ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the organisation of middle-class non-kin sociability, concentrating in particular on friendship. The Selden Hey research confirmed this conclusion too, for on the whole proportionally more of the working-class respondents’ friends were drawn from work and neighbour contacts. The middle-class respondents selected their friends from a wider range of settings. However, this formulation, like that of comparing the number of friends claimed, is too simple. Friendships do not just happen, but are both generated and structured by the participants. They are organised and created around the participants’ knowledge and assumptions about what in general such relationships involve. The use of the home is particularly important in this, as it is the individual’s private domain. The constraints imposed on interaction in externally organised settings are largely removed, and the individuals are free to interact as they wish.
