Big and broad social data and the sociological imagination: A collaborative response

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

William Housley

2014-08-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we reflect on the disciplinary contours of contemporary sociology, and social science more generally, in the age of ‘big and broad’ social data. Our aim is to suggest how sociology and social sciences may respond to the challenges and opportunities presented by this ‘data deluge’ in ways that are innovative yet sensitive to the social and ethical life of data and methods. We begin by reviewing relevant contemporary methodological debates and consider how they relate to the emergence of big and broad social data as a product, reflexive artefact and organizational feature of emerging global digital society. We then explore the challenges and opportunities afforded to social science through the widespread adoption of a new generation of distributed, digital technologies and the gathering momentum of the open data movement, grounding our observations in the work of the Collaborative Online Social Media ObServatory (COSMOS project. In conclusion, we argue that these challenges and opportunities motivate a renewed interest in the programme for a ‘public sociology’, characterized by the co-production of social scientific knowledge involving a broad range of actors and publics.

Social inequalities in post-reform Russia: A sociological diagnosis

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M K Gorshkov

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The article considers social inequality as a key feature of the development of the contemporary society and social sciences. On the one hand, it is an objective and progressive process without which successful (creative development of society and individual is impossible; on the other hand, it may lead to dramatic social stratification, provoke a growth of social tensions, and destabilize society. In the Russian scientific discourse the social inequalities and their consequences are explained with the help of two concepts - social-stratification structure, i.e. a multidimensionally organized social space in which social groups differ in terms of possession of power, property and social status; and social strata , i.e. social-economic groups occupying different and unequal places in the macro-social system. The author uses a wide range of empirical (statistical and sociological data to present the picture of social model in the contemporary Russian society focusing on the dramatic stratification in terms of wealth and the income gap (the decile ratio widening to a critical mark; interpreting the Russian data in the international context (the current and optimum decile ratio in different countries; identifying statistical and sociological indicators for measuring different aspects of social inequality (for instance, the differentiation of incomes as the deviation of the actual income distribution from absolutely equal; emphasizing regional differences in social inequalities in Russia; and discussing possible mechanisms and means of mitigating social inequalities. The second part of the article presents the results of the national sociological research conducted by the experts of the Institute of Sociology and underlies some other dimensions of social inequalities as gender relations and an access to modern computer technologies and telecommunications and their correct use. The author concludes that the high level of social-economic and other types

Interface Methods Renegotiating relations between digital social research, STS and the sociology

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Marres, N.; Gerlitz, C.

2015-01-01

This paper introduces a distinctive approach to methods development in digital social research called ‘interface methods’. We begin by discussing various methodological confluences between digital media, social studies of science and technology (STS) and sociology. Some authors have posited

Using a Social Science--Fictional Play to Teach about Global Capitalism and Macro-Structural Systems in Introduction to Sociology

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Pelak, Cynthia Fabrizio; Duncan, Stacey

2017-01-01

This article explores the use of a social science-fictional play to teach macro-structural concepts related to global capitalism and surplus labor in a small and large Introduction to Sociology course. Relying on a cross-disciplinary and critical pedagogical approach that combines theory and practice to empower students to develop a critical…

Sociology and the public understanding of science: from rationalization to rhetoric.

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Locke, S

2001-03-01

This paper contributes to the reappraisal of sociological theories of modernity inspired by the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK). As much as these theories rely on received ideas about the nature of science that SSK has called into doubt, so do they rely on ideas about the public understanding of science. Public understanding of science has been assumed to conform to the monolithic logic and perception of science associated with rationalization, leading to an impoverished view of the cognitive outlook of the modern individual. Rationalization has become the basis for the construction of theoretical critique of science divorced from any clear reference to public understanding, with the result that theory has encountered considerable problems in accounting for public scepticism towards science. However, rather than question rationalization, the more typical strategy has been to propose radical changes in the modernization process, such as postmodernism and the risk society. Against this, an alternative view of public understanding is advanced drawn from SSK and rhetorical psychology. The existence of the sociological critique of science, and SSK in particular, suggests that the meaning of science in modernity is not monolithic but multiple, arising out of a central dilemma over the universal form of knowledge-claims and their necessarily particular, human and social grounding. This dilemma plays out not only in intellectual discourses about science, but also in the public's understanding of science. This argument is used to call for further sociological research into public understanding and to encourage sociologists to recognize the central importance of the topic to a proper understanding of modernity.

Mode-2 social science knowledge production?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kropp, Kristoffer; Blok, Anders

2011-01-01

The notion of mode-2 knowledge production points to far-reaching transformations in science-society relations, but few attempts have been made to investigate what growing economic and political demands on research may entail for the social sciences. This case study of new patterns of social science...... knowledge production outlines some major institutional and cognitive changes in Danish academic sociology during 'mode-2' times, from the 1980s onwards. Empirically, we rely on documentary sources and qualitative interviews with Danish sociologists, aiming to reconstruct institutional trajectories...... show how a particular cognitive modality of sociology — 'welfare reflexivity' — has become a dominant form of Danish sociological knowledge production. Welfare reflexivity has proven a viable response to volatile mode-2 policy conditions....

Social History and Historical Sociology

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Wolfgang Knöbl

2018-01-01

Full Text Available This paper deals with exchanges and misunderstandings between the German school of social history (most prominently represented by scholars from the University of Bielefeld (such as Hans-Ulrich Wehler and Anglo-American trends in historical sociology (exemplified by the works of Barrington Moore, Theda Skocpol and Michael Mann. The social historians tended to dismiss historical sociology as too dependent on modernization theory, without taking into account the critique of that tradition by authors who brought processes of state formation and revolutionary change into the debate. On the other side, mainstream historical sociology worked with assumptions that limited its ability to change the terms and directions of sociological discourse, and to assimilate lessons from history. Among these inbuilt biases, organizational realism and materialism – particularly pronounced in the work of Michael Mann – stand out as particularly important. The paper closes with arguments in favour of bringing more history into historical sociology, with particular emphasis on three sets of problems. There is a need for more historical approaches to differentiation, less dependent on functionalist premises than the hitherto prevalent paradigm. A more explicit thematization of temporality in history and society would, among other things, help to clarify issues linked to the notion of path dependency. Finally, a reconsideration of the models and types of explanation in historical sociology would place more emphasis on their interpretive dimension.

Social History and Historical Sociology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wolfgang Knöbl

2013-06-01

Full Text Available This paper deals with exchanges and misunderstandings between the German school of social history (most prominently represented by scholars from the University of Bielefeld (such as Hans-Ulrich Wehler and Anglo-American trends in historical sociology (exemplified by the works of Barrington Moore, Theda Skocpol and Michael Mann. The social historians tended to dismiss historical sociology as too dependent on modernization theory, without taking into account the critique of that tradition by authors who brought processes of state formation and revolutionary change into the debate. On the other side, mainstream historical sociology worked with assumptions that limited its ability to change the terms and directions of sociological discourse, and to assimilate lessons from history. Among these inbuilt biases, organizational realism and materialism - particularly pronounced in the work of Michael Mann - stand out as particularly important. The paper closes with arguments in favour of bringing more history into historical sociology, with particular emphasis on three sets of problems. There is a need for more historical approaches to differentiation, less dependent on functionalist premises than the hitherto prevalent paradigm. A more explicit thematization of temporality in history and society would, among other things, help to clarify issues linked to the notion of path dependency. Finally, a reconsideration of the models and types of explanation in historical sociology would place more emphasis on their interpretive dimension.

Syringe sociology.

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Vitellone, Nicole

2015-06-01

In this article I consider the impact of social epistemologies for understanding the object of the syringe. My aim is to examine the process through which the syringe transforms from an injecting device to a tool of social and political inquiry. Paying particular attention to the uses of Foucault, Becker, Bourdieu, Freud and Latour in empirical studies of injecting heroin use, I examine the sociology of the syringe through the lens of habit and habitus, discourse and deviance, mourning and melancholia, attachment and agencement. In pursuing the theory behind the object my goal is to address a sociological object in the making. In so doing I show how the syringe has been significant for social research, social theory, and sociology. It is the difference the object makes that this article seeks to describe. In tracing the epistemology of the syringe I show how the object is important not just for knowledge of addiction but sociology itself. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2015.

Sociology as a Vocation.

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Lechner, Frank J.

1990-01-01

Examines the meaning of practicing sociology, claiming to "commit a social science" still makes sense. Accepts Max Weber's arguments that sociology clarifies human affairs and is oriented to certain virtues. Suggests, however, that sociology is a passion as well as a profession, something Weber recognized but did not elaborate. (NL)

Methodology of 'The Sociology of Science' through analysis of nuclear power plant accidents. Social practice activity in 13 years

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sakurai, Kiyoshi

2002-01-01

The technology of light water reactor will continue as a realistic energy technology for about half century at least from now on. The social agreement is necessary to continue nuclear power generation. Nuclear community must renew the conventional thought partially and have to approach the thought close to the value judgment in another social coordinate. 'The Sociology of Science' on the atomic energy shall be such contents that be able to contribute to the unify or to attaches both coordinates as near as possible. (author)

Sociological analysis and comparative education

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Woock, Roger R.

1981-12-01

It is argued that comparative education is essentially a derivative field of study, in that it borrows theories and methods from academic disciplines. After a brief humanistic phase, in which history and philosophy were central for comparative education, sociology became an important source. In the mid-50's and 60's, sociology in the United States was characterised by Structural Functionalism as a theory, and Social Survey as a dominant methodology. Both were incorporated into the development of comparative education. Increasingly in the 70's, and certainly today, the new developments in sociology are characterised by an attack on Positivism, which is seen as the philosophical position underlying both functionalism and survey methods. New or re-discovered theories with their attendant methodologies included Marxism, Phenomenological Sociology, Critical Theory, and Historical Social Science. The current relationship between comparative education and social science is one of uncertainty, but since social science is seen to be returning to its European roots, the hope is held out for the development of an integrated social theory and method which will provide a much stronger basis for developments in comparative education.

Peculiarities of medical sociology: application of social theories in analyzing health and medicine.

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Kaminskas, Raimundas; Darulis, Zilvinas

2007-01-01

To reveal the peculiarities of medical sociology introducing the application of social theories in analyzing public health and medicine. Comparative and descriptive analysis of scientific references found and current situation. During the last decade of the 20th century, the discussions about the sociology of health and medicine as separate discipline and its practical applications became more active. Main factors determined the growing importance of discipline were institutionalization of medicine and health care, changing patterns in doctor-patient relationships, different health perceptions, understanding of the influence of social factors on health, cardinal changes in the area of health technologies, consumeristic attitude towards health, appearance of market relationships within health care, and other global phenomena. In sociology, usual social theories such as structural functionalism, conflict, symbolic interaction, poststructuralism, feminist often attempt to explain the changes within health care. There is a relation of medical sociology and other types of sociology having common areas with medicine and health being analyzed in the article; social theories and their application in the field of health and medicine are being introduced attempting to explain the ongoing social changes in both Lithuania and the world. More and more attention in various areas of medical activities is being paid to the social aspects (both individual and society levels) of these activities, and there is a shift from applied sociology towards medical one. Despite the cessations of the development of medical sociology as separate branch of sciences, the researches of recent years are demonstrating obvious approaching modern research issues and methods, which do exist in contemporary world. Such tendencies show the prompt approaching of the academic community of Lithuania the general scientific standards which are dominating in the globalization-effected world.

History, Science And The Dilemma Of Contemporary Sociology: The ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

History and natural sciences are two important fields of study that have informed and influenced sociology as a discipline. Traditionally common to these influences on sociology is the need to generalise. Today, however only the natural sciences can still lay claim to this principle. In generalising, the natural science ...

Uso de redes sociales académicas por investigadores de Sociología en México

OpenAIRE

Martínez-Domínguez, Néstor Daniel; Lujano-Vilchis, Ivonne

2017-01-01

Analysis of the use of academic social networks by researchers in the area of Sociology of the National System of Researchers (SNI) in Mexico.*Paper presented at the 4th Latin American and Caribbean Congress of Social Sciences, Universidad de Salamanca, Spain.Análisis sobre el uso de redes sociales académicas por parte de investigadores adscritos al área de Sociología dentro del Sistema Nacional de Investigadores (SNI) en México. *Trabajo presentado en el 4º Congreso Latinoamericano y Caribe...

Directory of Research in Social Studies/Social Sciences.

Science.gov (United States)

Barret, Anna R.; Carnett, George S.

Described are current trends in the social and behavioral sciences intended to meet the needs of the educational community. The projects listed include studies in anthropology, sociology, political science, history, geography, foreign area studies, economics, international relations, and environmental education. Part I of the directory lists…

Study on sociological approach to resolve maintenance related social problems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Aoki, Takayuki

2007-01-01

This study proposes a sociological approach to resolve maintenance related social problems. As a result of consideration, the followings were found. (1) In general, solutions to some kinds of questions can be deduced from basic laws using some theories or methodologies in the field of the natural science or engineering. The approach to resolve maintenance related social problems is similar to the approach in the natural science or engineering. (2) The points of view based on fundamental human rights, market principles and community principles, and so on, are very important in resolving maintenance related social problems and can be placed as theories or tools for resolution. (3) If such theories or tools for resolving maintenance related social problems as described above are systematically prepared, it is estimated that it becomes very much easier to resolve maintenance related social problems. (author)

The Social Science Curriculum of the Two-Year College.

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Friedlander, Jack

1980-01-01

Describes a nationwide study to identify: (1) the representation of different areas within the social sciences (i.e. anthropology, economics, history, political science, psychology, social/ethnic studies, sociology, and interdisciplinary social sciences) in the two-year college curriculum, and (2) which courses were offered for transfer,…

Psyche, soma, and science studies: new directions in the sociology of mental health and illness.

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Pickersgill, Martyn D

2010-08-01

With the expanding scope of scientific and technological discourse within psychiatry, social scientists need new theoretical tools to grapple with the complex links between psychiatry, science and society. Benefit may be afforded through engagement with the discipline of science and technology studies (STS), which is concerned explicitly with the relationships between science and society. To highlight existing engagements between STS and the sociology of (mental) health, and to encourage researchers to consider ways in which insights from these traditions may be developed further through interdisciplinary debate and analysis. Some of the key works in STS and the sociology of mental illness that use the empirical or theoretical writings of the other were reviewed and appraised. Whilst it is clear that some research synthesizing insights from STS and the sociology of mental health exists, this is currently limited. Sociologists and others concerned with longstanding and emergent issues in mental health might usefully familiarize themselves with some work in STS. A new sociology of psychiatric knowledge production and application represents an important way forward.

The idea of philosophical sociology.

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Chernilo, Daniel

2014-06-01

This article introduces the idea of philosophical sociology as an enquiry into the relationships between implicit notions of human nature and explicit conceptualizations of social life within sociology. Philosophical sociology is also an invitation to reflect on the role of the normative in social life by looking at it sociologically and philosophically at the same: normative self-reflection is a fundamental aspect of sociology's scientific tasks because key sociological questions are, in the last instance, also philosophical ones. For the normative to emerge, we need to move away from the reductionism of hedonistic, essentialist or cynical conceptions of human nature and be able to grasp the conceptions of the good life, justice, democracy or freedom whose normative contents depend on more or less articulated conceptions of our shared humanity. The idea of philosophical sociology is then sustained on three main pillars and I use them to structure this article: (1) a revalorization of the relationships between sociology and philosophy; (2) a universalistic principle of humanity that works as a major regulative idea of sociological research, and; (3) an argument on the social (immanent) and pre-social (transcendental) sources of the normative in social life. As invitations to embrace posthuman cyborgs, non-human actants and material cultures proliferate, philosophical sociology offers the reminder that we still have to understand more fully who are the human beings that populate the social world. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2014.

Teaching Writing in Sociology: A Social Constructionist Approach.

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Anderson, Leon; Holt, Mara

1990-01-01

Provides an overview of the "social constructionist" approach to teaching composition in sociology courses. Describes a course that is team taught by the authors and is based on the social constructionist paradigm. Stresses that sociological writing is a special type of discourse that can be taught most effectively by sociologists who…

Management of science policy, sociology of science policy and economics of science policy

CERN Document Server

Ruivo, Beatriz

2017-01-01

'Management of science policy, sociology of science policy and economics of science policy' is a theoretical essay on the scientific foundation of science policy (formulation, implementation, instruments and procedures). It can be also used as a textbook.

Durkheim's Sociology of Education: Interpretations of Social Change Through Education

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Goldstein, Marc A.

1976-01-01

Three questions are examined: (1) Why have contemporary American educators generally ignored Durkheim's sociology of education? (2) What were Durkheim's contributions to the sociology of education as his analysis related to social change through education? and (3) What is the relationship between Durkheim's sociology of education, social change,…

Revising laboratory work: sociological perspectives on the science classroom

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Jobér, Anna

2017-09-01

This study uses sociological perspectives to analyse one of the core practices in science education: schoolchildren's and students' laboratory work. Applying an ethnographic approach to the laboratory work done by pupils at a Swedish compulsory school, data were generated through observations, field notes, interviews, and a questionnaire. The pupils, ages 14 and 15, were observed as they took a 5-week physics unit (specifically, mechanics). The analysis shows that the episodes of laboratory work could be filled with curiosity and exciting challenges; however, another picture emerged when sociological concepts and notions were applied to what is a very common way of working in the classroom. Laboratory work is characterised as a social activity that is expected to be organised as a group activity. This entails groups becoming, to some extent, `safe havens' for the pupils. On the other hand, this way of working in groups required pupils to subject to the groups and the peer effect, sometimes undermining their chances to learn and perform better. In addition, the practice of working in groups when doing laboratory work left some pupils and the teacher blaming themselves, even though the outcome of the learning situation was a result of a complex interplay of social processes. This article suggests a stronger emphasis on the contradictions and consequences of the science subjects, which are strongly influenced by their socio-historical legacy.

Scientific Discovery in Deep Social Space: Sociology without Borders

OpenAIRE

Joseph Michalski

2008-01-01

Globalization affords an excellent opportunity to develop a genuinely universal, scientific sociology. In recent decades the politicization of the discipline has undermined the central mission of sociology: scientific discovery and explanation. The paper identifies several intellectual shifts that will facilitate the expansion and communication of such a science in an emerging global village of sociological analysts: 1) breaking with classical sociology to build upon innovative theoretical id...

3. THE NATIONAL ACADEMIC UNCONSCIOUS IN QUESTION. HISTORY OF CONCEPTS, HISTORICAL SEMANTICS, CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY OF LEXICAL USAGE WITHIN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

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Olivier Christin

2013-08-01

Full Text Available A few years ago, together with Franz Schultheis, of the University of Saint-Gallen and coordinator of the social sciences network ESSE, we chose to study the international circulation of the categories and concepts that are in use in European social sciences. With the publication of the Dictionnaire des concepts  nomades (“Dictionary of nomadic concepts”, that includes only a small number of quite lengthy entries, what we tried to propose were not ready-made solutions, or vademecums for the comparative academic, but a series of questions, or rather the means to ask crucial questions for anyone who practises history, political science, history of economic ideas, or comparative sociology. We did so with two considerations in mind: one political, and the other academic, both of which I will evoke in turn in this paper.

Methodology for studying social advertising: A sociological aspect

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S B Kalmykov

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The article describes the author’s dynamic processual methodology for the sociological study of social advertising that combines the multiversion paradigmatic approach, legitimization procedures, methodological principles of interconnection, multilevel analysis and the principles of sociological data formalization developed by P. Lazarsfeld. The author explains the multi-stage strategy of the methodology and the research procedures that provide new sociological knowledge about the processes of social advertising. The first stage involves analysis of the social advertising as a number of institutional, communicative, socio-cultural and socio-technological processes. The second stage consists of the development of the substantive aspects of social advertising dynamics and its dependence on the features of different socio-demographic groups. The third stage of the methodology includes a comparative analysis of the social advertising theoretical and empirical aspects and the subsequent assessment of its fundamental and applied capabilities. The author identifies two types of research practices: the first one consists of three levels of complexity - the first one is to design the social advertising categories and concepts; the second one requires a higher level of generalization; the third one supposes justification of the universal categorization and the social advertising conceptualization for different social areas as well as a comparative analysis of the theory of the social advertising impact developed by O.O. Savel’eva with the research results for the aims of the promotion of the sociology of advertising. The article concludes with the demonstration of the proposed methodology universality for different spheres of social reality.

The Social Science Teacher; Vol. 4, No. 1, Summer 1974.

Science.gov (United States)

Townley, Charles, Ed.

This new British journal is a medium of communication for those involved in teaching social science and social studies at the secondary and elementary levels. The first article in this issue, Ian Shelton's "The Sociology of Everyday Life," describes an experimental short course in secondary sociology. The course is designed to produce an…

Sociology and Social Work in Nigeria: Characteristics ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This paper presents the evolution of sociology and social work in Nigeria and examines the current characteristics and areas of convergences and divergences in both fields. It was only in the 1960s that universities in Nigeria began to offer degree programmes in sociology with the. first sub-department and full department ...

Knowledge as a Cultural Product: From the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge to the Cultural Studies of Science

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Ali Rabbani

2014-03-01

Full Text Available The main characteristic (feature of the sociology of knowledge and science is its emphasis on the culture and cultural analysis within the scientific and technological research. This study concerns with the study of two research fields in which new sociologists of science and technology have presented their cultural analysis. These two fields include: sociology of scientific knowledge and cultural studies of science.Sociology of scientific knowledge is the first school of thought which makes the content of scientific knowledge inclined to and compliant with the cultural and sociological analysis. In SSK, the main presupposition is that “the scientific knowledge is totally arbitrary.” Accordingly, the design and evaluation of scientific theories and claims are the consequence of social interests and cultural inclinations (trends, in a way that the scientific theories become a tool for the justification, legitimating, encouragement and contentment.At the early 1990s, with the rise of crisis (chaos within the explanations of sociology of scientific knowledge and a flood of criticism against it, the whole subjectivity of the field came to a standstill (reached an impasse and the initiatives in scientific research were replaced by different theoretical orientations like cultural studies. In contrast to the sociology of scientific knowledge, the cultural studies of science concerns with the rejection of “explanation” and, instead, focuses on the “meaning” and “understanding”. In other words, it has come back to an old dispute between explanatory and hermeneutic approaches and those  which pursue the regulative (legalistic comprehensiveness along the more positivistic lines.This emerging field emphasizes the issue that the uncertainty, instability, ambiguity (vagueness and difference must be given a more important role in sciences. Cultural studies of science gave rise to a change from the sociology of scientific knowledge to a new

The Employment Outlook for Social Science Majors in the South.

Science.gov (United States)

Galambos, Eva C.

This assessment of the future job market for social science graduates is made both generically and separately for certain disciplines. The definition of the social sciences follows the USOE definition and includes: anthropology, archeology, economics, history, geography, political science, sociology, criminology, international relations, urban…

Sociological social workers: a history of the present?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Shaw, Ian Frank

2015-01-01

I argue that there is a submerged cluster of people who, at one or other stage of their careers, took positions in relation to social problems, social work practice, modes of understanding, and research practice that reflected and anticipated ? knowingly or not ? something we might call a Chicago......-enriched sociological social work. They are Harriett Bartlett, Stuart Queen, Ada Sheffield, Erle Fisk Young and Pauline Young. Several of the themes that emerge from a review of their work are today, as then, as much sociology as social work. In closing, I consider three questions. How can we generally explain...

