprinted in A.Wharton, ed. Working in America Second Edition (Mayfield Press, 2000) (abridged)
Reprinted in N.Thrift and A.Amin, eds. The Blackwell Cultural Economy Reader (Blackwell, 2003) (abridged)
Reprinted in D. Bell, ed. 2006. Cybercultures: Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies Routledge: London
D.F. Hannan, S. Ó Riain, 1993. Pathways to Adulthood in Ireland: Causes and Consequences of Success and Failure in Transitions Among Irish Youth General Research Series No. 161, Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin, 253 pages.
Postgraduate Research Supervision Interests of Cluster Members
Social movements, working-class studies, participatory research models, new religious movements, sociology of knowledge (L.Cox)
Macro-sociological and life course perspectives on families and households; history and politics of reproduction; kinship and personal communities (J. Gray)
Social network research generally; dynamics of social networks and individual behaviour; social capital and health issues; substance use in teenagers’ peer networks; friendship patterns and gender; explaining homophily among friends; social support and social networks; developing theoretical explanations for teenagers’ behaviour (D. Kirke)
The politics of work and employment; gender, race and workplace inequality (S. Ó Riain)
Postgraduate Research Students in Cluster and Thesis Titles
Emma Barnes. ‘Dynamic relationships, mental well-being and young people: a sociological perspective’.
Jean Bridgeman. “An Ethnographic Study of How Drugs Work in Working-Class Communities.”
Ann Dalton. ‘Ageing in Place - Changing Family Structures. Exploring the Significance of the Family as a Site for Ageing in Ireland.’
Ashling Jackson. ‘Social Devaluing of the Institution of Marriage in Ireland and the Emergence of Pre-Marital Cohabitation as a “New” Social Institution.’
Lawlor, Susan. “Young People Living With Congenital Anomalies in Ireland: Moving Beyond a Medical Perspective.”
Alice Ann Lee. “Parents of Adolescents and Adults with Autism: Exploring Their Experiences of Social Supports.”
Mary Phipps. ‘From Housewife to “Domestic Goddess” and Beyond. The Significance of Women’s Role as Food Providers in a Contemporary Irish Context.
Teaching by Staff related to the Cluster
a. Undergraduate:
a.Undergraduate:
Special Topics Research Seminar on Life Histories and Family Change (J. Gray)
Special Topics Research Seminar on Working-Class Communities in Dublin (L. Cox)
Structures of Inequality: Race, Class and Gender (L. Cox)
Social Network Studies (D. Kirke)
Social Network Analysis: Theory, Method and Applications (D. Kirke)
b. Postgraduate:
Marxism and Culture (L. Cox)
Social Networks and Social Capital; Social Network Methods (D. Kirke)
Current Research Projects
‘A Life History Approach to Social Change’ Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2005-8. €168,000. (Sean O’Riain and Jane Gray)
Cox, L. and A. Wright. The Iveagh Buildings Oral History Project (Pilot)
Gray, J. Ireland and the Transformation of the Reproductive Self 1750-2050.
Kirke, D. M. Homophily Among Teenage Friends: The Dynamic of Influence and Selection (With International Team).
O’Riain, S. The Politics of the Software Workplace
Completed Research Projects
Ballymun Oral History Association with L. Cox and P. McBride. Ballymun Oral History Project
Intellectual Community
Departmental Seminars in this Cluster in Recent Years
Dr. Robert Miller, Department of Sociology, Queen's University Belfast. ''What can the biographical and life course perspectives tell each other? ( November 17th, 2005)
Dr. Kate Fisher, Department of History, University of Exeter. ''Asking the Same Question Twice' (February 23rd, 2006)
Professor Martin Kohli, [details?] (March 23rd, 2006)
Colloquia, Conferences and other events related to the Cluster
Symposium on “Civic and Social Life in the Suburbs.” NUI Maynooth, April 8th, 2005.
For further information contact:
Dr. Jane Gray
Department of Sociology
NUI Maynooth
Co. Kildare
Ireland
or email jane.gray@nuim.ie