This chapter reviews the activities of the Assessment Strategies and Standards in Sociology project. In doing so it seeks to achieve two aims. The chapter identifies a number of key themes raised in the course of the seven contributions. It offers some speculative remarks about future trends. It has become apparent to the authors that sociological researchers have neglected some crucial areas for investigation. Despite a long-standing sociological interest in labour markets and their operation, relatively little is known about the academic labour market for sociologists. The rapid expansion of the discipline, its diffusion throughout other programmes and its contribution to new multi-disciplinary areas of interest have all combined to make the paths into sociology teaching more variegated and career trajectories afterwards more complex. By contrast the authors' activities offered a space for collective reflection and sharing of insights and practice within the context of a single discipline.

The neo-liberal right argued that professionally dominated services were relatively impervious to consumer criticism. Even without the neo-liberal assault on public services, critical questions about the performance of public sector professionals have been asked in the last decade. Pennington argues that there are powerful reasons why continuous professional development of University teachers is essential in the context of 'the half-life of knowledge, the changing profile of students, the demands of lifelong learning and the potential of information technology'. In common with other public sector professionals, University teachers face a struggle to retain some of the traditional aspects of autonomy but within a framework of accountability that is probably inescapable. The post-Dearing agenda, driven by the Quality Assurance Agency has number of aspects, to which all University teachers are required to respond. At the 'grass roots' university teachers have grumbled about the burden of Research Assessment Exercise and Teaching Quality Assessment but when it came to the crunch there was compliance.

Called to account - the last autonomous profession, Robert Mears the practice of assessing sociology, Joan Chandler the limits of managerialism and the need for collegialism in assessment - the case of dissertations in sociology, Andrew Pilkington, Chris Winch and Ruchira Leisten capturing experience and sorting it out - using autobiographical approaches as learning strategies in social science, Barbara Harrison and Nod Miller using computer-assisted assessment in sociology, Victor Jupp, Lee Barron and Alan Heslington social relations and intellectual evaluation in self- and peer assessment, Jennifer Platt, Rebecca Willison, Tim Reed, Helen Graham, et al conclusion - reflection and speculation, Eric Harrison and Robert Mears.

The chapter recalls the decision of the author as a school student to study sociology at university in the late 1960’s and the apparent mismatch he experienced between expectations and initial experiences. The chapter reflects on some of the trends in the discipline and the formative intellectual influences on him as a result of studying at the University of Leicester, a department that was relatively unusual at the time for its ‘international’ staff and strongly comparative curriculum (Goodwin & Hughes,2011). The influence of Leicester was critical because of the presence of Norbert Elias and his determination to encourage greater sociological ‘detachment’, at a time when younger sociologists were deeply involved in contemporary social and political movements. The chapter argues that sociology is central to a broad based humane education, as well as for delivering insights from sociological research to wider constituencies in a ‘service’ capacity (Albrow, 1986). The chapter charts some events in the authors’ career as a sociology teacher and he reflects on the challenges of combatting the pessimism that, arguably, characterises the discipline. The chapter concludes a discussion of the importance of professional networks and the role played in ‘sociological life’ by the British Sociological Association.

This paper reports on a project following up previous work about patterns of and attitudes to assessment among sociologists. Two forms of data collection were undertaken: an online questionnaire to sociology departments and a series of focus groups with undergraduate students. The results showed that assessment has become a more salient issue than ten years ago, but that most of the innovations in practice had taken place in post-1992 institutions. The focus group findings confirm those from national satisfaction surveys; namely that student dissatisfaction with assessment is profound and that it persists throughout their undergraduate experience.

We thank the pharmaceutical company representatives who took part in the study and Tom O'Dowd for suggesting the phrase "a willing accomplice in their own exploitation." Contributors: All authors contributed to the study design, data analysis, and writing of the manuscript They will all act as guarantors. Funding: MS is in receipt of an NHS national primary care researcher development award and TH an NHS research and development national primary care career scientist award, but the study had no specific funding. Competing interests: During the course of this research TF acquired 15 pens, two stethoscopes, eight jotters, two desk planners, a fluffy toy, and innumerable invitations (none accepted) to meetings at which a "local expert" would be lectur ing as a prelude to a slap-up dinner.

The article examines various forms of inspection and regulation of public services. It presents a review of such mechanisms in three areas of public service provision and analyses patterns of both convergence and divergence in the regulation of different public service providers. It offers an overview of the different regimes of inspection/regulation that have emerged in school teaching, policing and medicine. The article examines in a comparative way recent developments in, first, the move from Her Majesty’s Inspector (HMI) to the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) in the inspection of schools and teachers, second, the transformation of HMI Constabulary, and third, the debates about clinical audit and the regulation of doctors. A typology of inspection regimes is developed as a possible framework for future research.

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