Rescuing from oblivion: social characteristics and career destinations of early British 'sociology' graduates, 1907-39.

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Husbands, Christopher T

2015-12-01

Those students who were among the first sociology graduates in the UK barely feature in standard histories of the discipline, which all have an intellectual and institutional focus. This article remedies this neglect by researching the social backgrounds and later careers of sociology graduates from the London School of Economics and Political Science [LSE] and Bedford College for Women from the first such graduate in 1907 until those graduating in the 1930s. Data for this exercise were compiled from a variety of sources. The more important are: UK censuses, especially that of 1911; various civil registration records; archived student files; and, for the graduates who entered university teaching, issues of the Yearbook of the Universities of the Empire [later the Commonwealth Universities' Yearbook]. The dataset includes all identified graduates in the BSc(Econ), Special Subject Sociology, degree from 1907 to 1935 and all in the BA (Honours) in Sociology degree from 1925 to 1939. LSE sociology graduates tended to be older and to have more cosmopolitan backgrounds, with fathers more likely than for Bedford College graduates to come from commercial rather than professional backgrounds. Both institutions' graduates' careers tended to the Civil Service and local government. LSE graduates gravitated to education, especially to higher education if male, whilst those of Bedford College went into welfare work, countering a stereotype from some previous literature that especially women graduates were heavily constrained to follow careers in schoolteaching. The article also gives comparisons with the social-class profile and career destinations of several cohorts of postwar sociology graduates, noting a number of similarities. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2015.

Dualism of Social Conditions: Religion, Morality and Science

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Rasa Levickaitė

2011-04-01

Full Text Available The paper analyses the topic of social dualism through religion, morality and science. The paper refers to one of the most original works uncovering the social roots of religion – The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Emile Durkheim (1858–1917 who is considered to be the founder of modern sociology. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life develops the coherent theory of religion as well as ventilates different aspects of the religious life. The message of the paper is: is religion the generative essence of social aspect, does a state of constant dependence stimulate a sense of religious piety, is a moral social order able to stabilize dualism of human energy. The paper proposes an assertion that science as a social phenomenon reflects knowledge and the values of its perception which are impacted by imagination and classified codes of cultural forms. As a result a thesis is proposed – a cultural (influenced by environment and a personal (influenced by internal factors desire for differentiation and its provoked conflict is of a social character. The second part of the paper deals with relation between science and social phenomena with inherent dualism. A short discussion is presented on L’ Année Sociologique (a group of scientists initiated by Durkheim representing a new sociological paradigm, the beginning of scientific social culture giving sense to cooperation of sociological theory and practice. 

Scientific Competencies in the Social Sciences

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Dietrich, Heike; Zhang, Ying; Klopp, Eric; Brünken, Roland; Krause, Ulrike-Marie; Spinath, Frank M.; Stark, Robin; Spinath, Birgit

2015-01-01

The aim of the present study was to introduce a general theoretical model of scientific competencies in higher education and to adapt it to three social sciences, namely psychology, sociology, and political science, by providing evidence from expert interviews and program regulations. Within our general model, we distinguished and specified four…

The Sociological Imagination and Its Promise Fifty Years Later

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Carlos Frade

2009-11-01

Full Text Available This paper offers a restatement of Wright Mills’ The Sociological Imagination and tries to judge whether its promise can be credibly renewed today by addressing the question about the present and future possibilities of the social sciences as free forms of enquiry. Relying on Weber, Mills and other thinkers, the paper sustains that the possibilities for a truly free social science essentially depend on three major ‘conditions’: the subjective stance or vocation, the sociological imagination proper, and an independent social science politics, conditions whose apt names can also be ‘love’, ‘insight’ and ‘courage’. An analysis of the presence and strength of each of these conditions in contemporary social science and in academia shows the magnitude of the task faced for the existence of a free social science.

Knowledge networking on Sociology: network analysis of blogs, YouTube videos and tweets about Sociology

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Julián Cárdenas

2017-06-01

Full Text Available While mainstream scientific knowledge production have been widely studied in recent years with the development of scientometrics and bibliometrics, an emergent number of studies have focused on alternative sources of production and dissemination of knowledge such as blogs, YouTube videos and comments on Twitter. These online sources of knowledge become relevant in fields such as Sociology, where some academics seek to bring the sociological knowledge to the general population. To explore which knowledge on Sociology is produced and disseminated, and how is organized in these online sources, we analyze the knowledge networking of blogs, YouTube videos and tweets on Twitter using network analysis approach. Specifically, the present research analyzes the hyperlink network of the main blogs on Sociology, the networks of tags used to classify videos on Sociology hosted on YouTube, and the network of hashtags linked to #sociología on Twitter. The main results point out the existence of a cohesive and strongly connected community of blogs on Sociology, the very low presence of YouTube videos on Sociology in Spanish, and Sociology on Twitter is linked to others social sciences, classical scholars and social media

The social service as part of social protection: sociology management aspect

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I. V. Meschan

2015-06-01

The main directions of improving the management of social maintenances on the basis of sociology and management approach, improve the regulatory framework; Approval social standards; introduce a mechanism of social order as a form of cross­sector partnership for social development of the social services.

The Sociological Imagination and Social Responsibility

Science.gov (United States)

Hironimus-Wendt, Robert J.; Wallace, Lora Ebert

2009-01-01

In this paper, we maintain that sociologists should deliberately teach social responsibility as a means of fulfilling the promise that C. Wright Mills envisioned. A key aspect of the sociological imagination includes a sense of social responsibility, but that aspect is best learned through a combination of experience and academic knowledge.…

What has become of critique? Reassembling sociology after Latour.

Science.gov (United States)

Mills, Tom

2017-09-06

This paper offers a defence of sociology through an engagement with Actor Network Theory (ANT) and particularly the critique of 'critical' and politically engaged social science developed by Bruno Latour. It argues that ANT identifies some weaknesses in more conventional sociology and social theory, and suggests that 'critical' and 'public' orientated sociologists can learn from the analytical precision and ethnographic sensibilities that characterize ANT as a framework of analysis and a research programme. It argues, however, that Latour et al. have too hastily dispensed with 'critique' in favour of a value neutral descriptive sociology, and that the symmetrical and horizontalist approach adopted in ANT is particularly ill-suited to the development of scientific knowledge about social structures. It argues that a more straightforwardly realist sociology would share many of the strengths of ANT whilst being better able to interrogate, empirically and normatively, the centres of contemporary social power. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2017.

On the almost inconceivable misunderstandings concerning the subject of value-free social science.

Science.gov (United States)

Black, Donald

2013-12-01

A value judgment says what is good or bad, and value-free social science simply means social science free of value judgments. Yet many sociologists regard value-free social science as undesirable or impossible and readily make value judgments in the name of sociology. Often they display confusion about such matters as the meaning of value-free social science, value judgments internal and external to social science, value judgments as a subject of social science, the relevance of objectivity for value-free social science, and the difference between the human significance of social science and value-free social science. But why so many sociologists are so value-involved - and generally so unscientific - is sociologically understandable: The closest and most distant subjects attract the least scientific ideas. And during the past century sociologists have become increasingly close to their human subject. The debate about value-free social science is also part of an epistemological counterrevolution of humanists (including many sociologists) against the more scientific social scientists who invaded and threatened to expropriate the human subject during the past century. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2013.

Theories of social mobility in the history of sociological thought

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S. A. Baturenko

2014-01-01

Full Text Available In this article evolution of theories of social mobility in the history of social thought from the classical period of development until the end of the XX century is analyzed. The author describes the main directions of theoretical interest of research of this problem and their peculiar features. The main questions raised by classics of the sociological theory were actual during all XX century, and empirical research of a problem of social mobility resulted in concentration of attention of scientists on more specific questions, in particular such as studying of professional career, reproduction of the social statuses that promoted emergence of separate discipline in the western sociology, so-called to “sociology of a course of life”, investigating biographic mobility.

The order of social sciences: sociology in dialogue with neighbouring disciplines

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Dieter Bögenhold

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Comparing sociology with economics, psychology or history shows that borderlines between disciplines have become fluent and always newly oscillating. Economists, especially prominent positions awarded with Nobel prizes, are increasingly discussing items as motivation, rationality, norms or culture which belong to the domain of sociology. Sociology should acknowledge this kind of ‘imperialism’ and claim own competencies.

Sociological theory and social reality

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J Díez Nicolás

2014-12-01

Full Text Available This paper pretends to demonstrate the complementary relations between three relatively recent sociological theories, each one of which explains a different aspect of the same social object: the origin, diffusion and change of social and cultural values, aiming at demonstrating that there is not such a thing as a sociological theory that explains all, but rather diverse theories that offer partial explanations of social reality. To that effect, and on the basis of the necessary relationship between theory and research, three different theories are evaluated separately: Hawley’s and Duncan’s theory of the social ecosystem, Galtung’s centre-periphery theory, and Inglehart’s theory of values’ change in modern-industrial societies, offering theoretical and empirical evidence of their complementary relations, based on Spanish and international data. Social ecosystem and centre-periphery theories show a high level of generalization (through space and time and a high level of abstraction, though both can easily operationalize their main concepts through valid and reliable indicators. The theory of values’ change, however, though showing a high level of generalization, is limited in time to the historical period after World War II, and also shows a high level of abstraction. Centre-periphery theory and values’ change theory use individual and collective units of analysis, but social ecosystem theory only uses collective units, by definition. The three theories lead to the conclusion that ‘security’ values will gain a growing importance in present societies.

Applied Statistics for the Social and Health Sciences

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Gordon, Rachel A A

2012-01-01

Applied Statistics for the Social and Health Sciences provides graduate students in the social and health sciences with the basic skills that they need to estimate, interpret, present, and publish statistical models using contemporary standards. The book targets the social and health science branches such as human development, public health, sociology, psychology, education, and social work in which students bring a wide range of mathematical skills and have a wide range of methodological affinities. For these students, a successful course in statistics will not only offer statistical content

Piketty's challenge for sociology.

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Savage, Mike

2014-12-01

This paper argues that Piketty's book should not simply be seen as that of an economist, but that it contains significant resources for sociologists to draw upon. These are firstly, this approach to social science and his use of visualizations which chime closely with recent claims about the power of description. Secondly I consider his conceptualization of time and history - which in rebutting epochal arguments about the speed of contemporary change allows for a much better appreciation of the 'long durée'; and finally his conceptualization of social classes and privilege through his elaboration of a sociology of accumulation and inheritance. In all these ways, Piketty's work assists in developing an account of elites and wealth which should be highly productive for future sociology. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2014.

An Analysis of Co-Authorship Network in the Iranian Sociology

OpenAIRE

2015-01-01

Introduction   Among written academic collaborations, collaborating on writing scientific, research papers have a privileged position. It can show the rate of scientific development in any specialized discipline. T his study investigated the development of sociology in Iran through analyzing the co-authorship network in three main journal of "Iranian Journal of Sociology "," Sociological Studies " (a former Journal of Social Science) and "Quarterly Journal of Social S...

Social acceleration and the network effect: a defence of social 'science fiction' and network determinism.

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Hassan, Robert

2010-06-01

This essay is a response to Judy Wajcman's essay 'Life in the fast lane? Towards a sociology of technology and time' (2008: 59-77). In that article Wajcman argued that recent developments in the sociology of temporal change had been marked by a tendency in social theory towards a form of 'science fiction'--a sociological theorizing, she maintains, that bears no real relation to actual, empirically provable developments in the field and should therefore be viewed as not contributing to 'a richer analysis of the relationship between technology and time' (2008: 61). This reply argues that as Wajcman suggests in her essay, there is indeed an 'urgent need for increased dialogue to connect social theory with detailed empirical studies' (2008: 59) but that the most fruitful way to proceed would not be through a constraining of 'science fiction' social theorizing but, rather, through its expansion--and more, that 'science fiction' should take the lead in the process. This essay suggests that the connection between social theory and empirical studies would be strengthened by a wider understanding of the function of knowledge and research in the context of what is termed 'true originality' and 'routine originality'. The former is the domain of social theory and the latter resides within traditional sociological disciplines. It is argued that both need each other to advance our understanding of society, especially in the context of the fast-changing processes of technological development. The example of 'technological determinism' is discussed as illustrative of how 'routine originality' can harden into dogma without the application of 'true originality' to continually question (sometimes through ideas that may appear to border on 'science fiction') comfortable assumptions that may have become 'routine' and shorn of their initial 'originality'.

A new foundation for the social sciences?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bjerre, Jørn

2015-01-01

The aim of John Searle’s philosophy of society is to provide a foundation for the social sciences. Arguing that the study of social reality needs to be based on a philosophy of language, Searle claims that sociology has little to offer, since no sociologist ever took language seriously. Attacking...

Time representations in social science.

Science.gov (United States)

Schulz, Yvan

2012-12-01

Time has long been a major topic of study in social science, as in other sciences or in philosophy. Social scientists have tended to focus on collective representations of time, and on the ways in which these representations shape our everyday experiences. This contribution addresses work from such disciplines as anthropology, sociology and history. It focuses on several of the main theories that have preoccupied specialists in social science, such as the alleged "acceleration" of life and overgrowth of the present in contemporary Western societies, or the distinction between so-called linear and circular conceptions of time. The presentation of these theories is accompanied by some of the critiques they have provoked, in order to enable the reader to form her or his own opinion of them.

Evidence and research designs in applied sociology and social work research

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Høgsbro, Kjeld

2015-01-01

it had to be repeated all over again. This article tries to answer this question by reviewing the considerations in the history of applied sociology and its relevance for recent social work research. The ambition of delivering a research that has an impact on social work practice is not unique, neither...... of applied sociology and discusses its contributions to understanding questions of validity, evidence, methodology, practical relevance of research and scientific legitimacy in the areas of research which aim at contributing to the practical development of social services for marginalized people. By doing...... this, hopefully the history of applied sociology may prevent deeper mistakes, illusions and misleading in the development of social work research today....

Principles of Sociology in Systems Engineering

Science.gov (United States)

Watson, Michael D.; Andrews, James G.; Larsen, Jordan A.

2017-01-01

Systems engineering involves both the integration of the system and the integration of the disciplines which develop and operate the system. Integrating the disciplines is a sociological effort to bring together different groups, often with different terminology, to achieve a common goal, the system. The focus for the systems engineer is information flow through the organization, between the disciplines, to ensure the system is developed and operated with all relevant information informing system decisions. Robert K. Merton studied the sociological principles of the sciences and the sociological principles he developed apply to systems engineering. Concepts such as specification of ignorance, common terminology, opportunity structures, role-sets, and the reclama (reconsideration) process are all important sociological approaches that should be employed by the systems engineer. In bringing the disciplines together, the systems engineer must also be wary of social ambivalence, social anomie, social dysfunction, insider-outsider behavior, unintended consequences, and the self-fulfilling prophecy. These sociological principles provide the systems engineer with key approaches to manage the information flow through the organization as the disciplines are integrated and share their information. This also helps identify key sociological barriers to information flow through the organization. This paper will discuss this theoretical basis for the application of sociological principles to systems engineering.

Brazilian environmental sociology: a provisional review

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Ferreira Leila da Costa

2002-01-01

Full Text Available The article aims firstly at the reconstitution and analysis of history within the scope of international environmental sociology situated in the context of contemporary sociology. It also discusses - from the standpoint of literature (Buttel, Dunlap, Hanning, among others - its theoretical-methodological and institutional aspects as well in order to understand the obstacles encountered to legitimate and consolidate a set of problems which, until recently, were not dealt with by social sciences. Secondly, it analyses the Brazilian case. Environmental sociology in Brazil is strongly influenced by American empirical sociology, the precursor of the institutionalization process for the themes. On the other hand, further analysis of this case is relevant to understand the relationship between the scientific sphere, and the creation of environmental policies and social movements.

A child of the empire: British sociology and colonialism, 1940s-1960s.

Science.gov (United States)

Steinmetz, George

2013-01-01

British sociology was established as an academic discipline between 1945 and 1965, just as the British Empire was gearing up for a new phase of developmental colonialism backed by the social and other sciences. Many parts of the emerging sociological discipline became entangled with colonialism. Key themes and methods in sociology and the staff of sociology departments emerged from this colonial context. Historians have tended to place postwar British sociology in the context of expanding higher education and the welfare state, and have overlooked this colonial constellation. The article reconstructs this forgotten moment of disciplinary founding and explores three of the factors that promoted colonial sociology: the Colonial Social Science Research Council, the so-called Asquith universities, and the social research institutes in the colonies; and the involvement of sociologists from the London School of Economics in training colonial officials. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Facts, theories and ideologies: Viola Klein and Sociology of Scientific Knowledge

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Eulalia Pérez Sedeño

2012-07-01

Full Text Available Several studies on history, philosophy and sociology of science have demonstrated that science is not autonomous and value-neutral and its selfless search of truth is an ideal theoretical myth far from the real practice of science, which is an aggregate of social practices. Viola Klein was a pioneer in studying science using the same instruments and categories utilized in any other social practice. The aim of this work is to highlight her contributions to Sociology of Scientific Knowledge at a moment when this discipline was, at the most, incipient.

[Disciplinary organization of medical sociology--a contribution to the dialogue with social medicine].

Science.gov (United States)

Siegrist, J

1996-10-01

According to Karl Popper scientific disciplines are characterized by a body of observational knowledge, a specific methodology and terminology and a set of more or less successful theories. This article tries to delineate the disciplinary structure of medical sociology in terms of five important areas of knowledge: 1. sociology of health lifestyles (prevention); 2. sociology of patients careers (rehabilitation); 3. sociology of client-professional interaction (diagnosis, therapy); 4. sociological (social epidemiological) studies of causes of health and disease; 5. sociology of health care systems. It is argued that intensified exchange according to these areas between the academic disciplines of medical sociology and social medicine is needed to generate a significant impact on future training and research both in medicine and in public health.

[Where are we in general sociology ?].

Science.gov (United States)

Brian, Eric

2012-01-01

Over the last two decades, history and social sciences have experienced a kind of merging, and a vast number of specialized domains have emerged. Yet the durkheim - ian register of "general sociology" seems somehow neglected. Firstly, this article analyzes the reasons for this neglect, and secondly, it indicates how, through a long-term reflexivity, one can formulate a new agenda for general sociology.

New Biological Sciences, Sociology and Education

Science.gov (United States)

Youdell, Deborah

2016-01-01

Since the Human Genome Project mapped the gene sequence, new biological sciences have been generating a raft of new knowledges about the mechanisms and functions of the molecular body. One area of work that has particular potential to speak to sociology of education, is the emerging field of epigenetics. Epigenetics moves away from the mapped…

Heuristic resources of the ‘classics’: Perspectives of sociological enlightenment

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D G Podvoyskiy

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The article discusses the methodological question traditional for the humanities and social sciences (and, above all, sociology, namely, the question about their world view status, functions and aims. According to the author, ‘sociological enlightenment’ provides a chance to justify the purport of scientific research on the theory and history of sociology (research that is culturally significant beyond the narrow professional frames of sociology. The most important component of this ‘enlightenment’ is the demonstration of ‘heuristic resources’ of classical and modern theoretical sociology as a means of scientific explanation and conceptualization of social problems at a level comprehensible to non-academic audiences.

Actor-networking ceta-sociality, or, what is sociological about contemporary whales?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Blok, Anders

2007-01-01

-network theory (ANT) allows for the inclusion of non-human ‘actants' (like whales) into the fabric of sociality. In the ontology of ANT, sociality emerges as semiotic-material configurations of humans, animals and technologies. Starting from a critical review of the work by Adrian Franklin on growing......-denser networks of humans and non-humans, sociology is in need of theoretical reconfiguration. Towards this end, some prospects and limitations for ecologising sociology are set out, suggesting how sociology might come to contribute to the project of living in a hybrid world....

Basic concepts in social sciences I

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hoede, C.

2000-01-01

In this paper the results are given of an investigation into concepts from Economics, Organization Theory, Political Science, Psychology and Sociology. The goal of this investigation was to find out whether there is a set of concepts that may be considered to be basic to all these five social

Mapping the field of medical sociology: a comparative analysis of journals.

Science.gov (United States)

Seale, Clive

2008-07-01

A comparative keyword analysis of the content of nine leading journals is used to suggest potential new directions for medical sociology. The major British and American journals in sociology and medical sociology tend to publish authors based in their own countries, contrasting with the internationalism of other social science disciplines relevant to health, although Sociology of Health and Illness is an exception to this. Medical sociology journals on both sides of the Atlantic focus on individual experience more than general sociology journals, which focus more on social systems levels of analysis. While journal contents reveal British medical sociology to be relatively atheoretical when compared with British general sociology journals, American medical sociology appears relatively apolitical on the same comparison with American general journals. American journals of sociology publish more quantitative studies than their British equivalents, more studies concerning race and other social divisions in American society, and less work drawing on social constructionist perspectives or that is engaged with social theory. Analysis of health and health care at societal and global levels and a deeper engagement with the political and public issues that concern non-sociologists represents a possible future for a medical sociology that is internationally relevant and outward looking.

An approach from the sociology of the body to social movements

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Alexis Patricio Sossa Rojas

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The present article has as aim articulate two somewhat separate perspectives of the sociological current debate:The sociology of the social movements and the sociology of the body. In this respect, we look to problematized three things. First, why the relevance of the category body, especially the nude, as form and / or resource in the protests. Second, from the thought of Foucault how the social thing interferes in the body, in phenomena as personal as sexuality or family. Finally, from the tensions outlined in section two, we discuss how this gives rise to movements that have claims related to the body, and what theory of social movements is the best to explain it.

Sociological Theory and Social Reality [ENG

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

JUAN DÍEZ NICOLÁS

2013-01-01

Full Text Available This paper pretends to demonstrate the complementary relations between three relatively recent sociological theories, each one of which explains a different aspect of the same social object: the origin, diffusion and change of social and cultural values, aiming at demonstrating that there is not such a thing as a sociological theory that explains all, but rather diverse theories that offer partial explanations of social reality. To that effect, and on the basis of the necessary relationship between theory and research, three different theories are evaluated separately: Hawley?s and Duncan?s theory of the social ecosystem, Galtung?s centre-periphery theory, and Inglehart?s theory of values? change in modern-industrial societies, offering theoretical and empirical evidence of their complementary relations, based on Spanish and international data. Social ecosystem and centre-periphery theories show a high level of generalization (through space and time and a high level of abstraction, though both can easily operationalize their main concepts through valid and reliable indicators. The theory of values? change, however, though showing a high level of generalization, is limited in time to the historical period after World War II, and also shows a high level of abstraction. Centre-periphery theory and values? change theory use individual and collective units of analysis, but social ecosystem theory only uses collective units, by definition. The three theories lead to the conclusion that ?security? values will gain a growing importance in present societies.

The Study on the Core Concepts of Contemporary Sociology of Education and Its Theoretical Construction

Science.gov (United States)

Qian, Min-hui

2006-01-01

Within the sphere of contemporary social sciences, the terms "modernity," "post-modernity" and "globalization" have penetrated, as the core concepts, into various fields of social sciences in a logical way. In constituting the concept of "modernity," sociology of education develops the educational theory, as sociological theory does, into a "grand…

Phenomenological sociology in the framework of contemporary methodological debates

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A S Ivanova

2010-03-01

Full Text Available The article provides a review of the pivotal doctrines in the sphere of social sciences and humanities methodology, namely positivism (O. Comte, H. Spenser et al and antipositivism (W. Dilthey, H. Rickert et al. In terms of E. Husserl's late philosophy as well as the works of M. Merleau-Ponty and A. Schutz the article provides the analysis of one of the prominent schools of the contemporary social theory - phenomenological sociology which is highlighted as the non-classical strategy of the philosophical methodology of social sciences and humanities opposing both Comte's objectivism as well as the sociological «subjectivism» of Neo-Kantianism.

