Private Time and Public Time: The Temporal Structure of Social Accessibility and Professional Commitments

Abstract

This paper highlights the temporal aspects of social accessibility, demonstrating that time is a major dimension of social organization along which both privacy and professional commitments are defined in modern society. An analysis of the temporal structure of professional commitments within the domain of health care, leads to the claim that the temporally rigid way in which most professional commitments are defined today is one of the key characteristics of modern social organization. A general conceptual scheme, constructed around the temporal structure of social accessibility, is evaluated in terms of its use in helping us identify and differentiate various occupational roles as well as various status rankings within stratification systems. The symbolic significance of the temporal organization of social accessibility is stressed-both in general, and for professional commitments in particular.