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Discusses the papers in this issue in calculated style, with regard to social structure, human agency and social policy. Itemizes the papers one‐by‐one and gives their strength of argument or policy or an important argument in their favour.

Purpose – This chapter explores a traditional mode of ethnography referred to as ‘realist ethnography’ as it relates to sport and physical culture (SPC) research.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter discusses different approaches to ethnography, but principally addresses a realist ethnography I conducted on Ashtanga yoga in Canada.

Findings – I discuss how data evolved from the realist ethnographic method, and outline the manner in which ethnographic research is as a ‘way of life’. The chapter concludes that the realist ethnographic method is not untenable, as some authors suggest, but rather a viable and exciting mode of knowledge production in the SPC field.

Originality/value – The chapter is original work. It makes a case for the retention of realist ethnographies in our methodological lexicon, and illustrates the empirical process of writing culture. It also endeavours to engage students and scholars alike regarding the value of ethnographic methods more broadly.

A history of the intellectual origins of the debate over the astructural bias is presented. The chapter summarizes both the emergent bias thesis and the charge of an astructural bias. The major works within this debate are reviewed. It has been found that the astructural bias still exists within the work of contemporary interactionists. The conclusion is that if interactionists want their work to be taken seriously, then they must seriously confront the distinguishing concept in sociology: social structure.

Although there are many journalistic accounts of ongoing political events narrating about pro-democratic or antiauthoritarian movements, such as strikes, riots, and protest letters, not many scholarly analyses devote attention to the longitudinal analysis of the preceding events that lead to a spur of protests. Not many scholars account or are able to account for the activity of political dissidents that is often hidden, purposely censored, and covered from public eye. Most frequently, until the street strike and riots, the degree of spread of dissident activity within a country is unknown to scholars. It is equally difficult to find information about the national and international networks that political activists form to gain support and acceptance of their acclamations, propositions, and calls for political or economic reforms. Furthermore, only access to dissident press allows researchers to glimpse the activity of existing organizations looking at issues censored by existing governments.

Formal research ethics codes perpetuate imbalances between ethics regulators and researchers in the social sciences. Some of these imbalances are an outcome of ethics regimes that use the biomedical paradigm when evaluating social science research. The bureaucratic nature in the manner by which ethics committees operate is yet another factor that produces imbalances that reshape social scientific enquiry. This chapter, however, underscores some of the less recognised ways that ethics codes produce a disequilibrium. First, ethics codes require, in effect, that researchers in the social sciences ‘other’ themselves at the expenses of their traditional stock of social scientific methodology by seeing themselves through the eyes of the colonising ethics codes. Second, ethics codes insist that researchers need to exemplify a far larger number of virtues than the very few set aside for members of ethics review committees. Ethics regimes place social scientists on the margins of the ethics world: the regime not only colonises them, but also insists that they hold on to virtues that are quite absent with respect to members of ethics committees.

The processual ordering branch of symbolic interaction has long recognized the importance of rhetoric and power to the social constitution of reality. However, little systematic effort has been devoted to probing their intertwined effects in the public policy arena.

The purpose of this paper is to employ the processual ordering perspective to examine the dramaturgical styles used in shaping public policy – expressed in terms of the “public administration” and “realpolitik” forms of rhetoric – among contending political factions as they negotiate mental health public policy. A latent content analysis of the minutes of key U.S. congressional debates, augmented with secondary archival material from the press is employed. It is concluded that both forms of rhetoric play a role in shaping public mental health policy and that both factions modify their rhetorical form as the debate progresses. Those modifications strengthen the position of one faction while weakening that of the other. Theoretical implications are discussed.