Sociology, medicine and the construction of health-related sociology.

Science.gov (United States)

Barros, Nelson Filice de; Nunes, Everardo Duarte

2009-02-01

Starting from a paper about closing the gap between sociology and medicine in Brazil and the United Kingdom that was published in 1971, a historical update was made with the aim of reflecting on the new shapes of health-related teaching and research within the social and human sciences, in these two countries. The methodology was qualitative and the study was developed using secondary data. The reflections were developed through the authors' immersion in Brazilian and British realities. It was concluded that the interface between sociology and health has expanded, although persistent old difficulties exist in relation to the structure and focus of the healthcare system, medical school power and medical student culture.

All about science philosophy, history, sociology & communication

CERN Document Server

Lam, Liu

2014-01-01

There is a lot of confusion and misconception concerning science. The nature and contents of science is an unsettled problem. For example, Thales of 2,600 years ago is recognized as the father of science but the word science was introduced only in the 14th century; the definition of science is often avoided in books about philosophy of science. This book aims to clear up all these confusions and present new developments in the philosophy, history, sociology and communication of science. It also aims to showcase the achievement of China's top scholars in these areas. The 18 chapters, divided into five parts, are written by prominent scholars including the Nobel laureate Robin Warren, sociologist Harry Collins, and physicist-turned-historian Dietrich Stauffer.

SOCIAL MEASUREMENT OF YOUTH’S HEALTH: DESIGNING OF INDICATORS OF COMPLEX SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

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Vitalii Valeriyevich Kulish

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Purpose. The article is devoted to solving the problem of social measurement of modern youth’s health. The subject of the analysis is the content of the concept, characteristics and indicators of the social health of young people, which enable using sociological research’ methods to measure a given status of the younger generation in contemporary Russian society. The purpose of this work is to define the theoretical and methodological foundations of the sociological analysis of the young people social health and to substantiate its main indicators in the tools of complex sociological research. Methodology of the study. The basis of the research is formed by the system approach, the complex approach, the logical-conceptual method and general scientific methods of research: comparative analysis, system analysis, construction of social indicators, modeling. Results. The social health of young people is defined through the category “status” and is considered as an integrated indicator of the social quality of the younger generation. It is substantiated that the social health of youth is a status of socio-demographic community in which it is able not only to adapt to the changing conditions of the social environment but is also ready to transform actively the surrounding reality, having the potential to resist destructive social phenomena and processes. The main indicators that allow measuring the social health of young people by sociological methods are determined: adaptability in the social environment, social activity in all spheres of public life, social orientation and significance of activity, behavior regulativity by social norms and universal values, creativity of thinking and behavior, readiness for social integration and self-development. A system of social indicators and indicators for conducting a sociological study of social health in historical memory, value orientations and everyday practices of young people has been developed.

Book Review of: "The Social Context View of Sociology "

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Kathryn Schmidt

2008-10-01

Full Text Available Readers seeking coherent sociological explanations for social inequality and oppression also will be disappointed in the book's content. The authors' focus on structural influences on social experiences glosses over experiences of oppression and inequality important to Marxist, feminist, and other 'conflict theory' traditions. However, The authors offer a book that will satisfy those who seek a book that is easily readable, replete with examples, and offers a coherent structurally focused overview of sociology. The authors draw on Marvin Olsen's (1968 nine layers of social organization to provide a framework for exploring major issues and institutions. The authors’ teaching experience shows in their ability to pace the material and use their model's levels of analysis to organize each chapter.

A Review of Three Major Sociological Theories and an Islamic Perspective

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HAYATULLAH LALUDDIN

2016-12-01

Full Text Available This article examines critically the three major sociological theories namely, Structural Functionalism, Symbolic Interactionism and Conflict theory. These theories are formulated on the pattern of science where scientific method is strictly adhered to. Considering the nature and the essence of the social phenomenon and its component parts the author argues that the application of pure scientific method in the study or analysis of the social phenomenon fail to present an accurate understanding of the social phenomenon. Thus, an alternative method which is capable of taking into consideration both physical and metaphysical aspects of the social phenomenon is required. Toward this end this article attempts to delineate the three major theories of sociology, their shortcoming and loophole, then attempt to highlight the constituent elements of the social phenomenon and their significance in formulation of comprehensive sociological theories. An Islamic perspective on sociological theories is also provided in the last part of this article where the discrepancy of the sociological theories are disclosed and a proposal for a more dynamic method for the formulation of sociological theories of comprehensive nature is made.

Social kapital og økonomisk sociologi

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Svendsen, Gunnar Lind Haase; Svendsen, Gert Tinggaard

2003-01-01

Hvad er social kapital? Vi søger at besvare dette spørgsmål i en tværvidenskabelig tilgang, som forener økonomi og sociologi. Dette sker i tre dele. Det generelle økonomiske udgangspunkt er hentet fra New Institutional Economics (NIE) med dets fokus på asymmetrisk information og deraf følgende...

The Impact of Feminism on Sociology

OpenAIRE

Sylvia Walby

2011-01-01

The paper investigates the impact of feminism on British sociology over the last 60 years. It focuses on changes in the intellectual content of the discipline, including epistemology, methodology, theory, concepts and the fields of economy, polity, violence and civil society. It situates these changes in the context of changes in gendered organisation of sociology, the rise of women's/gender studies, the ecology of social sciences and societal changes, especially the transformation of the gen...

Social Studies Student Teachers' Levels of Understanding Sociology Concepts within Social Studies Curriculum

Science.gov (United States)

Karatekin, Kadir

2013-01-01

This study aims at investigating social studies student teachers' levels of understanding sociology concepts within social studies curriculum. Study group of the research consists of 266 teacher candidates attending the Department of Social Studies, Faculty of Education, Kastamonu University during 2012 to 2013 education year. A semi-structured…

Classical sociology and cosmopolitanism: a critical defence of the social.

Science.gov (United States)

Turner, Bryan S

2006-03-01

It is frequently argued that classical sociology, if not sociology as a whole, cannot provide any significant insight into globalization, primarily because its assumptions about the nation-state, national cultures and national societies are no longer relevant to a global world. Sociology cannot consequently contribute to a normative debate about cosmopolitanism, which invites us to consider loyalties and identities that reach beyond the nation-state. My argument considers four principal topics. First, I defend the classical legacy by arguing that classical sociology involved the study of 'the social' not national societies. This argument is illustration by reference to Emile Durkheim and Talcott Parsons. Secondly, Durkheim specifically developed the notion of a cosmopolitan sociology to challenge the nationalist assumptions of his day. Thirdly, I attempt to develop a critical version of Max Weber's verstehende soziologie to consider the conditions for critical recognition theory in sociology as a necessary precondition of cosmopolitanism. Finally, I consider the limitations of some contemporary versions of global sociology in the example of 'flexible citizenship' to provide an empirical case study of the limitations of globalization processes and 'sociology beyond society'. While many institutions have become global, some cannot make this transition. Hence, we should consider the limitations on as well as the opportunities for cosmopolitan sociology.

Trends in Funding for Dissertation Field Research: Why Do Political Science and Sociology Students Win so Few Awards?

Science.gov (United States)

Agarwala, Rina; Teitelbaum, Emmanuel

2010-01-01

Despite the size and growth of political science and sociology relative to other disciplines, political science and sociology graduate students have received a declining share of funding for dissertation field research in recent years. Specifically, political science and sociology students are losing out to competitive applicants from…

"Ghosts of Sociologies Past": Settlement Sociology in the Progressive Era at the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy

Science.gov (United States)

MacLean, Vicky M.; Williams, Joyce E.

2012-01-01

This embedded case study of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy (CSCP) illustrates the development of disciplinary boundaries during a transitional period of professionalization in the social sciences, particularly for the fields of sociology and social work. Drawing on archival data (e.g., reports, scholarly and autobiographical…

Economics and sociology: Between cooperation and intolerance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stojanović Božo

2007-01-01

Full Text Available In social sciences two opposing tendencies act simultaneously: the growth of specialization and the need for synthesis. Similar tendencies are noticeable when economics and sociology are in question. The need for these two sciences to cooperate was noticed a long time ago. However, an increasingly intensive exchange has been achieved only recently, particularly in the explanation of individual and group behavior. The works of Mancur Olson are a good example how the results of economics can be inspiring for the research in other sciences, particularly sociology and political science. Applying the results he got by analyzing the logic of collective action, Olson managed to attain significant insight concerning the functioning of economics and society as a whole.

Social Sciences and Space Exploration

Science.gov (United States)

1988-01-01

The relationship between technology and society is a subject of continuing interest, because technological change and its effects confront and challenge society. College students are especially interested in technological change, knowing that they must cope with the pervasive and escalating effect of wide-ranging technological change. The space shuttle represents a technological change. The book's role is to serve as a resource for college faculty and students who are or will be interested in the social science implications of space technology. The book is designed to provide introductory material on a variety of space social topics to help faculty and students pursue teaching, learning, and research. Space technologies, perspectives on individual disciplines (economics, history, international law, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology) and interdiscipline approaches are presented.

Defining the public, defining sociology: hybrid science-public relations and boundary-work in early American sociology.

Science.gov (United States)

Evans, Michael S

2009-01-01

In this paper, I examine how scientific disciplines define their boundaries by defining the publics with whom they engage. The case study is an episode in the development of early American sociology. In response to the dual challenge of credibility set up by the conflict between religious Baconian science and secular positivist science, key actors engaged in specific strategies of boundary-work to create their desired "sociological public"--a hybrid form of science-public relations that appealed to hostile university scientists while excluding a supportive religious audience from participation in the production of scientific knowledge. Using this case, I offer two specific insights. First I illustrate how, in the pursuit of scientific credibility, actors engage in boundary-work to differentiate audiences, not just practitioners. Such defining of publics is constitutive of scientific disciplines in their formative stage. Second, I demonstrate how audience boundaries can be redefined through the capture of existing boundary objects. Specifically, the removal of informational content in key boundary objects creates durable boundaries that are difficult to overcome.

The sociologist and the state. An assessment of Pierre Bourdieu's sociology.

Science.gov (United States)

Schinkel, Willem

2015-06-01

This paper provides an assessment of Pierre Bourdieu's sociology based on a reading of his posthumously published lectures on the state in Sur l'État. It argues that the state was a foundational element in Bourdieu's rendition of the symbolic order of everyday life. As such, the state becomes equally pivotal in Bourdieu's sociology, the applicability of which rests on the existence of the state, which stabilizes the social fields and their symbolic action that constitute the object of sociology. The state, which Bourdieu considers a 'meta'-ordering principle in social life, ensures that sociology has a well-ordered object of study, vis-à-vis which it can posit itself as 'meta-meta'. The state thus functions as an epistemic guarantee in Bourdieu's sociology. A critical analysis of Bourdieu's sociology of the state offers the chance of a more fundamental overall assessment of Bourdieu's conception of sociology that has relevance for any critical sociological perspective that rests on the assumption of a meta-social entity, such as the state in Bourdieu's work, as a final ordering instance. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2015.

Regional Sociological Research Experience

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Mikhail Vladimirovich Morev

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The article presents the experience of the Institute of Socio-Economic Development of Territories of RAS in conducting sociological research on the territory of the Vologda Oblast and the Northwestern Federal District. It describes the historical aspects of formation of the system for public opinion monitoring and examines its theoretical and methodological foundations. The author of the article analyzes the structure of monitoring indicators and provides a brief interpretation of research findings that reflect social wellbeing and social perception trends. In addition, the paper analyzes people’s attitude toward the activities of federal and regional authorities, trends in social well-being, consumer sentiment and also the complex indicator – the index of public sentiment in the region – developed by ISEDT RAS researchers. The results of sociological studies carried out at ISEDT RAS correlate with the dynamics of the all-Russian public opinion polls conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM, Levada-Center, etc. They indicate that Russian society gradually adapts to new conditions of life after the collapse of the USSR. Besides, opinion polls show the most important features of the post-Soviet Russian history at its present stage; they are associated with the intensification of international political relations, the consequences of the “Crimean spring” and the new challenges Russia’s economy is facing now. The article concludes that as global community, of which Russian society is part, is evolving, sociological knowledge begins to play an increasingly important role in administration and national security; this is associated with the greater importance attached to intangible development factors. Therefore, a necessary prerequisite for administration effectiveness in all its stages is to implement the results of sociological research on social

Revitalizing sociology: urban life and mental illness between history and the present.

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Fitzgerald, Des; Rose, Nikolas; Singh, Ilina

2016-03-01

This paper proposes a re-thinking of the relationship between sociology and the biological sciences. Tracing lines of connection between the history of sociology and the contemporary landscape of biology, the paper argues for a reconfiguration of this relationship beyond popular rhetorics of 'biologization' or 'medicalization'. At the heart of the paper is a claim that, today, there are some potent new frames for re-imagining the traffic between sociological and biological research - even for 'revitalizing' the sociological enterprise as such. The paper threads this argument through one empirical case: the relationship between urban life and mental illness. In its first section, it shows how this relationship enlivened both early psychiatric epidemiology, and some forms of the new discipline of sociology; it then traces the historical division of these sciences, as the sociological investment in psychiatric questions waned, and 'the social' become marginalized within an increasingly 'biological' psychiatry. In its third section, however, the paper shows how this relationship has lately been revivified, but now by a nuanced epigenetic and neurobiological attention to the links between mental health and urban life. What role can sociology play here? In its final section, the paper shows how this older sociology, with its lively interest in the psychiatric and neurobiological vicissitudes of urban social life, can be our guide in helping to identify intersections between sociological and biological attention. With a new century now underway, the paper concludes by suggesting that the relationship between urban life and mental illness may prove a core testing-ground for a 'revitalized' sociology. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2016.

Teaching for Social Justice: Motivations of Community College Faculty in Sociology

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Brown, Sonia; Blount, Stacye; Dickinson, Charles A.; Better, Alison; Vitullo, Margaret Weigers; Tyler, Deidre; Kisielewski, Michael

2016-01-01

This article evaluates the reasons for career choice and job satisfaction among community college faculty who teach sociology, in relation to a social justice motivation for teaching. Using closed- and open-ended response data from a 2014 national survey of community college sociology faculty, this study finds that a preponderance of faculty do…

Committing Canadian sociology: developing a Canadian sociology and a sociology of Canada.

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Matthews, Ralph

2014-05-01

This paper is a slightly revised version of the author's "Outstanding Career Award Lecture" presented at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Sociological Association in Victoria, British Columbia on June 6, 2013. The paper distinguishes between Canadian Sociology and the Sociology of Canada. The former involves the explanatory stance that one takes to understanding Canada. The latter addresses the significant social dimensions that underlie Canadian social organization, culture, and behavior. I make a case for a Canadian Sociology that focuses on the unique features of Canadian society rather than adopting a comparative perspective. I also argue that there is a continuing need within the Sociology of Canada to address the issues of staples development. However, I argue that "new" staples analysis must have a directional change from that of the past, in that social processes now largely determine the pattern of staples development. Moreover, new staples analysis must include issues that were never part of earlier staples analysis, such as issues of environmental impacts and of staples depletion under conditions, such as climate change. The paper concludes by analyzing four factors that provide the dominant social contexts for analyzing modern staples development: (1) the rise of neoliberal government, (2) the implementation of globalization and its social consequences, (3) the assumption of aboriginal rights and entitlement, and (4) the rise of environmentalism. These factors were generally not considered in earlier staples approaches. They are critical to understanding the role of staples development and its impact on Canada in the present time.

The sociological imagination in a time of climate change

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Norgaard, Kari Marie

2018-04-01

Despite rising calls for social science knowledge in the face of climate change, too few sociologists have been engaged in the conversations about how we have arrived at such perilous climatic circumstances, or how society can change course. With its attention to the interactive dimensions of social order between individuals, social norms, cultural systems and political economy, the discipline of sociology is uniquely positioned to be an important leader in this conversation. In this paper I suggest that in order to understand and respond to climate change we need two kinds of imagination: 1) to see the relationships between human actions and their impacts on earth's biophysical system (ecological imagination) and 2) to see the relationships within society that make up this environmentally damaging social structure (sociological imagination). The scientific community has made good progress in developing our ecological imagination but still need to develop a sociological imagination. The application of a sociological imagination allows for a powerfully reframing of four key problems in the current interdisciplinary conversation on climate change: why climate change is happening, how we are being impacted, why we have failed to successfully respond so far, and how we might be able to effectively do so. I visit each of these four questions describing the current understanding and show the importance of the sociological imagination and other insights from the field of sociology. I close with reflections on current limitations in sociology's potential to engage climate change and the Anthropocene.

Use of New Approaches in Teaching Sociology (Application of a Technique for Producing Idea)

Science.gov (United States)

Eraslan, Levent

2011-01-01

Society-based research subjects are the study of sociology which is an important branch of science in the field of social science. It is a branch of studying society, social values, social groups, social classes and economical, political, social, religious, lawful institutions, population, usage, custom, value, norm, beliefs and relations and…

Forensic culture as epistemic culture: the sociology of forensic science.

Science.gov (United States)

Cole, Simon A

2013-03-01

This paper explores whether we can interpret the notion of 'forensic culture' as something akin to what Knorr-Cetina called an 'epistemic culture'. Can we speak of a 'forensic culture', and, if so, how is it similar to, or different from, other epistemic cultures that exist in what is conventionally called 'science'? This question has important policy implications given the National Academy Science's (NAS) recent identification of 'culture' as one of the problems at the root of what it identified as 'serious deficiencies' in U.S. forensic science and 'scientific culture' as an antidote to those problems. Finding the NAS's characterisation of 'scientific culture' overly general and naïve, this paper offers a preliminary exploration of what might be called a 'forensic culture'. Specifically, the paper explores the way in which few of the empirical findings accumulated by sociologists of science about research science seem to apply to forensic science. Instead, forensic science seems to have developed a distinct culture for which a sociological analysis will require new explanatory tools. Faithful sociological analysis of 'forensic culture' will be a necessary prerequisite for the kind of culture change prescribed by external reformist bodies like the NAS. Copyright © 2012. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Let's consider 'structural disaster' lying behind the Fukushima nuclear accident. From the viewpoint of sociology of science

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Matsumoto, Miwao

2015-01-01

As for the relationship between 'science and technology' and society, a huge gap exists between the question and expectation toward sociology given by ordinary people and the actual state of sociology. Sociology of science tries to provide a platform for transforming this kind of situation. What is currently talked about the Fukushima nuclear accident would be required to be revised according to the revealed fact in the future. Although there is such a limitation, what should be done at present is described from the viewpoint of sociology of science. The structure disaster is taken up from the viewpoint for not alienating the Fukushima accident, and the following five characteristics are involved in a complex manner. (1) To preserve precedent problems even if the precedents are wrong. (2) The complexity and mutual dependency of system amplify problems. (3) The informal norms of small groups hollow the official norms over a long term. (4) Stopgap measures based on ad hock presumption proliferate in face of measures against problems. (5) The secrecy principle obscures the whereabouts of responsibility throughout sectors. As for the way to operate SPEEDI (system for prediction of environmental emergency dose information) immediately after the Fukushima accident, this paper discusses the ideal way of responsibility attribution in consideration of the implication of structural disaster. In order not to invite such social conditions again as causing a serious accident due to the easy belief of unsafe conditions as safe, it is essential to create a mechanism that everyone publicly shares the issues associated with unlimited liability by means of the re-designing of the system. (A.O.)

Social Science Between Neo-Kantianism and Philosophy of Life: The Cases of Weber, Simmel, and Mannheim

Science.gov (United States)

Šuber, Daniel

In recent years, a group of social scientists have credited Wilhelm Dilthey with the status of a "classical sociological theorist" (Bakker 1999) and a key figure with regard to the establishment of the social sciences since the last decades of the nineteenth century.1 Such evaluations stand in distinct contrast to Dilthey's reputation as a firm critic of sociology on the one hand and his dubious standing within his proper field, philosophy, on the other, where he is perceived as a failed epistemologist. Generally, his influence on social and cultural science is associated with his notion of Erleben and understanding as fundamental categories for the interpretive sciences and their unique relatedness to their particular subject. On the basis of this starting point, he eventually established a division between Verstehen and Erklären and, correspondingly, human and natural sciences.

About the Phenomenological Statute of Social Issues: The Beginning of a Pure Sociology

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Carlos Belvedere

2008-01-01

Full Text Available This article is part of a forthcoming book on the problems of social phenomenology, based on readings of the work of Alfred Schutz and his significance for contemporary social theory. Here, we will concentrate on the preliminary problems of a pure sociology. We will investigate the meaning of the categorial act according to Husserl, aiming to enlighten the fundamental question of the ontological statute of social issues. We will notice that a longstanding sociological tradition, which begins with Durkheim and continues until Schutz, has faced this issue in an unfruitful way. We will see, in both works, a “Kantian dilemma” which we believe would find solution in the Husserlian conception of the categorial act. We hope to make, with this work, a modest contribution to a future pure sociology.

Integrating medical and environmental sociology with environmental health: crossing boundaries and building connections through advocacy.

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Brown, Phil

2013-06-01

This article reviews the personal and professional processes of developing an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the complex issues of environmental health in their community, political-economic, social science, and scientific contexts. This interdisciplinary approach includes a synthesis of research, policy work, and advocacy. To examine multiple forms of interdisciplinarity, I examine pathways of integrating medical and environmental sociology via three challenges to the boundaries of traditional research: (1) crossing the boundaries of medical and environmental sociology, (2) linking social science and environmental health science, and (3) crossing the boundary of research and advocacy. These boundary crossings are discussed in light of conceptual and theoretical developments of popular epidemiology, contested illnesses, and health social movements. This interdisciplinary work offers a more comprehensive sociological lens for understanding complex problems and a practical ability to join with scientists, activists, and officials to meet public health needs for amelioration and prevention of environmental health threats.

In Praise of Sociology.

Science.gov (United States)

Connell, Raewyn

2017-08-01

This reflection on the relevance of sociology starts with the different forms of social knowledge, and some autobiographical reflection on my engagement with the discipline. A research-based social science is made urgent by the prevalence of distortion and pseudoscience in the public realm. However, the research-based knowledge formation is embedded in a global economy of knowledge that centers on a privileged group of institutions and produces major imbalances on a world scale. Sociological data collection has important uses in policy and public discussion. But data need to be embedded in a larger project of understanding the world; this is what gives excitement to the work. Sociology has a potential future of marginality or triviality in the neoliberal economy and its university system. There are better trajectories into the future-but they have to be fought for. Cette réflexion sur l'utilité de la sociologie commence avec les différentes formes de savoir social, ainsi que quelques réflexions biographiques sur mon engagement avec la discipline. Le besoin d'une science sociale orientée vers la recherche est devenue nécessaire suite à la prédominance de la distorsion et de la pseudoscience dans la sphère publique. Par contre, ce savoir centré sur la recherche est lié à une économie globale de la connaissance qui est proche d'un groupe privilégié d'institutions et produit des déséquilibres majeurs au niveau mondial. La collecte de données sociologiques a une grande utilité en politique et dans les discussions publiques. Mais ces données doivent être liées à un projet plus large de compréhension du monde ; c'est ce qui rend ce travail excitant. La sociologie risque la marginalisation ou la trivialité dans une économie néo-libérale et son système universitaire. Il existe de meilleures trajectoires pour l'avenir - mais elles doivent être défendues. © 2017 Canadian Sociological Association/La Société canadienne de sociologie.

