A major contribution to the social scientific understanding of how people make sense of their lives, Ideological Dilemmas presents an illuminating new approach to the study of everyday thinking. Contradictory strands abound within both ideology and common sense. In contrast to many modern theorists, the authors see these dilemmas of ideology as enabling, rather than inhibiting: thinking about them helps people to think meaningfully about themselves and the world. The dilemmas within ideology and their effects on thinking are explored through (...) the analysis of what people say in specific key situations: education, medical care, race and gender. The authors identify common ideological themes running through the common-sense discourses they analyse. They highlight the tensions between themes of equality and authority, freedom and necessity, individuality and collectivity. Time and again, the contradictions between these ideological themes crop up as respondents argue and puzzle over their social worlds. Written with refreshing clarity, the discussion cuts across the boundary which often separates sociology from social psychology. Sociologists are reminded that the reproduction of ideology involves individual processes of thinking; social psychologists are urged to recognize the ideological nature of thought. (shrink)

By looking at category use within the asylum debate, this paper investigates how participants construct ‘asylum seekers’. Critical discursive psychology is used to study a corpus of public sphere data. Categorization is shown to be a powerful political and rhetorical strategy for participants in the asylum debate as they attempt to impose their own systems of classification onto the debate, and, in doing so, justify the harsh treatment of asylum seekers. Three strategies that speakers use to justify the different treatment (...) of asylum seekers are identified: first, speakers distinguish the categories of ‘refugee’ and ‘migrant’; second, the categories of ‘refugees’ and ‘economic migrants’ are conflated; and third, the categories of ‘refugee’ and ‘illegal immigrant’ are simultaneously distinguished and conflated. We conclude by discussing some of the political implications of these analyses – in particular, how category constructions can work to focus attention on asylum seekers' legitimacy, and not on how they can be helped. (shrink)