The introduction in March 2006 of legislation banning smoking in public places in Scotland raised concerns that smokers would smoke more at home and so increase the exposure of those living with them to tobacco smoke. Drawing on interviews from two qualitative studies conducted after the...

Post-modern theorists have highlighted the impacts of rapid social and economic change in lessening structural constraints, arguing that the concepts of "gender" and "social class" are now less useful in understanding people's life chances and choices. While the epochal nature of such changes...

In recent years, there has been a rise in the creation of DNA databases promising a range of health benefits to individuals and populations. This development has been accompanied by an interest in, and concern for the ethical, legal and social aspects of such collections. In terms of policy...

'What do you want to be when you grow up?' is a question often asked of children yet little is known about how children and their parents think about their future in terms of employment. This paper, based on qualitative longitudinal research with 14 families, explores children's and parents'...

Public unease that stem cell research (SCR) may be proceeding somewhat unfettered raises issues about links between trust in and regulation of science/scientists, with wider relevance to a policy drive to (re)build public trust in science. This paper analyses three themes: different objects of...

This paper examines how young teenagers living in socio-economically disadvantaged families perceive everyday food and eating practices within the home. From in-depth interviews with 36 Scottish teenagers aged 13-14 years, we analysed teenagers\' accounts of contemporary \'family meals\'. We...

In this paper we explore some current issues in, what has come to be called, the new sociology of childhood and how these relate to the process of researching children's lives in general, and to our own research in particular. We discuss the developmental model of childhood, before going on to...

The rise in numbers of overweight/obese children in the UK is causing widespread concern. Biomedical constructions of body acceptability and 'good health' mean that overweight/obese young people are frequently seen as deviant. The socio-cultural contexts within which young teenagers become fat,...

Little is known about how health practitioners tasked with tackling health inequalities account for their own programmes and actions. This paper attempts to address this gap by drawing on data collected in the course of an evaluation of the Healthy Living Centre (HLC) programme, which was...

There has been considerable debate about the professional status of pharmacy and the relationship between pharmacists and the medical profession. There has been less emphasis on the consumers' view of chemists and on the use made of over-the-counter remedies. This paper examines the actual and...