Air Pollution and the Social Sciences: Formulating and Implementing Control Programs.

Science.gov (United States)

Downing, Paul B., Ed.

The social science literature, dealing with air quality, up to mid-1970 is reviewed and synthesized in five separately authored chapters, one for each of sociology, psychology, political science, law and economies. In addition to suggesting what each discipline can contribute to the solution of the air pollution problem, gaps in the literature are…

History and sociology – the First Century. From Ranke to Weber

OpenAIRE

Tyrell, Hartmann

2010-01-01

The contribution deals with the complicated history of the sciences of history and sociology (predominantly in Germany). It shows, firstly, how Ranke formulated one of his essential world-historical insights as definitely closing off from contemporary discourses of the social and the »social movement«. Almost one hundred years later Max Weber integrated this insight of Ranke in his early days into his sociology. Secondly, Tyrell highlights the importance of Dilthey’s »studies of society and h...

In defense of forensic social science

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Amir Goldberg

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Like the navigation tools that freed ancient sailors from the need to stay close to the shoreline—eventually affording the discovery of new worlds—Big Data might open us up to new sociological possibilities by freeing us from the shackles of hypothesis testing. But for that to happen we need forensic social science: the careful compilation of evidence from unstructured digital traces as a means to generate new theories.

Reflections on Interdisciplinary Collaboration between Sociology ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

If the original ambition of sociology to constitute itself into an encyclopaedia of the social sciences has largely failed (because of the obligation to restrict its scope through disciplinary specialization), the discipline has been more successful as a key actor in interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary encounters that cover a wide ...

Meet the Authors of "Social Context View of Sociology" by Marty Zusman, David Knox and Tracie Gardner:

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Marty E. Zusman

2008-01-01

Full Text Available The Social Context View of Sociology by Marty E. Zusman, David Knox, and Tracie Gardner (2009 is an introductory sociology textbook published by Carolina University Press (ISBN 978-1-59460-572-7. The purpose of writing The Social Context View of Sociology was to provide a unique perspective of the social world. More importantly, to avoid what we consider the sometimes confusing introduction of the discipline (by standard textbooks into diverse frameworks, we presented a basic typology.

Editorial: Challenges of Social Science Literacy

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Birgit Weber

2010-12-01

Full Text Available Since international tests compare the performance of students in different subjects, the issue of literacy in the social science subject is becoming more pressing. The successes and failures in international tests influence the national education policies considerably. First, the inclusion of subjects in international comparisons has consequences for their importance. Second, the race in the Olympics of education leads to an increasing focus on the output of educational processes, also measured in the central exams. Social Sciences can refuse to take part in the national comparison studies with the price of losing much more importance; they can participate with the danger of undermining their goals. This raises a lot of questions: What competences students need in this social world to reason about it und to act responsibly? What is the foundation of concepts from social science students need for guidance and understanding their place and role as an individual in society? The social science disciplines, as sociology, political science and economics in a narrow sense, history, law and geography in a broader sense, supported by philosophy, pedagogy and psychology are able to select them for educational purposes or determine such educational aims. This Journal wants to resume und discuss competences and core con¬cepts for political and economic teaching and learning as Social Science Literacy”. Contributions in this issue do not only discuss and recommend competences and core concepts from a domain specific political or economic point of view, but also from an interdisciplinary or psychological point of view. They analyse preconditions and interdependencies as well as obstacles und problems of development and diagnosis core concepts and competences of Social Science Literacy.

Does infant cognition research undermine sociological theory?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bjerre, Jørn

2012-01-01

This article discusses how the results of infant research challenge the assumptions of the classical sciences of social behaviour. According to A.J. Bergesen, the findings of infant research invalidate Durkheim's theory of mental categories, thus requiring a re-theorizing of sociology. This article...... argues that Bergesen's reading of Emile Durkheim is incorrect, and his review of the infant research in fact invalidates his argument. Reviewing the assumptions of sociology in the light of the findings of infant research, it is argued that the real challenge is to formulate a research strategy...

[Theoretical construction in the sociology of health: a reflection on its trajectory].

Science.gov (United States)

Nunes, Everardo Duarte

2014-04-01

The scope of this paper is to reflect on the theoretical construction in the constitution of the sociology of health, still called medical sociology in some countries. Two main ideas constitute the basis for this: interdisciplinarity and the degree of articulation in the fields of medicine and sociology. We sought to establish a dialogue with some dimensions - macro/micro, structure/action - that constitute the basis for understanding medicine/health in relation to the social/sociological dimension. The main aspects of these dimensions are initially presented. Straus' two medical sociologies and the theory/application impasses are then addressed, as well as the dilemmas of the sociology of medicine in the 1960s and 1970s. From these analyses the theoretical production before 1970 is placed as a counterpoint. Lastly, the sociology of health is seen in the general context of sociology, which underwent a fragmentation process from 1970 with effects in all subfields of the social sciences. This process involves a rethinking of the theoretical issues in a broadened spectrum of possibilities. The 1980s are highlighted when theoretical issues in the sociology of health are reinvigorated and the issue of interdisciplinarity is once again addressed.

Analysing Discourse. An Approach From the Sociology of Knowledge

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Reiner Keller

2005-09-01

Full Text Available The contribution outlines a research pro­gramme which I have coined the "sociology of knowledge approach to discourse" (Wissens­sozio­logische Diskursanalyse. This approach to dis­course integrates important insights of FOU­CAULT's theory of discourse into the interpretative paradigm in the social sciences, especially the "German" approach of hermeneutic sociology of knowledge (Hermeneutische Wissenssoziologie. Accordingly, in this approach discourses are con­sidered as "structured and structuring structures" which shape social practices of enunciation. Un­like some Foucauldian approaches, this form of discourse analysis recognises the importance of socially constituted actors in the social production and circulation of knowledge. Furthermore, it com­bines research questions related to the concept of "discourse" with the methodical toolbox of qual­itative social research. Going beyond ques­tions of language in use, "the sociology of knowl­edge ap­proach to discourse" (Wissenssozio­logi­sche Dis­kurs­analyse addresses sociological inter­ests, the analyses of social relations and politics of knowl­edge as well as the discursive construction of re­al­ity as an empirical ("material" process. For empiri­cal research on discourse the approach proposes the use of analytical concepts from the sociology of knowledge tradition, such as inter­pretative schemes or frames (Deutungsmuster, "clas­sifi­ca­tions", "phenomenal structure" (Phäno­men­struktur, "narrative structure", "dispositif" etc., and the use of the methodological strategies of "grounded theory". URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0503327

Sociology of scientific knowledge and science education part 2: Laboratory life under the microscope

Science.gov (United States)

Slezak, Peter

1994-10-01

This article is the second of two that examine some of the claims of contemporary sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) and the bearing of these claims upon the rationale and practice of science teaching. In the present article the celebrated work Laboratory Life of Latour and Woolgar is critically examined. Its radical, iconoclastic view of science is shown to be not merely without foundation but an extravagant deconstructionist nihilism according to which all science is fiction and the world is said to be socially constructed by negotiation. On this view, the success of a theory is not due to its intellectual merits or explanatory plausibility but to the capacity of its proponents to “extract compliance” from others. If warranted, such views pose a revolutionary challenge to the entire Western tradition of science and the goals of science education which must be misguided and unrealizable in principle. Fortunately, there is little reason to take these views seriously, though their widespread popularity is cause for concern among science educators.

Social responsibility of ukrainian media as a subject of sociological annalysis

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K. S. Nazarenko

2016-06-01

In terms of fundamental transformations of modern Ukrainian society problem of social responsibility requires deep analysis. Her study of a new one and requires investigation. Continuing our study will be useful for further sociological analysis of problems of social responsibility in the context of media.

Public Sociology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

by the media? Does the choice of public sociology mean the relinquishment of scientific integrity and critical conviction? These questions will also be addressed in this book - together with a host of others related to the topic of public sociology.   The chapters included in this book are all manuscripts......What is the role of sociology in society? How can - and should - sociology contribute with insights relevant and useful to the outside world? Is sociology attuned to accommodate the demands of the wider public and of surrounding society? Who benefits from the knowledge produced and provided...... by sociology? What are the social implications and cultural effects of the knowledge sociology provides and creates? All of these questions, and many others, concern and centre on sociology's relationship to the surrounding society, in short to the ‘public'. All of these questions - and many others...

Applying Sociology through Social Marketing: Student Reflections on an Intimate Violence Awareness Project

Science.gov (United States)

Hertzog, Jodie; Williams, Renee

2007-01-01

Introducing students to sensitive social issues like intimate violence in lower level courses can spark their sociological imaginations motivating them to do further research in order to gain reflective knowledge about such topics. In order to promote two course objectives: (1) recognizing and applying sociological concepts and theories, and (2)…

Physical Education, Sociology, and Sociology of Sport: Points of Intersection.

Science.gov (United States)

Sage, George H.

1997-01-01

Examines the rise of sociology and physical education (PE), discussing linkages that initially existed and the separation that transpired between them. Also examines connections between social theory and PE before the sociology of sport was formally developed. Details the rise of sociology of sport, highlighting roles of physical educators. (SM)

Mobile sociology. 2000.

Science.gov (United States)

Urry, John

2010-01-01

This article seeks to develop a manifesto for a sociology concerned with the diverse mobilities of peoples, objects, images, information, and wastes; and of the complex interdependencies between, and social consequences of, such diverse mobilities. A number of key concepts relevant for such a sociology are elaborated: 'gamekeeping', networks, fluids, scapes, flows, complexity and iteration. The article concludes by suggesting that a 'global civil society' might constitute the social base of a sociology of mobilities as we move into the twenty-first century.

Actor-networking ceta-sociality, or, what is sociological about contemporary whales?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Blok, Anders

2007-01-01

theory (ANT) allows for the inclusion of non-human ‘actants' (like whales) into the fabric of sociality. In the ontology of ANT, sociality emerges as semiotic-material configurations of humans, animals and technologies. Starting from a critical review of the work by Adrian Franklin on growing......In contemporary urban Euro-American societies, whales have become hugely popular and iconic creatures, arousing controversies more intense than most other instances of animal politics. How to account sociologically, however, for the dramatic social transformation of whales, from natural resource...... to near-sacrosanct agent, is far from self-evident. This article advocates a change of theoretical perspective, inspired by the work of actor-network theorists Bruno Latour and Michel Callon. Rather than focussing solely on the ‘humanity' of human-animal relations, as does most of sociology, actor-network...

Fort Collins Science Center- Policy Analysis and Science Assistance Branch : Integrating social, behavioral, economic and biological sciences

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

The Fort Collins Science Center's Policy Analysis and Science Assistance (PASA) Branch is a team of approximately 22 scientists, technicians, and graduate student researchers. PASA provides unique capabilities in the U.S. Geological Survey by leading projects that integrate social, behavioral, economic, and biological analyses in the context of human-natural resource interactions. Resource planners, managers, and policymakers in the U.S. Departments of the Interior (DOI) and Agriculture (USDA), State and local agencies, as well as international agencies use information from PASA studies to make informed natural resource management and policy decisions. PASA scientists' primary functions are to conduct both theoretical and applied social science research, provide technical assistance, and offer training to advance performance in policy relevant research areas. Management and research issues associated with human-resource interactions typically occur in a unique context, involve difficult to access populations, require knowledge of both natural/biological science in addition to social science, and require the skill to integrate multiple science disciplines. In response to these difficult contexts, PASA researchers apply traditional and state-of-the-art social science methods drawing from the fields of sociology, demography, economics, political science, communications, social-psychology, and applied industrial organization psychology. Social science methods work in concert with our rangeland/agricultural management, wildlife, ecology, and biology capabilities. The goal of PASA's research is to enhance natural resource management, agency functions, policies, and decision-making. Our research is organized into four broad areas of study.

2017 Hans O. Mauksch Address: Using the Science of Learning to Improve Student Learning in Sociology Classes

Science.gov (United States)

Messineo, Melinda

2018-01-01

The 2017 Mauksch Address invites readers to consider how the field of sociology might benefit from greater inclusion of the science of learning into its pedagogy. Results from a survey of 92 teaching and learning experts in sociology reveal the degree to which the discipline's understanding of teaching and learning is informed by the science of…

[Margot Jefferys: the British voice of medical sociology].

Science.gov (United States)

Nunes, Everardo Duarte

2011-03-01

Margot Jefferys (1916-1999) was not only the person who introduced medical sociology into Great Britain, but also the researcher and professor who, during thirty years, exerted the most deep influence on the teaching of health social sciences either in undergraduate or especially graduate studies, since the beginning of her career, in 1953, at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. In addition to create a global panorama concerning the Jefferys' works, this study highlights two texts, which are situated into the field we are researching: the history of health sociology. The first one, published in 1991, discusses the relationships between epidemiology and sociology; and the second, published in 1996, discusses the field of medical sociology. Both texts are a series of considerations regarding the Jefferys' thought and the more recent questions of the field in Great Britain.

L'idée de `science sociales' | Mbembe | African Sociological Review ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

African Sociological Review / Revue Africaine de Sociologie. Journal Home · ABOUT THIS JOURNAL · Advanced Search · Current Issue · Archives · Journal Home > Vol 3, No 2 (1999) >. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads.

Goffman's Dramaturgical Sociology: Developing a Meaningful Theoretical Context and Exercise Involving "Embarrassment and Social Organization."

Science.gov (United States)

Brown, David K.

2003-01-01

Depicts a useful participatory exercise in teaching Erving Goffman's dramaturgical sociology by drawing upon his essay about embarrassment and social organization. Argues the need to devise new ways to involve students in sociological theorists' insights. (Author/KDR)

Let's dance: Organization studies, medical sociology and health policy.

Science.gov (United States)

Currie, Graeme; Dingwall, Robert; Kitchener, Martin; Waring, Justin

2012-02-01

This Special Issue of Social Science & Medicine investigates the potential for positive inter-disciplinary interaction, a 'generative dance', between organization studies (OS), and two of the journal's traditional disciplinary foundations: health policy and medical sociology. This is both necessary and timely because of the extent to which organizations have become a neglected topic within medical sociology and health policy analysis. We argue there is need for further and more sustained theoretical and conceptual synergy between OS, medical sociology and health policy, which provides, on the one-hand a cutting-edge and thought-provoking basis for the analysis of contemporary health reforms, and on the other hand, enables the development and elaboration of theory. We emphasize that sociologists and policy analysts in healthcare have been leading contributors to our understanding of organizations in modern society, that OS enhances our understanding of medical settings, and that organizations remain one of the most influential actors of our time. As a starting point to discussion, we outline the genealogy of OS and its application to healthcare settings. We then consider how medical sociology and health policy converge or diverge with the concerns of OS in the study of healthcare settings. Following this, we focus upon the material environment, specifically the position of business schools, which frames the generative dance between OS, medical sociology and health policy. This sets the context for introducing the thirteen articles that constitute the Special Issue of Social Science & Medicine. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Creativity, Pragmatism and the Social Sciences

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gimmler, Antje

2006-01-01

In this discussion, Richard Sennett and Hans Joas elaborate on the role of both creativity and pragmatism in the social sciences. They pursue these topics from different perspectives: the role creativity played in the history of ideas and in classical pragmatism, what creativity means...... in the practice of the arts and how a creative pragmatist sociology might be possible. Pragmatism, they conclude, may not be a new idea, but the practice of pragmatism offers a new political vision beyond the traditional frontiers of left and right....

Social Determinants of Health - contributions from European Health and Medical Sociology Determinantes sociales de la salud - Contribuciones de la sociología médica y de la salud europea

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Johannes Siegrist

2011-09-01

Full Text Available

A major domain of recent research in health or medical sociology is concerned with social determinants of health, and more specifically with the explanation of social inequalities in health. Substantial input to this research was provided by European medical sociologists and social epidemiologists. In this article, I give a short review of the current state of art in explaining the social gradient of health, pointing to five complementary approaches: social selection, health care provision, early life deprivation, unhealthy lifestyles, and material and psychosocial stressors/resources in adult life. This latter explanation is discussed in more detail with regard to health-adverse working and employment conditions. New scientific evidence on the influence of poor quality of work on physical and mental health is presented, with particular reference to two sociological models of stressful work, demand control and effort-reward imbalance. Moreover, their contribution towards explaining unequal adult health is discussed in the frame of two hypotheses, the mediation and the effect modification hypothesis. In conclusion, substantial sociological input and progress of the sub-specialty of health or medical sociology was achieved in recent past, and this new knowledge is already being applied in various contexts of health and social policy.

Uno de los principales temas de las investigaciones recientes de la sociología médica o de la salud tiene que ver con los determinantes de la salud, o más específicamente con las inequidades sociales en salud. Sociólogos de la medicina o epidemiólogos sociales europeos han realizado sustanciales aportes al respecto. En este artículo realizo una breve revisión del actual estado de la cuestión sobre el gradiente social en salud, teniendo como referencia cinco aproximaciones complementarias: selección social, provisión de servicios de salud, penurias en los primeros años de vida, estilos de vida poco

The Sociology of Family Health. A Bibliography.

Science.gov (United States)

Jumba-Masagazi, A. H. K., Comp.

This unannotated bibliography is on man, his family, the society he makes and lives in, and his health. It is about man and his East African environment. It attempts to bring together both the applied and social sciences as they affect the family. Among the disciplines drawn from are: anthropology, sociology, medicine, religion, economics, labor…

Contextualizing Social Science in Nepal

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Dev Raj Dahal

2008-10-01

Full Text Available Social science informs about the ideals and trains experts to deal with the complex social realities. It has a public purpose rooted in what we call dharma (professional and institutional responsibility as opposed to the arrogance of reason, self-will and self-rationalization intrinsic to contemporary rational choice and modernity. Learning has a synergy - establishing connection between the world of social science theories and the drama of social life. A lack of mutual learning between Nepal's traditional faith intellectuals and modern reason-based social scientists has created a big hiatus and contradiction. The academic life of social scientists in Nepal is completely outside of spiritual, moral and ethical influence experienced by ordinary public. The spiritual blindness of modern social scientists has thus opened multiple gaps between their worldview and those of the citizens on various frontiers--theoretical knowledge and practical experience, technical understanding and composite knowledge and secularity of social science and the vitality of the Hindu-Buddhist scriptures in the popular mind, culture, behavior and practices. This has reinforced a division between the system of knowledge of social scientists and the life-world of people. The proponents of new social movements in Nepal, such as women, Dalits, Janajatis, Madhesis, youths and marginalized population are seeking a structural shift in reason-based knowledge to both reason and feeling in social science knowledge discovery. This movement can open the "captive mind" to social learning of contextual knowledge, conduct research with the citizens, provide inputs to the policy makers and reverse their linear, structure-bound, rationalist and disciplinary thinking into the one that represents what the Nepal mandala, the Nepali space, is really like and how to improve it for the better. The renewal and indigenization of qualitative social science research is important to overcome the

Las aportaciones de la sociología española a la responsabilidad social empresarial

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Blanco, Antonio

2010-09-01

Full Text Available In the Conclusion 39 of the European Summit in Lisbon in 2000, the European Council makes a special plea to the sense of social responsibility of companies being such as a voluntary integration in their strategy and actions of their social, economic and environmental concerns, which arise from the interactions between the organizations and their groups of interests. Different international proposals, European and spanish, support the practice of the business responsibility. In Spain, a Forum of Expertise of this matter coordinated by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs has recognized “the importance of a new sensibility of the companies about social affairs”. This makes us question if Sociology has also shown interest for this new “sensibility” of the business organizations and which the degree of presence is in corporate social responsibility being also an object of study in the academic field of Sociology. Therefore, the presence of this subject in the research as well as the syllabus of the studies of Sociology in Spain is studied.

En la Conclusión 39 de la Cumbre Europea de Lisboa del año 2000, el Consejo Europeo hace un llamamiento especial al sentido de responsabilidad social de las empresas, entendiendo por tal la integración voluntaria en su estrategia y acciones de preocupaciones sociales, económicas y medioambientales que surgen de la interacción de las organizaciones con sus grupos de interés. Diferentes propuestas internacionales, europeas y españolas respaldan la práctica de la responsabilidad empresarial y, en España, el Foro de Expertos en la materia coordinado por el Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales ha reconocido el “ascenso de una nueva sensibilidad en las empresas sobre lo social”. Esto nos lleva a cuestionarnos si la Sociología también ha mostrado interés por esta nueva “sensibilidad” de las organizaciones empresariales y cuál es el grado de presencia de la responsabilidad

A Case Study of German Language Core Journals for Characterizing Citation Patterns in the Social Sciences

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Pei-Shan Chi

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Publication practices in the social sciences are characterized by the use of heterogeneous publication channels and a stronger national focus (Nederhof, 2006; Hicks & Wang, 2011. At the same time the use of bibliometric indicators in research evaluation promotes journal articles in international peer reviewed journals as the main style of publishing research results. The question emerges to which extent this changes publication practices in these disciplines. In our contribution we address this question and present results of a case study which investigates publication and referencing patterns of core German language journals in sociology and political science. Based on an explorative analysis of reference lists we describe patterns and changes of the parameters of the knowledge base of these journals. The analysis of the results in this study shows that with a total of 67% in the sociology and 76% in the political science the core German journals predominantly refer to non-journal publications. Besides, the share of non-source publications basically remains constant in the time period 2000-2009, and the share of references to source journals is the same in both disciplines. The difference between sociology and political science is: publications in the German language sociology journals have more references to monographs (46% than publications in the German language political science journals (38%, but these political science journals reference to other non-source publications (38% much more than sociology (21%.

What is analytical sociology? Towards sociology as 'normal science'

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Dekić Milovan

2013-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper I analyze the basics of analytical sociology, relatively new and in our scientific community little known intellectual movement. In the introductory part I try to identify the general causes of its occurrence. In the second part I provide its preliminary definition. In the third part I reconstruct its prehistory. In the fourth and main part I discuss the basis of its scientific program. In the final part I try to establish implications of the adoption of this program as a guide for the sociological enterprise in the future.

READING OUR SOCIAL WORDS: UTILIZING NOVELS IN TEACHING SOCIOLOGY COURSES

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Abd. Ghofur

2012-05-01

Full Text Available This paper discusses the assignments used to analyze the novel using sociological concepts as well as the general outcomes. Students report enjoying the book and they are less hesitant to dig into difficult issues such as alcoholism, violence, sexuality, racism, and other forms of inequality. The ability to examine events on both macro- and microlevels improves over the course of the semester and students often integrate examples from the novels into class discussion and other assignments. The use of cultural artifacts such as film, poetry, music, or novels in sociology courses is certainly not a new phenomenon. As with other instructors, one of my main goals of using these types of materials, including novels, is to encourage active learning by students, as they are often comfortable working with these materials and can relate them to their own lives. Students are able to use their creativity and enhance their critical thinking skills when using cultural artifacts as tools of understanding sociological concepts. Novels in particular, offer a unique means to cover a wider range of social issues than can often be addressed in an introduction to sociology course. Another challenge of the course itself is to explore the complexities of diversity in society. Due to the pace of the course, students often maintain some sort of emotional or intellectual distance from the issues we examine, often discussing social issues as being outside of or disconnected from their own reality. Novels help to humanize the topics we cover as students often feel a connection with one or more main characters, which then helps them to apply the characters’ experiences to their own lives.

