John Goldthorpe is an Emeritus Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, a Fellow of the British Academy, and a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. His areas of research interest include social stratification and mobility, the sociology of education, the sociology of culture, and political economy. He is also interested in sociological theory, especially rational action theory, and the greater integration of theory and research. His publications include The Affluent Worker (with David Lockwood and others, 3 vols., 1968-9); Social Mobility and Class Structure in Modern Britain (1980, second edition, 1987); The Constant Flux: Class Mobility in Industrial Societies (with Robert Erikson, 1992) and On Sociology (2000, second, two-volume edition, 2007). An Italian version of this book, Sulla Sociologia, appeared in 2006.