This title poses sociological questions about the formation of intellectual fields and their social relations, and offers an in-depth, historical study of one of the largest specialities of the discipline of sociology - the sociology of health and medicine - across three countries: the United States of America, Britain and Australia.

Table of Contents

• List of Tables
• Introduction
• Theoretical Frameworks and Beginnings
• Theoretical and methodological approaches to the field
• On the processes of intellectual change and disciplinary formation
• The nature of disciplines
• The institutionalisation of three sociologies
• Reflections on the institutionalisation process
• Situated disciplines: Other forms of social structure
• The chapters ahead
• Past and Present: Three National Sociologies of Health and Medicine
• The sociology of health and medicine in the United States
• The sociology of health and medicine in the United Kingdom
• The sociology of health and medicine in Australia
• The United States, the United Kingdom and Australia compared
• Disciplines, Professions and Specialities
• Sociology and its specialities
• The Study and Its Methods
• The research questions
• The study design
• The countries
• The journals
• The selection of papers
• The Content Analysis
• Key variables
• National Trends in the Sociology of Health and Medicine since 1990
• Institutional context
• Gender
• Disciplines and identity
• Identities, work units and disciplinary boundaries
• The sociologists: Identity, method and theory
• Authorship teams
• Citation patterns
• Subjects, interests and concerns
• Sociological theories
• The funding of research
• Objectivity, sympathy, and critical distance from medicine
• Old Roads and New Pathways: Reflections, Conclusions and a Way Forward
• Disciplines and specialities
• Sociology's external borders
• National differences
• Identity, inclusion and exclusion
• One sociology of health and medicine or three?
• A way forward
• References