Sociology of Hidden Curriculum

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Alireza Moradi

2017-06-01

Full Text Available This paper reviews the concept of hidden curriculum in the sociological theories and wants to explain sociological aspects of formation of hidden curriculum. The main question concentrates on the theoretical approaches in which hidden curriculum is explained sociologically.For this purpose it was applied qualitative research methodology. The relevant data include various sociological concepts and theories of hidden curriculum collected by the documentary method. The study showed a set of rules, procedures, relationships and social structure of education have decisive role in the formation of hidden curriculum. A hidden curriculum reinforces by existed inequalities among learners (based on their social classes or statues. There is, in fact, a balance between the learner's "knowledge receptions" with their "inequality proportion".The hidden curriculum studies from different major sociological theories such as Functionalism, Marxism and critical theory, Symbolic internationalism and Feminism. According to the functionalist perspective a hidden curriculum has a social function because it transmits social values. Marxists and critical thinkers correlate between hidden curriculum and the totality of social structure. They depicts that curriculum prepares learners for the exploitation in the work markets. Symbolic internationalism rejects absolute hegemony of hidden curriculum on education and looks to the socialization as a result of interaction between learner and instructor. Feminism theory also considers hidden curriculum as a vehicle which legitimates gender stereotypes.

Innovation in science and organizational renewal historical and sociological perspectives

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Münch, Richard

2016-01-01

This book looks at the types of new research organizations that drive scientific innovation and how ground-breaking science transforms research fields and their organization. Based on historical case studies and comparative empirical data, the book presents new and thought-provoking evidence that improves our knowledge and understanding about how new research fields are formed and how research organizations adapt to breakthroughs in science. While the book is firmly based in science history, it discusses more general sociological and policy propositions regarding scientific innovations and organizational change. The volume brings together leading scholars both from the United States and Europe.

Economics and sociology: Between cooperation and intolerance

OpenAIRE

Stojanović Božo

2007-01-01

In social sciences two opposing tendencies act simultaneously: the growth of specialization and the need for synthesis. Similar tendencies are noticeable when economics and sociology are in question. The need for these two sciences to cooperate was noticed a long time ago. However, an increasingly intensive exchange has been achieved only recently, particularly in the explanation of individual and group behavior. The works of Mancur Olson are a good example how the results of economics can be...

ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY: BETWEN COOPERATION AND INTOLERANCE

OpenAIRE

Božo Stojanović

2007-01-01

In social sciences two opposing tendencies act simultaneously: the growth of specialisation and the need for synthesis. Similar tendencies are noticable when economics and sociology are in question. The need for these two sciences to cooperate was noticed a long time ago. However, an incresingly intensive exchange has been achieved only recently, particularly in the explanation of individual and group behavior. The works of Mancur Olson are a good example how the results of economics can be i...

"It's Not Rocket Science!": High School Sociology Teachers' Conceptions of Sociology

Science.gov (United States)

DeCesare, Michael

2006-01-01

Since academic sociology's birth in this country, sociologists have not been shy about publicly praising and ridiculing the discipline. Though sociologists have been the primary participants in the seemingly endless debates about sociology's proper subject matter, methods, and purpose, there is another group that has also struggled over the past…

A sociological stance on fatigue and tiredness: Social inequalities, norms and representations.

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Loriol, Marc

2017-04-01

Fatigue is complex, representing simultaneously a physiological, psychological and social phenomenon. The sociological approach attempts to understand the experience of fatigue and its characterization at diverse periods and in various social contexts. After giving a sociological history of different forms of fatigue through the ages (acedia, melancholy, neurasthenia, chronic fatigue syndrome, etc.), this article proposes a social epidemiology of fatigue in the current period. Objectification of working and living conditions allows us to illustrate social inequalities in fatigue and exhaustion, but seems to contradict dominant social representations of fatigue today. It invites a critical discussion of contemporary theories of fatigue (such those of Alain Ehrenberg or Byung-Chul Han), which consider that fatigue is a condition of modern man, overwhelmed by his freedom. More modestly, analysis of the fatigue presented here rests on the capacity to be able to find a good balance between too much investment in work or life (which is exhausting) and not enough investment (which leads to boredom and lack of self-fulfillment). This balance depends on fragile and specific social norms in different professional or social circles and cannot be defined a priori. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

The opposition to nuclear energy: spychology, sociology, ethnology and psychoanalysis: four convergent approaches

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Timbal-Duclaux, Louis

1979-01-01

After tracing the psychological and social history of nuclear energy, the author analyzes the diverse approaches used by the social sciences to study the psychosocial repercussions of nuclear achievement. Psychology, sociology, ethnology and psychoanalysis, the four approaches cited, are complementary, not exclusive [fr

The “Second” Vienna School as Social Science

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Ian Verstegen

2012-12-01

Full Text Available This paper addresses Kunstwollen, not as a historicized concept, but as a social scientific construct open to reinterpretation and input from the evolving sciences. Emphasizing especially the contributions of Hans Sedlmayr in his Introduction to Riegl’s Collected Works (1929 and Otto Pächt’s article on Riegl (1962, attention departs from Riegl to set the stage regarding the meaning of Kunstwollen. Emphasizing its roots in materialistic social history, inspired by evolution, the article undertakes vignettes of paired art historians and social theorists: Dvorak and Karl Mannheim, Sedlmayr and Alfred Vierkandt, and Otto Pächt and Wolfgang Metzger. It can be seen that Kunstwollen is interpreted with the tools of social science as the sociology of knowledge (Mannheim, Vierkandt with refinements from Gestalt psychology (Metzger. As the career of Pächt progresses, the Austrian art historian looks for ways to stress continuous evolution, historical determinism and compulsion, and the super-individuality of artistic tradition.

Sociology: a view from the diaspora.

Science.gov (United States)

Rosenfeld, Richard

2010-12-01

From the vantage point of criminology, one of sociology's main export subject areas, the present and future of sociology appear a good deal more promising than John Holmwood's essay on the discipline's misfortune would suggest. Sociology remains in high demand by students and faculty hiring remains strong, even in its more critical sub-fields, such as race and ethnicity, sex and gender, and social inequality. Holmwood is correct that sociology is vulnerable to external pressures to demonstrate its relevance to social practice, but those pressures come from left-wing social movements as well as from centres of power. He is also correct that external pressures contribute to internal disagreement, but sociology has been at war with itself since the 1960s, with little evident decline in its academic standing or intellectual vitality. Those of us on the discipline's diaspora, who depend on sociology for both support and light, must remain hopeful about sociology's continued good fortune.

Back to Hegel? On Gillian Rose's critique of sociological reason.

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Fuller, Brian W

2017-08-22

Thirty-five years ago, Gillian Rose articulated a significant critique of classical sociological reason, emphasizing its relationship to its philosophical forebears. In a series of works, but most significantly in her Hegel contra Sociology, Rose worked to specify the implications of sociology's failure, both in its critical Marxist and its 'scientific' forms, to move beyond Kant and to fully come to terms with the thought of Hegel. In this article, I unpack and explain the substance of her criticisms, developing the necessary Hegelian philosophical background on which she founded them. I argue that Rose's attempted recuperation of 'speculative reason' for social theory remains little understood, despite its continued relevance to contemporary debates concerning the nature and scope of sociological reason. As an illustration, I employ Rose to critique Chernilo's recent call for a more philosophically sophisticated sociology. From the vantage point of Rose, this particular account of a 'philosophical sociology' remains abstract and rooted in the neo-Kantian contradictions that continue to characterize sociology. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2017.

[From sociology in medicine to the sociology of collective health: contributions toward a necessary reflexivity].

Science.gov (United States)

Castro, Roberto

2016-03-01

This text looks at the difference between sociology in medicine (collaborator of health institutions) and the sociology of medicine (independent of health institutions). If consistent, sociology in medicine should become a sociology of medicine. As an example, it is shown how the study of the social determinants of health and illness begins by assuming non-problematically the ontological reality of health and illness, but ends up problematizing the very concept of health-disease, demonstrating that the study of health determinants also requires the study of the determinants of the social construction of disease. The urgent necessity of objectifying collective health itself is argued. By applying sociological tools we can examine the so-called objective factors in the determination of health and disease, the socially constructed nature of these categories of knowledge, and the struggles and power relations that determine whether or not such categories are viable.

Perfiles Latinoamericanos: Regional sociology, connected sociologies

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Nelson Arteaga Botello

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The landscape of sociology published in the 48 numbers of the Perfiles Latinoamericanos magazineis analyzed. The diversity of topics, perspectives, and methodologies of the articles define aseries of fields of reflection around civil society, collective action, subjectivities and social identities,cities, media, violence, and theory. The essay suggests how the sociology that is producedin Latin America is not isolated but connected with international debates. It converges forms ofdoing theory and research with resonances on a global scale.

Annie Marion MacLean: “the mother of contemporary etnography” and pioneer in sociology distance learning

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Silvia García Dauder

2008-05-01

Full Text Available The article introduces Anne Marion MacLean into the United States' scientific sociology at its very origins (1892, when the Department of Sociology of the Chicago University was created. It also puts MacLean in a network called "Women's School of Chicago", and the forgotten contributions of these social sciences' pioneers, submitted to the American Journal of Sociology, are analyzed. Two MacLean's key contributions are highlighted: the correspondence courses in teaching sociology and her research by means of participant observation in workplaces focusing on women's work.

Which place are we speaking from? Returning to a long standing talk about Law and Sociology

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Wanda Capeller

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Legal scholars that seek to perform social legal studies have to face the challenges and transformations of a globalized society. Legal education without a sociological perspective will not provide the theoretical tools to understand the complexities of the social world that go beyond the normative and formal logic. This article reveals the difficulties to tackle the conflictual relationship between Law and Sociology of Law, which is a consequence of the epistemological irony of the adoption of philosophical positivism by legal scholars. If Social Science tends to ignore Law as a founding element of social practices, many sociological paradigms mobilized Law as common thread to explain social facts and changes. In any case, researchers in this area should be aware of the issue of importing models, using the thesis produced in this way in a critical manner.

De la sociología de la crisis a la crisis de la sociología. XVIII Conferencias Aranguren

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Sotelo, Ignacio

2010-06-01

Full Text Available Criticism and crisis are the key concepts in the emergence of sociology. The concept of crisis that shapes the beginning of sociology, when it fuses with philosophy of history, disappears during the reconstruction of sociology that takes place on the eve of World War One. It was the main purpose of Max Weber, its most outstanding representative, to overcome philosophy of history by removing any metaphysical residue in social science. The crisis of sociology is shown in its failure in attaining an identity that could be broadly shared by the scientific community of sociologists, despite last decades efforts. Sociologists are clearly divided between those who aim at a global vision of society and those who reject general approaches and try to integrate collected facts into middle range theories.

Crítica y crisis son los dos conceptos claves en el emerger de la sociología. El concepto de crisis que informa a la sociología en su primera etapa, en la que ésta termina por fundirse con la filosofía de la historia, desaparece en la reconstitución de la sociología que se lleva a cabo en vísperas de la Primera Guerra Mundial y que tiene en Max Weber a su representante más conspicuo. El empeño principal de este autor es superar la filosofía de la historia, eliminando cualquier residuo metafísico en la ciencia social. La crisis de la sociología se evidencia en que, pese a los esfuerzos de los últimos decenios, no ha logrado una identidad ampliamente compartida por la comunidad científica de los que se llaman sociólogos, claramente divididos entre los que aspiran a una visión global de la sociedad y los que rechazan planteamientos generales y tratan de integrar los hechos recogidos en teorías de mediano alcance.

Back to Class and Status: Or Why a Sociological View of Social Inequality Should Be Reasserted

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John Goldthorpe

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Of late, issues of social inequality have assumed a new political centrality in many western societies. However, in much discussion of these issues, sociological approaches to the analysis of social inequality have been disregarded, especially in the work of economists and epidemiologists. The main features of the sociological approach are the emphasis given to inequality in a relational rather than a merely attributional sense, and to the distinction between social class and social status as two qualitatively different forms of social stratifi cation. Two cases serve to illustrate the limitations and dangers that result from neglecting the conceptual and empirical work undertaken by sociologists: the study of intergenerational social mobility by economists and the study of the consequences of social inequality for health and related social problems by epidemiologists.

Cooperation between medicine and sociology in head and neck oncology.

Science.gov (United States)

Babin, Emmanuel; Grandazzi, Guillaume

2014-05-01

Twenty-first-century medicine is facing many challenges--knowledge and command of technical advances, research development, team management, knowledge transmission, and adaptation to economic constraints--without neglecting "human" aspects, via transformed carer-patient relationships, social change, and so on. The "modern" physicians know that simply treating disease is no longer enough. One of their essential missions lies in offering the individual patient overall care, which implies acknowledging the latter as an individual within a family, social, and professional environment. Indeed, medical practice requires pluridimensional knowledge of the patients' experience of their disease. Yet the contribution sociology can offer to health care remains largely unknown to many physicians, and medical training includes only limited instruction in the human sciences. On the basis of a few observations taken from sociological research, we would like to demonstrate how, in head and neck oncology, interdisciplinary collaboration between medicine and sociology can prove propitious to improving patient care and attention to their close relations.

Sociology through Photography

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Hyde, Katherine

2015-01-01

This chapter describes how photography can inspire and cultivate sociological mindfulness. One set of assignments uses self-portraiture to highlight the complexity of visual representations of social identity. Another uses photography to guide sociological inquiry. Both sets of assignments draw on the Literacy Through Photography methodology,…

ERVING: A Program to Teach Sociological Reasoning from the Dramaturgical Perspective.

Science.gov (United States)

Brent, Edward E., Jr.; And Others

1989-01-01

Describes the computer program labeled ERVING which teaches students to reason sociologically using E. Goffman's classic dramaturgical perspective. Suggests that artificial intelligence programs offer a means for developing instructional models for the social sciences which are not amenable to a quantitative approach. (KO)

Social Realism and the Problem of the Problem of Knowledge in the Sociology of Education

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Moore, Rob

2013-01-01

This paper examines from a Social Realist perspective a set of issues in the sociology of education regarding the problem of knowledge. It focuses upon the issue of relativism associated with the constructionist approach that since the time of the New Sociology of Education in the 1970s has constituted in different forms the dominant perspective…

The Use of Critical Thinking in Social Science Textbooks of High School: A Field Study of Fars Province in Iran

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Seyed Ahmad Hashemi

2011-01-01

Full Text Available This study aims at investigating the use of critical thinking in high school social science textbooks based on Fars Province teachers' attitudes in order to present a model for textbook development. To achieve this goal, the use of the following skills in the social science textbooks was analyzed: reasoning, questioning, assessment of examples and statements, group work, interpretation, true judgment about issues, analysis and evaluation, logicality, and explicitness. It is a field study which was conducted in several high schools of Fars Province in Iran. The population of this study included 568 social science teachers. The sample was selected based on the stratified random sampling procedure so that 153 teachers participated in this study. The data were collected using a forty-four-item questionnaire based on Likert-scale, which was developed and validated by the researcher himself and some experts. The reliability coefficient was also estimated as 0.86. The data were analyzed through descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, standard deviation, and coefficient of variations and inferential statistics (Chi-square and Kruskal-Wallis Non-parametric tests. The result showed that the teachers of the Social Studies Textbook evaluated assessment of examples and statements, and analysis and evaluation skills as not satisfactory respectively. They evaluated the other skills as fairly satisfactory. Teachers of Sociology Textbook 1 evaluated explicitness, assessment of examples and statements, analysis and evaluation, and interpretation skills as not satisfactory respectively. They also evaluated other skills as fairly satisfactory. Teachers of Sociology Textbook 2 evaluated explicitness as not satisfactory, logicality as satisfactory, and other skills as fairly satisfactory. Therefore it is possible to rank order the social science textbooks of high school as satisfactory and not satisfactory with regard to the use of critical thinking. In other

Sociología del arte y análisis de redes sociales

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Martine Azam

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Este texto introduce el número dedicado al arte y las redes sociales explorando los diferentes aspectos de la (inarticulación entre la sociología del arte y el análisis de redes sociales. Aún cuando en las investigaciones fundadoras del campo de investigación de la sociología del arte atribuyen un lugar central a las interacciones y relaciones entre los distintos actores que estructuran este “campo” o “mundo social”, las investigaciones que utilizan las herramientas del análisis de redes sociales son casi inexistentes. Al contrario, el análisis de redes sociales no ha prestado atención más que someramente a las actividades artísticas. Algunos elementos, como lo mostramos en el artículo, sugieren que un encuentro hubiera sido posible a pesar de todo. Avanzamos la hipótesis de que esta ignorancia mutua es, en parte, debida a las aproximaciones metodológicas privilegiadas por cada uno de estos campos de investigación. Por otra parte, actualmente se esbozan acercamientos tanto por parte del mundo del arte como por parte del mundo científico. En un contexto de interés creciente y generalizado por las redes sociales, los artistas se apropian el interés heurístico de los grafos mientras que los investigadores trabajan expresamente la dimensión estética de las visualizaciones. En el cruce de estos dos universos emergen obras que articulan las problemáticas sociológicas y utilizan las técnicas de análisis de redes sociales. Con un objetivo paralelo, este número propone artículos de jóvenes investigadores que demuestran empíricamente la articulación fértil entre sociología del arte y análisis de redes sociales.

Integrating Climate Change Science and Sustainability in Environmental Science, Sociology, Philosophy and Business Courses.

Science.gov (United States)

Boudrias, M. A.; Cantzler, J.; Croom, S.; Huston, C.; Woods, M.

2015-12-01

Courses on sustainability can be taught from multiple perspectives with some focused on specific areas (environmental, socio-cultural, economic, ethics) and others taking a more integrated approach across areas of sustainability and academic disciplines. In conjunction with the Climate Change Education Program efforts to enhance climate change literacy with innovative approaches, resources and communication strategies developed by Climate Education Partners were used in two distinct ways to integrate climate change science and impacts into undergraduate and graduate level courses. At the graduate level, the first lecture in the MBA program in Sustainable Supply Chain Management is entirely dedicated to climate change science, local and global impacts and discussions about key messages to communicate to the business community. Basic science concepts are integrated with discussions about mitigation and adaptation focused on business leaders. The concepts learned are then applied to the semester-long business plan project for the students. At the undergraduate level, a new model of comprehensive integration across disciplines was implemented in Spring 2015 across three courses on Sustainability each with a specific lens: Natural Science, Sociology and Philosophy. All three courses used climate change as the 'big picture' framing concept and had similar learning objectives creating a framework where lens-specific topics, focusing on depth in a discipline, were balanced with integrated exercises across disciplines providing breadth and possibilities for integration. The comprehensive integration project was the creation of the climate action plan for the university with each team focused on key areas of action (water, energy, transportation, etc.) and each team built with at least one member from each class ensuring a natural science, sociological and philosophical perspective. The final project was presented orally to all three classes and an integrated paper included

Seventh Grade Social Studies. A Program in Sociology and American History.

Science.gov (United States)

Clancy, Patricia; And Others

GRADES OR AGES: Seventh grade. SUBJECT MATTER: Sociology and American history. ORGANIZATION AND PHYSICAL APPEARANCE: The guide covers five units: "Biological Basis of Human Behavior,""How We Become Human,""The Family and Other Socializing Institutions,""Man's Behavior in Groups and Crowds," and "Minority Group Problems." The presentation of the…

Health, illness, and healing in an uncertain era: challenges from and for medical sociology.

Science.gov (United States)

Pescosolido, B A; Kronenfeld, J J

1995-01-01

The current situation in health care organizations, among providers and for people, dramatically challenges the "business as usual" roles of medicine, government, insurance companies, the community, and the university. Health care reform marks the first attempt in a century to consider a reconstruction of the social contract between society and medicine. While sociology stands as one of the earliest social sciences to systematically study the health care arena and create a health-focused subfield, there is a perception, not without support, of a desertion of identity from within, an encroachment by other areas from without, and abandonment by the parent discipline. We argue that these situations in medical arenas and in research fields require serious rethinking. The key lies in understanding how these phenomena are related to each other and to larger social forces, and how they offer opportunities, rather than signal limitations, to medical sociologists. We turn to the theoretical tools of sociology to help unravel the complicated challenges that face both policymakers and researchers. After framing these issues in a sociology of knowledge perspective, we use the case of "utilization theory" to illustrate the connections between society and systems of care (as well as studies of them) and to create a future agenda. We end by raising three basic questions: (1) Why is a sociological perspective critical to the understanding of change and reform in health care? (2) Why is medical sociology critical to the survival of the general sociological enterprise? and (3) Why is general sociology critical to the research agenda in medical sociology?

Danish Approaches in Social Studies of Technology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Munch, Birgitte

1995-01-01

Danish contribution to a EU-COST A4 action analysing the emergence of social studies of technology, the Science-Technology-Society field and the 'new sociology' of technology in Europe.......Danish contribution to a EU-COST A4 action analysing the emergence of social studies of technology, the Science-Technology-Society field and the 'new sociology' of technology in Europe....

The sociology of innovation in modern astronomy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Edge, D.

1977-01-01

This paper describes some of the main features of the development of astronomy since 1945, stressing sociological factors, and drawing examples mainly from the history of radio astronomy. Particular attention is given to aspects which appear to distinguish astronomy from other recently-studied sciences - notably, the prevalence of serendipitous discoveries, and the lack of any general resistance from the 'parent' discipline. The work of Kuhn and Hagstrom is used to illuminate these features, and also to indicate how a sociological analysis can be advanced of individual research decisions, and of the nature of disputes within science. Common misconceptions about the nature and scope of sociology are briefly discussed; in particular, it is emphasized that the kind of sociology of science under discussion cannot be normative. (author)

[Sociology of health, social ecology and media democracy].

Science.gov (United States)

Julesz, Máté

2012-05-27

The correlation of the sociology of health, social ecology and media democracy is demonstrated in the study. In societies of today, the role of the media is unquestionable in disseminating information relating to health and the environment. According to Paragraph (1) of Article XXI of the Hungarian Constitution of 2011, everyone has the right to a healthy environment. An environmentalist media democracy may forward environmental justice, environmental education, and environmentalist economy, etc. All these are required in order to establish a society where the healthy environment is an objective value.

[Pierre Bourdieu: sociology as a "symbolic revolution"].

Science.gov (United States)

Suaud, Charles

2014-03-01

The article combines two objectives: understand the genesis and development of the sociology of Bourdieu in connection with his social and intellectual positioning. The sociology of Bourdieu is a theory of Action which reconciles the double requirement of objectification and taking account of the practical logic bound by social agents. From the character both objective and subjective of social space, he analyzes how different institutions (firstly School) are doing that mental structures match the objective structures of society. By making acceptable reality and registering it in the body, these instances contribute to reproduce social divisions and participate in the work of domination. Gradually, Bourdieu develops a general theory about Power, which leads to a sociology of State. But he refuses any sociological fatalism. Because he perceived homologies between the sociologist and the artist facing the social order, each in their own way, he devoted two researches to Flaubert and Manet, seized in the same enterprise of aesthetic subversion he described as a 'symbolic revolution'. In many aspects, the sociology of Bourdieu opens ways of looking for an objectification of caregivers and their practices.

