The paper offers a critical review of the so called "market transition debate", using Nee's 1989 ASR article as its point of departure. It identifies three major dimensions of the controversy: a) can market play an equalizing role in an economic system? b) who benefits from the expansion of markets, cadres or ordinary people? c) is the theory of markel transition teleological? The main hypothesis of the paper is that at least as far as the first two question is concerned the answer really should be "it depends". Both those who accept markel transition theory and those who reject it make the error or overgeneralizing írom their evidense. This paper instead suggests that the task of social research is to identify under what circumstances, what type and degree of market penetration produces equalizing effects, what sort of markets benefit cadres or former cadres, and what sort of markets were used by ordinary people to improve their life chances. The paper offers a number of empirically testable hypotheses along these lines.
 

Bognár, Virág
Ideology and Utopia Shipwrecked. A Comparison of the German and English Variants of Karl Mannheim's Ideology and Utopia

In the literature on Mannheim basically two views are current on how the differences between the German and English variants of Ideology and Utopia can be interpreted: a) the sociology of knowledge has undergone a basic theoretical change, b) the English variam is an organic continuation of the German original. The present paper gives a different answer. It attempts to eliminate the 'shortcomings' of earlier literature by relying among others on the 'list of differences' of more than one hundred pages between the two textual variants, prepared by the author. One should not see the radically changed theory of the sociology of knowledge in the English variam, neither some kind of 'organic' continuation of the original theory, but such a version in which some of the stylistic elements of thinking in the German original have disappeared and the remaining ones have been mixed with new ones; they create ambivalense and tension instead of creating a similar, or radically different reading experience in the reader. With such an open editing of the text, which characterises almost all of Mannheim's writing, he apparently 'stands out' of the line of theoreticians. The origin of the new elements is of two kinds: Mannheim wished to incorporate the original theory of interpretation into a general theoretical framework of sociology (of knowlendge). Its most important consequence was the separation of interpretation by the sociology of knowledge from understanding. It is impossible to extend the broadening of rationalisation so mich that it should swallow even the sphere of the irrational. Ön the other hand the experience of the victory of fascism and the Bence of the approaching war had the greatest influence upon the changes of theory: it became obvious that the sociology of knowledge was unable to say anything worthwhile about authority, as it was too exposed in the face of it. The paper tries to avoid 'labelling' and strives to interpret Mannheim's theory in its constant change.
 

Utasi, Ágnes
Marriage, Divorce - Middle Class Identity: Practice and Attitudes

The middle classes possess a material and economic position and symbolic capital which is better than the average in society, thus usually they may shape their life style with greater autonomy if compared to those of lower status. At the same time they jealously guard their relatíve well being and highly appreciate security.

The paper studies whether the efforts of people living with a middle class sense of identity in family and marriage are characterised by their striving to achieve enhanced security? What is their opinion about living together outside marriage and about divorce destabilising family and life in marriage? The analysis confronts the opinion of middle class people with the practice followed by them.
 

Fogarassy, Gabriella-Szántó, Zoltán
Privatization and the Tertius Gaudens

The study intends to contribute to the clarification of the interpersonal preconditions of privatization processes. Its Basic aim si to show, typify, and empirically illustrate the strategic interactions (status-seeking efforts, bargaining and coalition formabon processes, ront- and intluence-seeking activities, ete.), which - at least partly - could explain the fails or successes of the different privatization attempts. The main emphasis is put on the three-person relations. As a conceptual-theoretical starting point Georg Simmel's and Theodore Caplow's classical ideas about triad arc summerized, then different three-person interactions are presented, which may substantially intluence he course of privatization. The empirical illustration is based on a case study of our research on privatization in Hungary.
 

Rácz, József
Doing nothing
Housing Estate and Slums Mentality

The author describes the new perspectives on research methods of ethnography. In his own research he conducted investigations among the 16-24-yean-old young people of a housing estate, where the field workers adopted the method of participant-observation.

In the present study the author describes the everyday activities of the young people, their acts of violence (aggression agarost persons ad objects), and the connection of the aggression with "doing nothing". Regarding the group-formabon of the young the importance of two factors has been pointed out: the importance of peer-field (which conception is different from that of the peer-group): and the importance of slums mentality.
 

Gábrity, Molnár, Irén
The Sociological Aspects of the Emigration of Yugoslav Population

The emigration of Yugoslav population has been going on for three decades. Its first wave when people were laking up temporary jobs in the developed capitalist countries startod after 1965, when the socio-economic reform was startod after World War II. The state wished to solve the problem of agricultural overpopulation, unemployment and unskilled labour by opening the borders. By the early eighties it was the migration of trained labour and experts which became characteristic. The goal of migration was the countries of Western and Northern Europe (the FRG, Austria and France). By the late eighties it was economic migration. Now, in the nineties the motivations of migration change: it has political as well as psychological causes, the danger of war and military mobiliration, forced removals of people from their homes give a ncw dimension to the emigration of Yugoslavs. They go away in marser, young experts and entire families leave. In my papot 1 have pointed out the characteristics and dimensions of economic emigration, its motivations, the extent of adjustment to the new environment.