¹University College London, London, UK. E-mail: g.scambler@ucl.ac.uk

Abstract

This paper is based on the premise that the concept of social structure so familiar during the heyday of classical sociology has been neglected in the contemporary sociological study of health inequalities. After a brief preliminary discourse on the structuring of agency, a number of published models are introduced and some of their key limitations debated. The framework for a more sociologically progressive research programme is then ventured, building on the author's critical realist and critical theoretical approach to the changing dynamic of class relations of the economy and command relations of the state and to the changeable distribution of asset flows. The concepts of 'alienation', 'surveillance' and 'aspirational consumerism' are used.