One Hundred Years of Sociological Solitude?

Science.gov (United States)

Rumbaut, Ruben G.

2005-01-01

This Cuban-born author presents a narrative on the social events in the United States that marked his life as he embarked on a career in the field of sociology in the 1960s and 70s. He advocates for sociologists' awareness of social realities and the evolution of sociological studies from a socially-conscious perspective.

Contribuições da Sociologia na América Latina à imaginação sociológica: análise, crítica e compromisso social Sociology's contribution in Latin America to sociological imagination: analysis, critique, and social commitment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

José Vicente Tavares-dos-Santos

2005-12-01

Full Text Available O artigo aborda o papel desempenhado pela Sociologia na análise dos processos de transformação das sociedades latino-americanas, no acompanhamento do processo de construção do Estado e da Nação, na problematização das questões sociais na América Latina. São analisados seis períodos na Sociologia na América Latina e no Caribe: I a herança intelectual da Sociologia ; II a sociologia da cátedra; III O período da "Sociologia Científica" e a configuração da "Sociologia Crítica"; IV a crise institucional, a consolidação da "Sociologia Crítica" e a diversificação da sociologia; V a sociologia do autoritarismo, da democracia e da exclusão; VI a consolidação institucional e a mundialização da sociologia da América Latina (desde o ano de 2000, podendo-se afirmar que os traços distintivos do saber sociológico no continente foram: o internacionalismo, o hibridismo, a abordagem crítica dos processos e conflitos das sociedades latino-americanas e o compromisso social do sociólogo.The article focuses on the role played by Sociology in the analysis of processes of change in Latin American societies, in the process of construction of Nation and State, in the debate of social issues in Latin America and the Caribbean. Six periods in Sociology in Latin America and the Caribbean are examined: I sociology's intellectual legacy; II sociology as a cathedra; III the period of "Scientific Sociology"; IV the institutional crisis, the consolidation of "Critical Sociology", and the diversifying of sociology; V sociology of authoritarianism, democracy and exclusion; VI institutional consolidation and globalization of Latin American sociology (since 2000. It may be said that the distinctive features of sociological knowledge in the continent were: internationalism, hybridism, the critical approach to processes and conflicts of Latin American societies, and the sociologist social commitment.

Zamyšlení nad soudobou českou sociologií

OpenAIRE

Musil, Jiri

2002-01-01

The following comments compare the present orientations of Czech sociology with recent developments in European sociology. The analysis of sociology in Europe shows that the attention of European sociologists has shifted to social theory & social philosophy, sociology of culture, media, gender & feminism, political sociology, nationalism, ethnicity, & racism. Czech sociology, in the opinion of the author, still does not pay sufficient attention to such pressing issues of Czech society as nati...

Toward a Buddhist Sociology: Theories, Methods, and Possibilities

Science.gov (United States)

Schipper, Janine

2012-01-01

This article explores potential links between Buddhism and sociology, highlighting the many commonalities between sociology and Buddhism, with an emphasis on ways that Buddhist thought and practice may contribute to the field of sociology. What could Buddhism offer to our understanding of social institutions, social problems, and to the dynamics…

Panel session: Part 1, In flux -- Science Policy and the social structure of Big Laboratories, 1964--1979

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Westfall, C. [Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, MI (United States)]|[CEBAF, Newport News, VA (United States)]|[Fermilab History Collaboration, Batavia, IL (United States)

1993-09-01

This report discusses the in flux of science policy and the social structure of big laboratories during the period of 1964 to 1979 and some sociological consequences of high energy physicists` development of the standard model during the same period.

Phenomenological sociology in the framework of contemporary methodological debates

OpenAIRE

A S Ivanova

2010-01-01

The article provides a review of the pivotal doctrines in the sphere of social sciences and humanities methodology, namely positivism (O. Comte, H. Spenser et al) and antipositivism (W. Dilthey, H. Rickert et al). In terms of E. Husserl's late philosophy as well as the works of M. Merleau-Ponty and A. Schutz the article provides the analysis of one of the prominent schools of the contemporary social theory - phenomenological sociology which is highlighted as the non-classical strategy of the ...

Another sociology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Carleheden, Mikael

1998-01-01

contributing dianostics of the social pathologies of the modern state. Such an approach can find inspiration in classical sociology, but it is also important to realize that, today, we are living in another modernity. A liberation from social technology must thus include a liberation from objectivistic methods....

Trends in Social Science: The Impact of Computational and Simulative Models

Science.gov (United States)

Conte, Rosaria; Paolucci, Mario; Cecconi, Federico

This paper discusses current progress in the computational social sciences. Specifically, it examines the following questions: Are the computational social sciences exhibiting positive or negative developments? What are the roles of agent-based models and simulation (ABM), network analysis, and other "computational" methods within this dynamic? (Conte, The necessity of intelligent agents in social simulation, Advances in Complex Systems, 3(01n04), 19-38, 2000; Conte 2010; Macy, Annual Review of Sociology, 143-166, 2002). Are there objective indicators of scientific growth that can be applied to different scientific areas, allowing for comparison among them? In this paper, some answers to these questions are presented and discussed. In particular, comparisons among different disciplines in the social and computational sciences are shown, taking into account their respective growth trends in the number of publication citations over the last few decades (culled from Google Scholar). After a short discussion of the methodology adopted, results of keyword-based queries are presented, unveiling some unexpected local impacts of simulation on the takeoff of traditionally poorly productive disciplines.

Social Change and Sport: A Sociological Evaluation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yılmaz KAPLAN

2013-12-01

Full Text Available This study aims to discuss the relation between social change and sports from a sociological point of view. This study is descriptive in its aim, periodic (discussion in the length of time it covers and theoretical based on literature in its techniqu e. “Social change” is a value judgement - free concept which does not indicate a direction but determines the new situation, the difference occurring in the society compared to the former era or situation. Every society changes in time; however, it cou ld at times be „‟positive‟‟ (in the direction of development, progress, etc... and „‟negative‟‟ at other times (in the direction of regress, deconstruction, etc.... As a social institution, sport, while affecting some social institutions (family, edu cation, economics, politics, religion, communication, healthcare, law, is also affected by them. The process of social change has affected, moreover, has determined sports. As a social event, phenomenon, and institution, sports gains its meaning in the society that it takes place; and it both gets affected by the changes in the society and affects these changes there. It could be the „‟reason‟‟ and the „‟result‟‟ of social changes. Radical changes in the sports and even in the rules of branche s of sports are made depending on the changing social needs, preferences and expectations. Although there isn‟t an obligatory relation between „‟social progress‟‟ and „‟sports‟‟ theoretically, it can be said that the process of social progress contributes to sports and vice versa.

Co-­Teaching Social Research Methods in a Joint Sociology/Anthropology Department

Science.gov (United States)

Manthei, Jennifer; Isler, Jonathan

2011-01-01

In the course of developing and co-­teaching Social Research Methods (SRM), an interdisciplinary, upper-­division undergraduate course at the University of Illinois at Springfield (UIS), the authors discovered that this type of partnership is ripe ground for exploring integration of anthropology and sociology on epistemological and methodological…

'Laboratory talk' in U.S. sociology, 1890-1930: the performance of scientific legitimacy.

Science.gov (United States)

Owens, B Robert

2014-01-01

This paper examines one aspect of early twentieth century debates over the meaning of scientific methodology and epistemology within the social sciences: the tendency of sociologists to invoke "laboratory" as a multivalent concept and in reference to diverse institutions and sites of exploration. The aspiration to designate or create laboratories as spaces of sociological knowledge production was broadly unifying in early American sociology (1890-1930), even though there was no general agreement about what "laboratory" meant, nor any explicit acknowledgment of that lack of consensus. The persistence of laboratory talk in sociology over decades reflects the power of "laboratory" as a productively ambiguous, legitimizing ideal for sociologists aspiring to make their discipline rigorously scientific. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Una aproximación desde la sociología del cuerpo a los movimientos sociales

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Alexis Sossa Rojas

2013-12-01

Full Text Available El presente artículo tiene como objetivo articular dos perspectivas algo separadas en el debate sociológico actual: la sociología de los movimientos sociales y la sociología del cuerpo. En este sentido, buscamos problematizar tres cosas. Primero, por qué la relevancia de la categoría cuerpo,sobre todo, del desnudo, como forma y/o recurso en las protestas. Segundo, a partir de Foucault problematizar cómo lo social se inmiscuye en el cuerpo, en fenómenos como la sexualidad o la familia. Por último, a partir de las tensiones señaladas en el punto dos, se discute cómo esto da origen a movimientos que tienen demandas relacionadas al cuerpo, y qué teoría de los movimientos sociales es la mejor para explicarlos.

Sociology of Discourse

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Agustin, Oscar Garcia

Sociology of Discourse takes the perspective that collective actors like social movements are capable of creating social change from below by creating new institutions through alternative discourses. Institutionalization becomes a process of moving away from existing institutions towards creating...

Understanding health systems, health economies and globalization: the need for social science perspectives.

Science.gov (United States)

Murray, Susan F; Bisht, Ramila; Baru, Rama; Pitchforth, Emma

2012-08-31

The complex relationship between globalization and health calls for research from many disciplinary and methodological perspectives. This editorial gives an overview of the content trajectory of the interdisciplinary journal 'Globalization and Health' over the first six years of production, 2005 to 2010. The findings show that bio-medical and population health perspectives have been dominant but that social science perspectives have become more evident in recent years. The types of paper published have also changed, with a growing proportion of empirical studies. A special issue on 'Health systems, health economies and globalization: social science perspectives' is introduced, a collection of contributions written from the vantage points of economics, political science, psychology, sociology, business studies, social policy and research policy. The papers concern a range of issues pertaining to the globalization of healthcare markets and governance and regulation issues. They highlight the important contribution that can be made by the social sciences to this field, and also the practical and methodological challenges implicit in the study of globalization and health.

Understanding health systems, health economies and globalization: the need for social science perspectives

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Murray Susan F

2012-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract The complex relationship between globalization and health calls for research from many disciplinary and methodological perspectives. This editorial gives an overview of the content trajectory of the interdisciplinary journal ‘Globalization and Health’ over the first six years of production, 2005 to 2010. The findings show that bio-medical and population health perspectives have been dominant but that social science perspectives have become more evident in recent years. The types of paper published have also changed, with a growing proportion of empirical studies. A special issue on ‘Health systems, health economies and globalization: social science perspectives’ is introduced, a collection of contributions written from the vantage points of economics, political science, psychology, sociology, business studies, social policy and research policy. The papers concern a range of issues pertaining to the globalization of healthcare markets and governance and regulation issues. They highlight the important contribution that can be made by the social sciences to this field, and also the practical and methodological challenges implicit in the study of globalization and health.

Critical Nexus or Pluralist Discipline? Institutional Ambivalence and the Future of Canadian Sociology.

Science.gov (United States)

Puddephatt, Antony J; McLaughlin, Neil

2015-08-01

While some scholars believe in a transdisciplinary future for the social sciences and humanities, we argue that sociology would do well to maintain its disciplinary borders, while celebrating the plurality of its intellectual, social, and political content. Although a pluralist position can threaten disciplinary coherence and increase fragmentation, we argue the counterbalance ought to be convergence around shared institutional norms of knowledge production. Establishing these norms is not easy, since there is a great deal of institutional ambivalence at play in the field of sociology. As such, sociology is pushed and pulled between two poles of at least four major continuums of knowledge production, which include the following: (1) interdisciplinary versus discipline-based research; (2) political versus analytical scholarship; (3) professional versus public/policy sociology; and (4) local/national versus global audiences. Since both sides of these ideal-typical continuums contain their own pathologies, we propose adopting a balanced position to correct for the shortcomings of each. Rather than imposing one philosophical or theoretical paradigm for the field, we suggest that embracing the "chaos" of our diverse forms of knowledge and centralizing and integrating findings will serve to strengthen our collective efforts in the long term. © 2015 Canadian Sociological Association/La Société canadienne de sociologie.

Practical Application of Sociology in Systems Engineering

Science.gov (United States)

Watson, Michael D.; Andrews, James G.; Eckley, Jeri Cassel; Culver, Michael L.

2017-01-01

Systems engineering involves both the integration of the system and the integration of the disciplines which develop and operate the system. Integrating the disciplines is a sociological effort to bring together different groups, who often have different terminology, to achieve a common goal, the system. The focus for the systems engineer is information flow through the organization, between the disciplines, to ensure the system is developed and operated will all relevant information informing system decisions. The practical application of the sociology in systems engineering brings in various organizational development concepts including the principles of planned renegotiation and the application of principles to address information barriers created by organizational culture. Concepts such as specification of ignorance, consistent terminology, opportunity structures, role-sets, and the reclama (reconsideration) process are all important sociological approaches that help address the organizational social structure (culture). In bringing the disciplines together, the systems engineer must also be wary of social ambivalence, social anomie, social dysfunction, and insider-outsider behavior. Unintended consequences can result when these social issues are present. These issues can occur when localized subcultures shift from the overarching organizational culture, or when the organizational culture prevents achievement of system goals. These sociological principles provide the systems engineer with key approaches to manage the information flow through the organization as the disciplines are integrated and share their information and provides key sociological barriers to information flow through the organization. This paper will discuss the practical application of sociological principles to systems engineering.

Analytical Sociology: A Bungean Appreciation

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Wan, Poe Yu-ze

2012-10-01

Analytical sociology, an intellectual project that has garnered considerable attention across a variety of disciplines in recent years, aims to explain complex social processes by dissecting them, accentuating their most important constituent parts, and constructing appropriate models to understand the emergence of what is observed. To achieve this goal, analytical sociologists demonstrate an unequivocal focus on the mechanism-based explanation grounded in action theory. In this article I attempt a critical appreciation of analytical sociology from the perspective of Mario Bunge's philosophical system, which I characterize as emergentist systemism. I submit that while the principles of analytical sociology and those of Bunge's approach share a lot in common, the latter brings to the fore the ontological status and explanatory importance of supra-individual actors (as concrete systems endowed with emergent causal powers) and macro-social mechanisms (as processes unfolding in and among social systems), and therefore it does not stipulate that every causal explanation of social facts has to include explicit references to individual-level actors and mechanisms. In this sense, Bunge's approach provides a reasonable middle course between the Scylla of sociological reification and the Charybdis of ontological individualism, and thus serves as an antidote to the untenable "strong program of microfoundations" to which some analytical sociologists are committed.

Environmental sociology as the broadest framework for a research of the globalizing social reality

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Pušić Ljubinko

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The all-encompassing processes of globalization have contributed in a large measure to the confusion within scholarly attempts to decode its comprehensiveness, its causes, and its scope. The premise of this article is that the environment is a relevant sociological concept and a tool for the most complex and the most complete understanding of the impact that global processes have on social reality. We can also see that environmental sociology, as a distinct and very young - though well established - sub-discipline of sociology is a very suitable epistemological framework for testing the elements of globalization. This article considers the relationship between environmental sociology and the five common foundational sub-processes that define globalization and sustainable development. Those sub-processes are defined as political, economic, ecological, technological, and cultural. Furthermore, this article articulates the basis of the quest for the lowest common denominator within both theoretical and practical aspects of these sub-processes. In that sense, the question of the plausibility of the idea of sustainable development - as the intersection of the aforementioned sub-processes - is addressed.

Before theory comes theorizing or how to make social science more interesting.

Science.gov (United States)

Swedberg, Richard

2016-03-01

The basic argument in this article is that sociology and social science more generally are today severely hampered by the lack of attention being paid to theory. Methods--qualitative as well as quantitative methods--have proven to be very useful in practical research (as opposed to theory); and as a result they dominate modern social science. They do not, however, do the job that belongs to theory. One way to redress the current imbalance between methods and theory, it is suggested, would be to pay more attention to theorizing, that is, to the actual process that precedes the final formulation of a theory; and in this way improve theory. Students of social science are today primarily exposed to finished theories and are not aware of the process that goes into the production and design of a theory. Students need to be taught how to construct a theory in practical terms ('theorizing'); and one good way to do so is through exercises. This is the way that methods are being taught by tradition; and it helps the students to get a hands-on knowledge, as opposed to just a reading knowledge of what a theory is all about. Students more generally need to learn how to construct a theory while drawing on empirical material. The article contains a suggestion for the steps that need to be taken when you theorize. Being trained in what sociology and social science are all about--an important precondition!--students may proceed as follows. You start out by observing, in an attempt to get a good empirical grip on the topic before any theory is introduced. Once this has been done, it may be time to name the phenomenon; and either turn the name into a concept as the next step or bring in some existing concepts in an attempt to get a handle on the topic. At this stage one can also try to make use of analogies, metaphors and perhaps a typology, in an attempt to both give body to the theory and to invest it with some process. The last element in theorizing is to come up with an

Two Reflexivities in Current Social Science: Remarks on an Absent Debate

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Andreas Langenohl

2009-02-01

Full Text Available This paper traces and compares two different uses of the category of reflexivity in contemporary methodological debates in the social sciences. While a first use is strongly influenced by the textual turn in cultural anthropology, a second use is aligned with Pierre BOURDIEU's notion of "scientific reflexivity." Whereas the first use postulates an epistemological break with scientific modernity and argues for a perpetual contextualization and interrelation of research results and methods, BOURDIEU defends sociology’s claim of objectivity, which, according to him, can be redeemed through a reflexive objectification of sociological practice. Up to the present these two uses have existed in almost complete isolation from each other. They represent alternating reactions to, and reconstructions and translations of, poststructuralism and postmodernism in the social sciences. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs090297

MARGINALIZATION OF DEPARTMENTS OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND LANGUAGES IN SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL IN DENPASAR

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I Wayan Winaja

2013-02-01

Full Text Available Learning should be focused on the social and cultural development of intellectual ability, and encourage the learner’s comprehension and knowledge in order to produce intelligent and educated society. From the data collected from Public Senior High School 1 Denpasar and Dwijendra Senior High School Denpasar, it was found that the departments of social sciences and languages were seriously marginalized, indicated by the time allocated for social sciences and languages. The time allocated for Natural Sciences such as chemistry, physics, and biology averaged three hours a week. The additional ‘extra’ time allocated for Natural Sciences made the overall time allocated for them double the overall time allocated for Social Sciences such as economics, history sociology, and geography. Furthermore, the time allocated for one of them was one hour a week. The knowledge presented by the books of Natural Sciences was highly “instrumentalist-positivistic”; unlike the books of social sciences which only provided academic normative information. The modernity contained in “instrumentative positivism” was the philosophy which gave more priority to practical things and hard work with financial success as the main criterion. It was concluded that the marginalization of the departments of social sciences and languages in Public Senior High School 1 Denpasar and Dwijendra Senior High School Denpasar resulted from modernism, the culture of image, and the image that natural sciences were more advantageous than social sciences and languages.

Rereading "The Jack-Roller:" Hidden Histories in Sociology and Social Work

Science.gov (United States)

Shaw, Ian

2009-01-01

I revisit one of the iconic Chicago School studies, Clifford Shaw's "The Jack-Roller". A naive reading of Shaw's book leaves the reader with a sense of having been inducted into a melange of what we now know as "sociology" and "social work," but which to Shaw seems a coherent stance. I suggest that this is close to the heart of how things were,…

Can sociology help to improve nursing practice?

Science.gov (United States)

Matthews, David

The first in a five-part series on sociology offers an overview of the debate about the relationship between sociology and nursing. Although sociological education is currently limited within nurse education, there is a long-held argument for its relevance. With a growing emphasis on preventative and public healthcare, sociology may yet prove its usefulness. Subsequent articles cover four of the key social factors affecting health.

Homo plastic and aloplastic communities sociological study from the science

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ruano, J. D.

2002-01-01

This sociological reflection tries to understand the differences between the view and the handling that the so-called culture societies have about technique opposite to the view and the handling they have in the so-called science societies. The author maintains that the present developed societies are halfway between these two kinds of societies. The use of technique in one or the other type of society leads the author to name homo plastic communities to those who adapt themselves to the environment and aloplastic communities to those who adapt the environment to their needs. (Author)

Becoming allies: Combining social science and technological perspectives to improve energy research and policy making

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Diamond, Rick; Moezzi, Mithra

2002-07-01

Within the energy research community, social sciences tends to be viewed fairly narrowly, often as simply a marketing tool to change the behavior of consumers and decision makers, and to ''attack market barriers''. As we see it, social sciences, which draws on sociology, psychology, political science, business administration, and other academic disciplines, is capable of far more. A social science perspective can re-align questions in ways that can lead to the development of technologies and technology policy that are much stronger and potentially more successful than they would be otherwise. In most energy policies governing commercial buildings, the prevailing R and D directives are firmly rooted in a technology framework, one that is generally more quantitative and evaluative than that fostered by the social sciences. To illustrate how social science thinking would approach the goal of achieving high energy performance in the commercial building sector, they focus on the US Department of Energy's Roadmap for commercial buildings (DOE 2000) as a starting point. By ''deconstructing'' the four strategies provided by the Roadmap, they set the stage for proposing a closer partnership between advocates of technology-based and social science-based approaches.

Argumentos para una Sociología posthumanista y postsocial Arguments for a Postsocial and Posthumanistic Sociology

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Fernando J. García Selgas

2010-11-01

Full Text Available En este trabajo articulo y desarrollo una serie de argumentos en favor de una mirada sociológica posthumanista que no siga identificando sociedad con espacio nacional ni definiéndola como la agregación de individuos humanos o como el conjunto de determinaciones que rigen su vida en común. Lo primero es mostrar que, como en el paso de la comunidad tradicional a la sociedad o asociación moderna, ahora transitamos hacia una realidad social como ensamblaje que descentra al ser humano. Lo siguiente es deshacerse del reflejo anti-fetichista de las ciencias sociales para poder admitir la agencia social por parte de los objetos, a lo cual nos ayuda bastante el entender como la lógica tecnocientífica de la mutua constitución de investigadores y objetos de estudio se extiende a la totalidad de la realidad social. Para terminar presento también la cara constructiva y propositiva de este posthumanismo.

The sociology of big science | Public Lecture by Ulrike Felt | 15 July

CERN Multimedia

2014-01-01

"The sociology of big science" Public Lecture by Prof. Ulrike Felt Tuesday 15 July 2014 - 7.30 p.m. Globe of Science and Innovation Lecture in English, translated in French. Entrance free. Limited number of seats. Reservation essential: +41 22 767 76 76 or cern.reception@cern.ch What science for what kind of society? Reflecting the development of big science Without any doubt, CERN can be described as being among the most ambitious scientific enterprises ever undertaken. For 60 years, the Member States have not only invested considerable financial means into this institution, but have also supported the creation of a highly visionary research programme. And this has led to a change in the way science is done, as captured by the idea of "big science". Yet this naturally also raises a number of quite fundamental questions: How did the meaning of "doing science" change? What justifies societal engagement with and support for such a cost-intensive long-t...

Sociological, Postmodern, and New Realism Perspectives in Social Constructionism: Implications for Literacy Research.

Science.gov (United States)

Hruby, George G.

