Care and caring

The focus of this chapter is a sociological examination of the concepts of care and caring. As we will discover, care and caring have been largely unproblematised in sociology, invisible in normative, functionalist notions about women and women’s role in the family and society. Disappointingly, care and caring still struggle for attention in sociological textbooks. There is only a brief mention of both

in the reference books recommended at the end of Chapter 1, and always in a broader analysis of something else, often the family or gender issues or, in the case of Macionis and Plummer (2008), a discussion about disability. The lack of attention to care and caring in conventional sociological writing should not, however, let the reader think that these topics have been under-researched, or that there is little to say about them. On the

contrary, there has been a huge amount of empirical research and theorising about care and caring over the last thirty years or so. More recently, analysis has taken on board insights from care recipients as well as care givers, and a wider structural perspective has emerged highlighting the importance of ‘race’, class, age and disability, as well as issues of gender and sexuality. The twenty-first century has also brought new challenges, as the information revolution and ‘telecare’ change the ways in which care is conceptualised, delivered and received.