ABSTRACT
Working theories of modernization are consistently macrosociological in conception; they are intended as universal, and implicitly claim to grasp, both conceptually and substantively, the specific character of social change as it unfolds worldwide in the twentieth century. As a concept, term, and idea, everyday life appears as self-evident to everyone—a fact that presents an additional difficulty. A characteristic of highly differentiated societies with developed market economies and an advanced division of labor is that private households in the latter are significantly less occupied with production than are households in preceding forms of society. In part, therefore, modernity involves a functional specialization that takes the form of the household’s surrendering its factors of production, with goods available through purchase on the market. In attempting to trace the process and consequences of modernization from the perspective of a sociology of everyday life, an approach using role theory seems particularly apt.