2001-01-01

Offers an historical definition of social constructionism, a review of its conceptual bases, and an exploration of its epistemological implications. Describes a history comprised of three paradigmatically distinct waves: a sociological, a postmodern, and an emerging third wave grounded in new realism or neonaturalism. Suggests potential uses of…

Technology and science in classroom and interview talk with Swiss lower secondary school students: a Marxist sociological approach

Science.gov (United States)

Roth, Wolff-Michael

2013-06-01

In much of science education research, the content of talk tends to be attributed to the persons who produce the sound-words in a speech situation. A radically different, sociological perspective on language-in-use grounded in Marxism derives from the work of L. S. Vygotsky and the members of the circle around M. M. Bakhtin. Accordingly, each word belongs to speaker and recipient simultaneously. It represents collective consciousness and, therefore, shared ideology, which can no longer be attributed to the individual. The purpose of this study is to develop a sociological perspective on language in science education, a perspective in which language continuously changes. I articulate this position in the context of classroom and interview talk with 14-year-old Swiss non-academically streamed lower secondary students about technology and science. In this context, science classrooms and interviews are shown to be microcosms of Swiss (German) culture and society reproduced in and through the situated talk about science and technology.

Para una sociología de la sexualidad

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OSCAR GUASCH

1993-01-01

Full Text Available La sociología deja la sexualidad en manos del psicoanálisis y de la medicina, primero, y de la sexología, después. La sociología de la sexualidad comparte objeto de estudio con otras especializaciones de la disciplina como la sociología de la familia o la sociología del género. El objeto de estudio de la sociología de la sexualidad es el sexo: el sexo en tanto que actividad social. Se ocupa de definir que es sexo y que no lo es, describe que espacios y tiempos tiene adjudicados, que actores lo ejecutan y cuales no, de que modo lo hacen, y las razones y consecuencias sociales de todo ello. En este artículo se define el marco sociohistórico que deben tener en cuenta futuras investigaciones sociológicas sobre sexualidad, revisando los distintos modos mediante los cuales occidente organiza el control social de la actividad sexual.

Tales of sociology and the nursing curriculum: revisiting the debates.

Science.gov (United States)

Aranda, Kay; Law, Kate

2007-08-01

The relationship between nursing and sociology has been extensively debated for more than two decades [Cox, C.A., 1979. Who cares? Nursing and sociology: the development of a symbiotic relationship. Journal of Advanced Nursing 4, 237-252; Cooke, H., 1993. Why teach sociology? Nurse Education Today 13, (3) 210-216; Sharpe, K., 1994. Sociology and the nursing curriculum: a note of caution. Journal of Advanced Nursing 20, (2) 391-395; Sharpe, K., 1995. Why indeed should we teach sociology? A response to Hannah Cooke. Nurse Education Today 15, (1) 52-55; Sharpe, K., 1996. Feedback - sociology and the nursing curriculum: a reply to Sam Porter. Journal of Advanced Nursing 23, (7) 1275-1278; Balsamo, D., Martin, S.I., 1995a. Developing the sociology of health in nurse education: towards a more critical curriculum. Part 1. Andragogy and sociology in Project 2000. Nurse Education Today 15, 427-432; Balsamo, D., Martin, S.I., 1995b. Developing the sociology of health in nurse education: towards a more critical curriculum. Part 2. Linking methodology and epistemology. Nurse Education Today 15, 427-432; Porter, S., 1995. Sociology and the nursing curriculum: a defence. Journal of Advanced Nursing 21, (6) 1130-1135; Porter, S., 1996. Why teach sociology? A contribution to the debate. Nurse Education Today, 16, 170-174; Porter, S., 1997. Sociology and the nursing curriculum: a further comment. Journal of Advanced Nursing 26, (1) 214-218; Porter, S., 1998. Social Theory and Nursing Practice. Macmillan, Basingstoke; Corlett, J., 2000. The perceptions of nurse teacher, student nurses and preceptors of the theory-practice gap in nurse education. Nurse Education Today 20, 499-505; Allen, D., 2001. Review article: nursing and sociology: an uneasy marriage?. Sociology of Health and Illness 23, (3) 386-396; Pinikahana, J., 2003. Role of sociology within the nursing enterprise: some reflections on the unfinished debate. Nursing and health Sciences 5, (2) 175-180; Holland, K., 2004

Paradigm Shift in Game Theory: Sociological Re-Conceptualization of Human Agency, Social Structure, and Agents’ Cognitive-Normative Frameworks and Action Determination Modalities

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Tom R. Burns

2018-03-01

Full Text Available This article aims to present some of the initial work of developing a social science grounded game theory—as a clear alternative to classical game theory. Two distinct independent initiatives in Sociology are presented: One, a systems approach, social systems game theory (SGT, and the other, Erving Goffman’s interactionist approach (IGT. These approaches are presented and contrasted with classical theory. They focus on the social rules, norms, roles, role relationships, and institutional arrangements, which structure and regulate human behavior. While strategic judgment and instrumental rationality play an important part in the sociological approaches, they are not a universal or dominant modality of social action determination. Rule following is considered, generally speaking, more characteristic and more general. Sociological approaches, such as those outlined in this article provide a language and conceptual tools to more adequately and effectively than the classical theory describe, model, and analyze the diversity and complexity of human interaction conditions and processes: (1 complex cognitive rule based models of the interaction situation with which actors understand and analyze their situations; (2 value complex(es with which actors operate, often with multiple values and norms applying in interaction situations; (3 action repertoires (rule complexes with simple and complex action alternatives—plans, programs, established (sometimes highly elaborated algorithms, and rituals; (4 a rule complex of action determination modalities for actors to generate and/or select actions in game situations; three action modalities are considered here; each modality consists of one or more procedures or algorithms for action determination: (I following or implementing a rule or rule complex, norm, role, ritual, or social relation; (II selecting or choosing among given or institutionalized alternatives according to a rule or principle; and (III

The Reflexive Principle of Sociological Theorization

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R T Ubaidullayeva

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The article attempts to describe the reflexive principle in theory-making, which integrates the basic modern methodological paradigms and lays the foundation for the development of sociology. On the basis of the theoretical ideas of P. Bourdieu, A. Giddens and P. Ricoeur the author defines the concept of social reflexion and reveals its peculiarities in sociology as compared to reflexion in philosophy. According to the author, the fulfillment of reflexive functions in sociology is connected with the task of analyzing the complex structure of the polysemantic object, considering the specific quality of the subjects and their various trends of development. The presence of the poles — objectivity-subjectivity, rationality-irrationality, consciousness-unconsciousness etc, requires a reproduction of the dichotomies engendering them in social life and development of cognitive methods for their study in sociology.

Citation Behavior of Undergraduate Students: A Study of History, Political Science, and Sociology Papers

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Hendley, Michelle

2012-01-01

The goal of this analysis was to obtain local citation behavior data on undergraduates researching history, political science, and sociology papers. The study found that students cited books and journals even with the availability of web sources; however, usage varied by subject. References to specific websites' domains also varied across subject…

Bridges in social capital: a review of the definitions and the social capital of social capital researchers

OpenAIRE

Akcomak, S.

2009-01-01

There has been a recent surge of interest in social economics and social capital. Articles on social capital that are published in the last five years constitute more than 60 percent of all articles on social capital. Research on social capital is now massive and spans sociology, economics, management, political science and health sciences. Despite this interest there is still not a consensus on the definition and the measurement of social capital. This paper argues that this is due to lack o...

The history of sociology as a field of research and some recent trends in Brazilian social thought.

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Maia, João Marcelo Ehlert

2017-01-01

The article lays the foundation for a dialog between scholars of Brazilian social thought and historians of sociology as a discipline. In order to achieve this objective, I analyze recent developments in the field of the history of sociology, highlighting the incorporation of historiographic methods and the emergence of a transnational approach, which points toward a global history of the discipline. I criticize the Eurocentric limits of this field and argue that recent research trends in the area of Brazilian social thought can help overcome this limitation. Finally, I briefly analyze the obstacles that impede this dialog and indicate possible strategies for overcoming them.

Sociologies of energy. Towards a research agenda

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Tomás Ariztía

2017-12-01

Full Text Available This article offers a panoramic view of the field of the social studies of energy while introducing the articles of the special issue. It begins by discussing the progressive interest on studying the social aspects of energy. We relate this interest to the increasing challenges imposed by global climate change as well as the growing sociological attention to the material dimension of social life. The article suggests understanding energy and energy related phenomena as a socio-technical object which involve material, social, cultural and technical elements. The article then briefly describes different research areas concerning the intersection between energy and society and present the contributions to the monograph. We suggest that the articles comprised in this special issue are not only relevant for social scientist interested on energy related issues; they might also help energy professionals and researchers from outside the social sciences to further problematize the social aspects and challenges of energy.

Emotions and Social Sciences in 20th century: The Prequel of Affective Turn

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Giazú Enciso Domínguez

2014-02-01

Full Text Available The Affective Turn is an innovative movement that is transforming the production of knowledge based on the study of affect and emotion. To understand the current role of emotions, we proposed a 'prequel. Telling what happened with emotions within the social sciences before the Affective Turn, and before the twentieth century. In this work we explain the present from the past, we tell the story before The History, we pay a debt to a previous work: The Affective Turn. We articulate the prequel through seven approaches: Socialconstructionism, Discursive Social Psychology, Cultural Studies of Emotions, Emocionologies, Interpretative Sociology, Sociolinguistic of Emotions and Feminist Studies of emotions. We review the interests of each approach, their schools, their past, and give hints about not only the present but the future(s of the Affective Turn, in social science and academy as well.

Status Convergence: A Sociological Investigation of Undocumented Students' Legal and Collegiate Social Statuses

Science.gov (United States)

Muñoz, Alejandra; Alleman, Nathan F.

2016-01-01

This qualitative study examines the role of college in how undocumented students make meaning of their identity through the concept of status ownership. Using a sociological framework that drew upon Kaufman and Feldman's (2004) work, this study calls attention to the social context in the college experience and offers insight into this student…

Medical sociology for whom?

Science.gov (United States)

Chaska, N L

1977-12-01

This article defines the role of a medical sociologist in a medical institution concerned with health care delivery. The role in applied research and teaching is also discussed. The distinction is made between sociology in medicine and sociology of medicine. Five broad areas of research included under the category of sociology of medicine are the consumer of health care; the social, cultural, and economic enviroments as they relate to health and illness; health and illness behavior; patient education; and the evaluation of services provided to the consumer. Research methodologies utilized by sociologists are briefly presented, and research issues of concern in the sociology of medicine are outlined. The knowledge and information provided by a medical sociologist are supplemental to the physician's practice and are expressed ultimately as a benefit for the patient.

Review of Cold war social science: Knowledge production, liberal democracy, and human nature, and Working knowledge: Making the human sciences from Parsons to Kuhn.

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Erickson, Paul

2013-11-01

Reviews the books, Cold War Social Science: Knowledge Production, Liberal Democracy, and Human Nature by Mark Solovey and Hamilton Cravens (2012) and Working Knowledge: Making the Human Sciences From Parsons to Kuhn by Joel Isaac (see record 2012-13212-000). Taken together, these two important books make intriguing statements about the way to write the histories of fields like psychology, sociology, anthropology, and economics in the Anglo American world during the 20th century. To date, histories of these fields have drawn on a number of fairly well-established punctuation marks to assist in periodization: the shift from interwar institutionalism in economics to postwar neoclassicism, with its physics-like emphasis on mathematical theory-building; the transition from the regnant prewar behaviorism through a postwar "cognitive revolution" in American psychology; and the move in fields like sociology and anthropology away from positivism and the pursuit of what has sometimes been called "grand theory" in the early postwar era toward a period defined by intellectual and political fragmentation, the reemergence of interpretive approaches and a reaction to the scientistic pretensions of the earlier period. These books, by contrast, provide perspectives orthogonal to such existing narrative frameworks by adopting cross-cutting lenses like the "Cold War" and the working practices of researchers in the social and behavioral sciences. As a result, they do much to indicate the value of casting a historiographical net beyond individual disciplines, or even beyond the "social sciences" or the "human sciences" sensu stricto, in the search for deeper patterns of historical development in these fields. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).

Explaining drug policy: Towards an historical sociology of policy change.

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Seddon, Toby

2011-11-01

The goal of seeking to understand the development over time of drug policies is a specific version of the more general intellectual project of finding ways of explaining social change. The latter has been a preoccupation of some of the greatest thinkers within the social sciences of the last 200 years, from Foucault all the way back to the three nineteenth-century pioneers, Marx, Durkheim and Weber. I describe this body of work as 'historical sociology'. In this paper, I outline how a particular approach to historical sociology can be fruitfully drawn upon to understand the development of drug policy, using by way of illustration the example of the analysis of a recent transformation in British drug policy: the rise of the criminal justice agenda. I conclude by arguing that by looking at developments in drug policy in this way, some new insights are opened up. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Gino Germani y la Biblioteca de Psicología Social y Sociología de Paidós

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Carlos Arbeláez

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Este artículo realiza un análisis de la labor editorial desarrollada por Gino Germani en la Biblioteca de Psicología Social y Sociología de Paidós, con el fin de ver cómo, por medio de ésta, Germani, al poner en circulación toda una gama de textos (por primera vez traducidos a lengua hispana de carácter interdisciplinar, empírico y anglosajón, logra constituir en América Latina un público lector especializado en ciencias sociales que tendrá empatía con su propuesta de una renovación intelectual de la sociología. Lo cual hace que, doce años después de iniciado su proyecto editorial, con la edición de su libro La sociología científica, él y su texto se sitúen en el centro de atención de la disciplina en América Latina y se conviertan en una referencia obligada de esta nueva orientación sociológica en la región, la sociología científica.

Teoría feminista y sociología médica: bases para una discusión Feminist theory and medical sociology: issues for discussion

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Roberto P. Castro

1993-09-01

Full Text Available Se analiza la contribución de la teoría feminista a la sociología médica. En la primera parte se desarrollan los conceptos feministas más importantes: patriarcado, género, y sistema sexo/género. Se señala que cada concepto aclara aspectos sociales que han sido descuidados, aunque se reconoce que el concepto de patriarcado requiere aún de mayor desarrollo teórico. En la segunda parte se discuten los intentos del feminismo para desarrollar un nuevo conocimiento. Se discuten las ventajas de una ciencia feminista que problematice la dominación de género - que la ciencia común da por hecho -, y que permitiría una aproximación novedosa a la realidad social. Se enfatiza en la importancia de distinguir entre sexo y género, el aporte reciente de mayor relevancia para comprender la noción de ciencia feminista. Se señalan algunas de las aportaciones epistemológicas y metodológicas feministas. La tercera parte analiza las contribuciones más importantes de la teoría feminista en el campo de la sociología médica. Se indica como una de ellas a la problematización de los conceptos de "salud" y "enfermedad", así como la demostración de que son conceptos socialmente construidos como producto del orden patriarcal prevaleciente. Finalmente, se ilustra cómo el acercamiento feminista es útil para cuestionar las nociones y prácticas medicas, las que se basan en en la dominación de género y la reproducen.The contribution of feminist theory to medical sociology is analyzed. The first part discusses the main feminist concepts: patriarchy, gender, and sex/gender system. The article points out that such concepts illuminate social aspects that have been neglected. It is acknowledged that the concept of patriarchy requires further theoretical development. The second part discusses the feminist attempt to develop new knowledge. A "Feminist Science" would problematize gender domination, which current science takes for granted, and would allow

Sport and Society: An Introduction to Sociology of Sport.

Science.gov (United States)

Ibrahim, Hilmi

A theoretical framework for the study of sport sociology is provided in this text. It is intended for students of sport, arts and humanities, sociology, and social psychology. Sport and social organization are discussed first. Three models of societies and six theories of social organization are presented which form the basis of the eclectic…

Renewing Sociology of Education? Knowledge Spaces, Situated Enactments, and Sociological Practice in a World on the Move

Science.gov (United States)

Seddon, Terri

2014-01-01

Sociology of education is caught in a dilemma. The study of education and society that unfolded through the twentieth century produced educational vocabularies that spoke into education policy and practice about inequality and social justice. Now that sociologically informed educational discourse is marginalised by individualistic…

Social Theory, Sacred Text, and Sing-Sing Prison: A Sociology of Community-Based Reconciliation.

Science.gov (United States)

Erickson, Victoria Lee

2002-01-01

Examines the sociological component of the urban community-based professional education programs at New York Theological Seminary offered at Sing-Sing Prison. Explores the simultaneous use of social theory and sacred texts as teaching tools and intervention strategies in the educational and personal transformation processes of men incarcerated for…

Economic Sociology and Economics of Convention

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jagd, Søren

This paper is part of a larger exploration of the French Economics of Convention tradition. The aim of the paper is to explore potential themes of common interest to economic sociology and Economics of Conventions. The paper is in two parts. First, I summarise the main theoretical features of EC...... the institutional framework of social action. Second, I explore two issues raised by economics of conventions that may be particularly important to consider for economic sociology. The first issue is the explicit exploration of the consequences of a plurality of forms of justification suggested by Luc Boltanski...... and Laurent Thévenot in ‘économie de la grandeur’. This perspective has already been taken up in economic sociology in David Stark’s notion of a ‘Sociology of Worth’. The second issue, recently suggested by André Orléan, is the need to denaturalise economic theory and economic action to demonstrate the social...

Rational Choice Theory in Sociology: A Methodological Argument

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ALEXANDRA GHEONDEA-ELADI

2013-07-01

Full Text Available În the last years, rational choice theory (RCT took over a lot of the social sciences, almost polarizing discussions in sociology, such that I was able to hear questions like: are there any other theories in sociology, besides rational choice theory? Although the answer to this question is clearly yes, what seems to be important to avoid is that the moment when this theory monopolizes behavioural explanations in a multi-paradigmatic discipline should not come from partial or incomplete knowledge of it. Consequently, I decided to write this article with two goals in mind: one, to make a review of what rational choice theory is and means to sociology and secondly, to shortly present a research which questioned the structuring of social events according to this theory[1]. In the first part of this paper, I will present the main aspects of rational choice theory, such that I can argue for choosing one of its variants in the second section. In the last part I will present the methodology I used to explore the closeness of the Volunteer's Dilemma (as Diekmann (1985, 1993 proposed it to the volunteering situation in Romania. I shall do this by aid of institutional analysis and interview analysis. The results of the research will be briefly described, such that, in the end, the conclusions can summarize the main ideas about rational choice theory emerging from this article.

RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY IN SOCIOLOGY: A METHODOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

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ALEXANDRA GHEONDEA-ELADI

2013-01-01

Full Text Available În the last years, rational choice theory (RCT took over a lot of the social sciences, almost polarizing discussions in sociology, such that I was able to hear questions like: are there any other theories in sociology, besides rational choice theory? Although the answer to this question is clearly yes, what seems to be important to avoid is that the moment when this theory monopolizes behavioural explanations in a multi-paradigmatic discipline should not come from partial or incomplete knowledge of it. Consequently, I decided to write this article with two goals in mind: one, to make a review of what rational choice theory is and means to sociology and secondly, to shortly present a research which questioned the structuring of social events according to this theory2. In the first part of this paper, I will present the main aspects of rational choice theory, such that I can argue for choosing one of its variants in the second section. In the last part I will present the methodology I used to explore the closeness of the Volunteer’s Dilemma (as Diekmann (1985, 1993 proposed it to the volunteering situation in Romania. I shall do this by aid of institutional analysis and interview analysis. The results of the research will be briefly described, such that, in the end, the conclusions can summarize the main ideas about rational choice theory emerging from this article

The Limits to Transforming the Environment and the Limits to Sociological Knowledge

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Ralph Schroeder

2010-08-01

Full Text Available This paper argues that the social sciences are fragmented in addressing the environmental challenge of increasing resource depletion. To address this problem, the paper puts forward a framework which encompasses several disciplinary approaches, and above all a long-term historical perspective and a realist sociology of science and technology which, in combination, provide a means of understanding the disruptive changes in the transformation of the environment. The paper then focuses on energy and gives an overview of the various social forces that can potentially counteract the future tensions arising from the foreseeable depletion of energy sources. It argues that only some of these countervailing forces—namely state intervention and technological innovation—provide viable potential solutions to these tensions. However, these solutions themselves face severe constraints. The paper concludes by arguing that a realistic assessment of constraints is the most useful, though limited, service that social science can contribute to our understanding of the relation between social and environmental transformation.

PHENOMENOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF BIOETHICAL REALITY (THE SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS)

OpenAIRE

Nikulina Marina Alekseevna

2012-01-01

The interpretation of social reality is a classical problem of sociology, which solution helps perception and understanding of social phenomena. In the article phenomenological interpretation of bioethical reality is shown. Phenomenological sociology, being one of the perspective directions of development of social knowledge, it is characterized by aspiration to show «artificial», that is designed, nature of bioethical reality, its semantic structure, and thus, to «humanize» bioethical realit...

Reflexivity and the Sociology of Science and Technology: The Invention of "Eryc" the Antibiotic

Science.gov (United States)

Collyer, Fran

2011-01-01

Until recently, the social-technical process of invention has fallen between sociological investigation of the genesis of a new idea (an ideational phenomenon) and the production of a new technology (a material phenomenon). The advent of post-modernism and post-structuralism offered new avenues for theorising invention, accounting for, on the one…

Cultural Studies and Sociology of Culture in Germany: Relations and Interrelations

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Udo Göttlich

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Over the last three decades, attitudes towards cultural studies in Germany have developed within contexts of contact and conflict with a variety of disciplines, e.g. ethnology, anthropology, sociology, as well as the sociology of culture, liter-ary studies and Kulturwissenschaft(en. On the one hand there is a strong academ-ic interest in how cultural studies perceives and analyzes media culture, popular culture and everyday life. On the other hand boundaries with humanities and so-cial science remain, which leads to criticism and conflicts with cultural studies and its achievements.I will discuss some of the problems concerning the perception and reception of cultural studies among representatives of Kulturwissenschaft(en and sociology of culture. Furthermore I will draw on the role of cultural studies in thematizing cul-tural change and conflicts, and its ability to do so in a way that shows the im-portance of culture and politics.

Pharmaceutical HIV prevention technologies in the UK: six domains for social science research.

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Keogh, Peter; Dodds, Catherine

2015-01-01

The development of pharmaceutical HIV prevention technologies (PPTs) over the last five years has generated intense interest from a range of stakeholders. There are concerns that these clinical and pharmaceutical interventions are proceeding with insufficient input of the social sciences. Hence key questions around implementation and evaluation remain unexplored whilst biomedical HIV prevention remains insufficiently critiqued or theorised from sociological as well as other social science perspectives. This paper presents the results of an expert symposium held in the UK to explore and build consensus on the role of the social sciences in researching and evaluating PPTs in this context. The symposium brought together UK social scientists from a variety of backgrounds. A position paper was produced and distributed in advance of the symposium and revised in the light this consultation phase. These exchanges and the emerging structure of this paper formed the basis for symposium panel presentations and break-out sessions. Recordings of all sessions were used to further refine the document which was also redrafted in light of ongoing comments from symposium participants. Six domains of enquiry for the social sciences were identified and discussed: self, identity and personal narrative; intimacy, risk and sex; communities, resistance and activism; systems, structures and institutions; economic considerations and analyses; and evaluation and outcomes. These are discussed in depth alongside overarching consensus points for social science research in this area as it moves forward.

The case for a sociology of dying, death, and bereavement.

Science.gov (United States)

Thompson, Neil; Allan, June; Carverhill, Philip A; Cox, Gerry R; Davies, Betty; Doka, Kenneth; Granek, Leeat; Harris, Darcy; Ho, Andy; Klass, Dennis; Small, Neil; Wittkowski, Joachim

2016-01-01

Dying, death, and bereavement do not occur in a social vacuum. How individuals and groups experience these phenomena will be largely influenced by the social context in which they occur. To develop an adequate understanding of dying, death, and bereavement we therefore need to incorporate a sociological perspective into our analysis. This article examines why a sociological perspective is necessary and explores various ways in which sociology can be of practical value in both intellectual and professional contexts. A case study comparing psychological and sociological perspectives is offered by way of illustration.

Remembering a sociology of Human Rights

OpenAIRE

Levy, Daniel; Sznaider, Natan

2014-01-01

A sociology of human rights sounds almost like a contradiction in terms. Sociology is about social groups, about particular experiences, about how people, embedded in space and time, make sense of their lives and give meaning to their world. It deals with power and interest and the social bases of our experiences. On the other hand, human rights are about human beings in general, without temporal or spatial references, not about groups and their boundaries. Human rights are about humanity, lo...

Un programa para la sociología de la filosofía

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Moreno Pestaña, José Luis

2012-08-01

Full Text Available In this paper I present, in the first place, the possible links between philosophy and social science, from, on the one hand, the auto-understanding ways of the philosophical work, and in the second hand, philosophical resources effects on the social scientific vocation. Subsequently, I analyse the philosophical protection against sociology. In third place, I study how sociology permits to improve the philosophical reflexivity from a thick description of the hierarchy that organizes the philosophical field: so, sociology of philosophy appears, not as an attack to philosophy, but as an increase of the philosophical work critical capacities. In fourth place, to finish, I explore philosophical nets as understanding criterion of intellectual creativity. The paper presents specific examples which came basically from the history of Spanish and French thought in the XX century.

En este artículo se presentan, en primer lugar, los vínculos posibles entre la filosofía y las ciencias sociales, a partir de, por un lado, los modos de autocomprensión del trabajo filosófico y, por otro, los efectos de los recursos filosóficos en la vocación de científico social. Posteriormente, se analizan los modos de protección de la filosofía frente a la sociología. En tercer lugar, se estudia cómo la sociología permite mejorar la reflexividad filosófica a partir de una descripción densa de las jerarquías que organizan el espacio filosófico: la sociología de la filosofía aparece entonces no como un ataque a la filosofía sino como un incremento de la capacidad autocrítica del trabajo filosófico. En cuarto lugar y, para acabar, se exploran las redes filosóficas como criterio de comprensión de procesos de creatividad intelectual. el trabajo presenta en cada uno de sus momentos ejemplos concretos derivados fundamentalmente de la historia del pensamiento español y francés del siglo XX.

Challenges and Opportunities for Integrating Social Science Perspectives into Climate and Global Change Assessments

Science.gov (United States)

Larson, E. K.; Li, J.; Zycherman, A.

2017-12-01

Integration of social science into climate and global change assessments is fundamental for improving understanding of the drivers, impacts and vulnerability of climate change, and the social, cultural and behavioral challenges related to climate change responses. This requires disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge as well as integrational and translational tools for linking this knowledge with the natural and physical sciences. The USGCRP's Social Science Coordinating Committee (SSCC) is tasked with this challenge and is working to integrate relevant social, economic and behavioral knowledge into processes like sustained assessments. This presentation will discuss outcomes from a recent SSCC workshop, "Social Science Perspectives on Climate Change" and their applications to sustained assessments. The workshop brought academic social scientists from four disciplines - anthropology, sociology, geography and archaeology - together with federal scientists and program managers to discuss three major research areas relevant to the USGCRP and climate assessments: (1) innovative tools, methods, and analyses to clarify the interactions of human and natural systems under climate change, (2) understanding of factors contributing to differences in social vulnerability between and within communities under climate change, and (3) social science perspectives on drivers of global climate change. These disciplines, collectively, emphasize the need to consider socio-cultural, political, economic, geographic, and historic factors, and their dynamic interactions, to understand climate change drivers, social vulnerability, and mitigation and adaptation responses. They also highlight the importance of mixed quantitative and qualitative methods to explain impacts, vulnerability, and responses at different time and spatial scales. This presentation will focus on major contributions of the social sciences to climate and global change research. We will discuss future directions for

Sociology of Drug Consumption

OpenAIRE

2004-01-01

In this article which is a review of sociological ideas and studies of drug abusers in social situation, drug addiction steps (particularly alcohol, heroin and cocaine consumption) are revised and some explanations are made. Also, the role of some sociological ideas in drug addiction is considered in which Anomie Theory reads: "because of such duality, the individuals who are not satisfied with their role are in hurt." According to this theory, drug users choose seclusion and neglecting usual...

A Sociology of Knowledge Approach to European Integration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Adler-Nissen, Rebecca; Kropp, Kristoffer

2015-01-01

Scholars are deeply involved in the process of European integration, but we lack systematic understanding of this involvement. On the one hand, scholars, academic ideas and ideologies shape European integration and policies (e.g. the Economic and Monetary Union and the free movement of people......). On the other hand, EU institutions, policies and practitioners produce particular forms of knowledge (e.g. the Eurobarometer and benchmarking of national performances) that inform social scientific choices of theories, methods and research topics. Drawing on the new sociology of knowledge as well as Science...

A mathematics course for political and social research

CERN Document Server

Moore, Will H

2013-01-01

Political science and sociology increasingly rely on mathematical modeling and sophisticated data analysis, and many graduate programs in these fields now require students to take a ""math camp"" or a semester-long or yearlong course to acquire the necessary skills. Available textbooks are written for mathematics or economics majors, and fail to convey to students of political science and sociology the reasons for learning often-abstract mathematical concepts. A Mathematics Course for Political and Social Research fills this gap, providing both a primer for math novices in the social s

Sociological Discourse(s) on Freedom

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bertilsson, Margareta

The concept of freedom is often thought of as antithetical to sociology. The discipline is more prone to detect and unveil forms of unfreedom, as Zygmunt Bauman (1988) has pointed out. The question remains if any academic discipline, however, including sociology can do away with the concept...... of freedom al together! In matters of science, the problem of determinism vs. chance and spontaneity is essential. Hence, freedom, in one sense or the other, is necessarily at bottom also of sociological discourse. This text is an attempt to map the predominant forms of freedom found in sociological...... discourses. While starting out with the classic liberal concept informing theories of modernity followed by the various critiques directed against liberalism, not the least the most recently occurring (Lyotard, Agamben), the aim here is to spot possible trajectories in our comprehension of freedom, also...

John Foran’s sociology of revolution: From historical sociology to the sociological imagination

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D Yu Karasyev

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The article considers J. Foran’s sociology of revolution through the stages of evolution of his theoretical and methodological views and the works representing them. The trajectory of Foran’s sociology of revolution reflects in many respects the development of the contemporary comparative and historical sociology of revolution: from the fundamental historical research of a few classical cases to the quantitative study of an extremely wide range of examples and after that to the prediction of the ‘revolution-like’ events’ in future. According to Foran, there are three ways to consider the future of revolutions: 1 the analysis of the revolutions of the past, 2 the look into the future in terms of the existing theories, 3 the sources of sociological imagination. These three methods correspond to three stages in Foran’s sociology of revolution: after conducting the historical study of the situation and revolutions in Iran, the comparative analysis of 39 revolution events in the Third World countries and then an attempt to imagine patterns of future revolutions on the example of Zapatistas’ revolution in Mexico in 1994 and the struggle for global justice at the beginning of the XXI century. Despite the evolution of the subject and methodology of the theory, the concept ‘political culture of opposition’ remained the central category of Foran’s model. This complex notion describes such social process when under the influence of material and discursive elements the revolutionaries found out some common discourse that prescribed them to participate in collective actions to change their societies. Thus, Foran states that revolutions are the product of both structural conditions and human agency and the latter is due to both political-economic and cultural reasons. The cultural-structural character of Foran’s approach makes it relevant for the study of contemporary revolutionary events.

Sociology of Drug Consumption

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2004-02-01

Full Text Available In this article which is a review of sociological ideas and studies of drug abusers in social situation, drug addiction steps (particularly alcohol, heroin and cocaine consumption are revised and some explanations are made. Also, the role of some sociological ideas in drug addiction is considered in which Anomie Theory reads: "because of such duality, the individuals who are not satisfied with their role are in hurt." According to this theory, drug users choose seclusion and neglecting usual social aims as well as competitive situations. Association of Differentiation Theory claims that drug use behavior is a learned behavior and the first learning occurs in a friendly small group (i.e. youngsters. Social Control theory believes that one can predict normal and abnormal behaviors through the rate of individuals' social commitments. Internal and external controls also determine commitment rate. Micro-cultural theory considers drug use as a compatibility with abnormal micro-culture rules. Symbolic Mutual Action Believes that the etiquettes which society attribute to individuals/behaviors determine their acquired social reactions rather than any inherited acquisition.

Handbook of Social Capital

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

The Handbook of Social Capital balances the ‘troika' of sociology, political science and economics by offering important contributions to the study of bonding and bridging social capital networks. This inter-disciplinary Handbook intends to serve as a bridge for students and scholars within all...... the social sciences. The contributors explore the different scientific approaches that are all needed if international research is to embrace both the bright and the more shadowy aspects of social capital....

Apoio social e saúde: pontos de vista das ciências sociais e humanas Social support and health: standpoints from the social and human sciences

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Ana Maria Canesqui

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Analisam-se os temas e as abordagens teórico-conceituais do apoio social nos artigos de importantes periódicos internacionais de ciências sociais e de medicina e nacionais de Saúde Coletiva/Saúde Pública no período 1983-2005. Procedeu-se a leitura dos resumos dos 259 textos internacionais e 57 nacionais encontrados classificando e computando as relações do apoio social com a saúde/doença/cuidado. A seguir analisaram-se os conceitos e as abordagens do apoio social do ponto de vista das teorias e dos autores das ciências sociais e humanas, em uma amostra intencional de 56 textos internacionais e 18 nacionais. A literatura internacional respalda-se na psicologia social, nas várias correntes da sociologia e da ciência política e menos na antropologia. A literatura nacional dialoga menos com as teorias psicossociais e mais com as sociológicas e as antropológicas, realçando-se pela abordagem do apoio com a rede social, a solidariedade, as trocas e os valores culturais, deslocando-se da esfera individual e privada para a capacidade de organização da sociedade civil e de ações coletivas. Diferentes correntes norteiam as análises teórico-conceituais do apoio social, sendo a literatura internacional mais antiga, diversificada, empírica e escassa de produção antropológica.This article analyses the themes and conceptual-theoretical approaches of the social support in the literature from important international journals about social sciences and medicine, and in from 1983 to 2005 are analyzed. 259 international and 57 national abstracts was reading for the identification and computing the relations of the social support with health/disease/care. A deeper conceptual analysis about social support and the theories of social science were reported in an intentional sample of 56 international and 18 national texts. The international literature is based on the social psychology, in the several trends of the sociology and of the political

Contributions from sociology of science to mathematics education in Brazil: logic as a system of beliefs

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de Andrade, Thales Haddad Novaes; Vilela, Denise Silva

2013-09-01

In Brazil, mathematics education was associated with Jean Piaget's theory. Scholars in the field of education appropriated Piaget's work in different ways, but usually emphasized logical aspects of thought, which probably lead to an expansion of mathematics education influenced by psychology. This study attempts to extend the range of interlocutions and pose a dialogue between the field of mathematics education in Brazil and the sociology of science proposed by David Bloor. The main point of Bloor's theory is that logical-mathematical knowledge is far from being true and universal and is socially conditioned. In particular we will be discussing the first principle of the strong program, which deals with conditions that generate beliefs promoted by education policies in Brazil, such as the MEC/USAID treaties. In this case the "naturalization of logic" was stimulated by a widespread diffusion of both Piaget studies and the Modern Mathematics Movement.

Avoiding Chaos in the Sociology of Sport Brickyard.

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McPherson, Barry D.

1978-01-01

If the sociology of sport is to flourish as a legitimate field of inquiry which can contribute valid knowledge rather than an array of bits of knowledge, a sociological perspective based on a sound philosophy of science must be adopted. (Author/LH)

Teaching through Interactive Multi-Media Programming. A New Philosophy of the Social Sciences and a New Epistemology of Creativity.

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Riskin, Steve R.

This paper discusses the results of an experimental, non-traditional university class in sociology in which students produced an interactive multimedia module in a social science subject area using a computer system that allowed instant access to film, sound, television, images, and text. There were no constraints on the selection of media, or the…

Labor Economics and Sociology of Labor: Demarkation Problem

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S N Lebedev

2011-06-01

Full Text Available The article deals with important economic and sociological problems taking into account their relevance to economics and sociology of labor as two independent sciences. The author suggests some demarcation boundaries of the concepts relevant to contemporary life within these two disciplines.

Sociología y alimentación

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Díaz Méndez, Cecilia

2005-04-01

Full Text Available This work presents briefly the relationship between sociology and food matters. In the first place, we point out some of the reasons by which we might explain why sociology has only lately started to systematically tackle this aspect of social life and we also point out what conditions have brought about this recent interest of this discipline in food. Secondly, we include an outline of the attention paid to food by some of the most important sociology scholars. Then we present an outline of the main theories underlying food sociology (and anthropology and we end up with a proposal to define the field of food sociology, starting from the analysis of the content of some of the most important current works on the sociology of food.

En este trabajo, se exponen las relaciones entre la sociología y el fenómeno alimentario. En primer lugar, se apuntan algunas de las razones que podrían explicar el retraso con que la sociología se ha ocupado de forma sistemática de este ámbito de la vida social y las condiciones que han despertado el interés reciente de esta disciplina por el fenómeno alimentario. En segundo lugar, se presenta un esquema de la atención prestada por los clásicos de la sociología a la alimentación, de modo que se pueda contrastar la naturaleza de esta atención con el análisis sociológico actual. En tercer lugar, se presenta un esquema de las principales orientaciones teóricas que han marcado la sociología (y la antropología de la alimentación, para terminar con una propuesta de definición del campo de la sociología de la alimentación a partir de la consideración de los contenidos de algunos textos actuales de este campo de estudio.

'Introducing Michael Gove to Loïc Wacquant': Why Social Work Needs Critical Sociology.

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Michael Garrett, Paul

2016-06-01

In 2013, Michael Gove, then Secretary of State for Education and Health in the UK coalition government, criticised social workers for laying insufficient emphasis on the 'agency' of individuals and for being too preoccupied with social and economic inequalities. Such a perspective, which is not unique to Gove, needs to be countered by reaffirming the significance of an expansively critical sociology for social work. In this context, the thematic concerns of the French theorist, Loïc Wacquant, illuminates key aspects of social work engagement with clients which Gove and his ideological associates appear intent on ignoring. The issues raised have significant political resonances given the pending UK General Election taking place in May 2015.

Reflexive criteria of sociological research

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R T Ubaydullaeva

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The article is devoted to the sociological criteria of explaining the way of thinking and actions of subjects, their spiritual and moral positions and intellectual forces that form the laws of social life. The author seeks to adapt such categories as ‘meaning of life’, ‘human dignity’, ‘rationality’ etc. for the purposes of sociological analysis by methodological construction of some real life dichotomies such as ‘subjective meaning and social function’, ‘the real and the ideal’, ‘the demanded and the excluded’. Thus, the author studies economic, political and technical processes in terms of both positivity and negativity of social interaction and states that given the increasing differentiation of the society and the contradictory trends of social development the reflexive criteria that take into account the socio-cultural nature of the man help to find one’s own model of development.

Social Issues and Problem-Based Learning in Sociology: Opportunities and Challenges in the Undergraduate Classroom

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Eglitis, Daina S.; Buntman, Fran L.; Alexander, Dameon V.

2016-01-01

This article discusses the use of problem-based learning (PBL) in the undergraduate sociology classroom. PBL shifts students from the role of passive listeners and learners to active knowledge builders and communicators through the use of concise and engaging social problem cases. PBL creates opportunities for building substantive area knowledge,…

Emotions, affects and the production of social life.

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Fox, Nick J

2015-06-01

While many aspects of social life possess an emotional component, sociology needs to explore explicitly the part emotions play in producing the social world and human history. This paper turns away from individualistic and anthropocentric emphases upon the experience of feelings and emotions, attending instead to an exploration of flows of 'affect' (meaning simply a capacity to affect or be affected) between bodies, things, social institutions and abstractions. It establishes a materialist sociology of affects that acknowledges emotions as a part, but only a part, of a more generalized affective flow that produces bodies and the social world. From this perspective, emotions are not a peculiarly remarkable outcome of the confluence of biology and culture, but part of a continuum of affectivity that links human bodies to their physical and social environment. This enhances sociological understanding of the part emotions play in shaping actions and capacities in many settings of sociological concern. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2015.

The Development of Visual Sociology: A view from the inside

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Douglas Harper

2016-12-01

Full Text Available This paper is a reflection by one of the founding members of the IVSA (International Visual Sociology Association about the events, ideas, social trends and revolutions within sociology that contributed to development of visual sociology. In 2016 the IVSA entered its 34th year and the author has been a participant in the organization for its full duration. The paper details the importance of documentary photography in the early era of visual sociology. During this era key papers by Howard Becker contributed to the intellectual movement’s original intellectual definition and created a pedagogical model that has served as a model for teaching visual sociology to this day. Moving from visual sociology as a method based on black and white photography, the discipline embraced and developed collaborative methods including photo elicitation and photovoice. A parallel track of visual sociology focused on the analysis of the visual dimension of society, drawing on semiotics and cultural studies. More recently visual sociology has begun to explore the rapidly changing meaning and social function of photographic imagery, as cameras and images have become ubiquitous in the cell phone era.

Sociology of Education: Outlines towards a Diagnosis and Thoughts on Some Major Challenges

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Baeck, Unn-Doris Karlsen

2012-01-01

Sociology of education in Norway has traditionally been preoccupied with the classic problems related to education and the reproduction of social inequality. As the general social scientific and political focus on inequality decreased, the sociology of education also became less visible. At the same time, the sociology of youth evolved, and…

The Madoffization of Irish society: from Ponzi finance to sociological critique.

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Monaghan, Lee F; O'Flynn, Micheal

2017-12-01

Financialization and neoliberal policy created the Celtic Tiger. This economic 'miracle' furthered creditors' and property developers' speculative interests, leading to an unstable financial pyramid that eventually imploded in 2008 with catastrophic consequences for Irish society. Using the sociological imagination as social critique, this paper offers a lens on fictitious capital and Ponzi finance in the context of Ireland's boom and bust. Critique is advanced using the Madoffization of society thesis, a sociological heuristic that draws formal comparisons between Bernie Madoff's US$65 billion Ponzi scheme, which collapsed in 2008, and financialized capitalism. The Madoff case exhibits five main elements or forms which, it has been argued, underlie the varying content of life on a much broader scale: accumulation by debt expansion, mass deception, efforts to maintain secrecy and silence, obfuscation, and scapegoating. In conclusion, a crucial difference between the Madoff case and the Madoffization of Irish society is underscored. Discussion also moves from critique to hope amidst calls to renew sociology and transform financialized capitalism. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2017.

Sociology, Protestant Theology, and the Concept of Modern Religion

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Jung, Dietrich

2015-01-01

'scientification' of religion by the emerging disciplines of the humanities and social sciences. In taking the life and work of William Robertson Smith (1846-94) as an example, the article analyzes the transformation of some specific elements of liberal Protestant theology into a set of universal features......This article looks at the intersection between Protestant theology and sociology in the construction of the modern concept of religion. Set against the theoretical background of the functional differentiation of modern society, it identifies the origin of this concept in the discursive...

Mathematical-statistical models and qualitative theories for economic and social sciences

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Maturo, Fabrizio; Kacprzyk, Janusz

2017-01-01

This book presents a broad spectrum of problems related to statistics, mathematics, teaching, social science, and economics as well as a range of tools and techniques that can be used to solve these problems. It is the result of a scientific collaboration between experts in the field of economic and social systems from the University of Defence in Brno (Czech Republic), G. d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara (Italy), Pablo de Olavid eUniversity of Sevilla (Spain), and Ovidius University in Constanţa, (Romania). The studies included were selected using a peer-review process and reflect heterogeneity and complexity of economic and social phenomena. They and present interesting empirical research from around the globe and from several research fields, such as statistics, decision making, mathematics, complexity, psychology, sociology and economics. The volume is divided into two parts. The first part, “Recent trends in mathematical and statistical models for economic and social sciences”, collects pap...

Polish Qualitative Sociology: The General Features and Development

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Konecki, Krzysztof Tomasz; Kacperczyk, Anna; Marciniak, Łukasz

2005-01-01

Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research,2005, 6(3) The article explores the development of Polish qualitative sociology in Poland by presenting its main intellectual routes and some of the general features of Polish sociology. Romanticism and inductionmethod are crucial elements for the development of this discipline in Poland and contribute to its. unigueness. The role of Florian Znaniecki in creating the Polish qualitative sociology is also underlined.

SOCIAL PORTRAIT OF RURAL TEACHERS: THE RESULTS OF A COMPARATIVE SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY COUNTRY AND CITY TEACHERS

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Lyudmila Alexandrovna Amirova

2017-11-01

Full Text Available The article presents the results of application of the comparative sociological study of rural and urban schools. The characteristic of a social portrait of the rural teacher. The basic social problems, an assessment of social well-being of rural and urban teachers. Purpose. The authors aimed to identify specific problems of the rural school for making sound management decisions in the field of social educational policy. Methodology. A comparative type of applied sociological research is realized by applying such methodological approaches as structural and functional analysis and its variety – typological analysis [2; 3; 5]. Results. In summary, the social portrait of a rural educator is characterized by the following social characteristics. He lives mostly in his own house. One member of his family has, mainly, 12-18 or more square meters of living space. Entrepreneurship and tutoring are poorly distributed in rural areas. In comparison with urban teachers, rural teachers are more oriented to vocational training, rather than to the formation of spiritual and intellectual culture of students. This is the practicality of the rural educator. Employment in the subsidiary farm is also the reason for the greater practicality of the rural teacher and his relatively low spiritual activity. In rural educational institutions the level of collectivism is higher, but the desire for individual achievements is lower. Practical implications. The management of social processes at the level of a rural school can be implemented in the form of social planning, drawing up of social programs, social projects aimed at solving social problems of a rural teacher and optimizing the development of a rural school.

Big science transformed science, politics and organization in Europe and the United States

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Hallonsten, Olof

2016-01-01

This book analyses the emergence of a transformed Big Science in Europe and the United States, using both historical and sociological perspectives. It shows how technology-intensive natural sciences grew to a prominent position in Western societies during the post-World War II era, and how their development cohered with both technological and social developments. At the helm of post-war science are large-scale projects, primarily in physics, which receive substantial funds from the public purse. Big Science Transformed shows how these projects, popularly called 'Big Science', have become symbols of progress. It analyses changes to the political and sociological frameworks surrounding publicly-funding science, and their impact on a number of new accelerator and reactor-based facilities that have come to prominence in materials science and the life sciences. Interdisciplinary in scope, this book will be of great interest to historians, sociologists and philosophers of science.

Current methodological questions of studying social-political relations of global society

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Marković Danilo Ž.

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Identification and critical study of social-political aspects of contemporary society within conditions of globalization must start from the characteristics (essence of globalization as a process of human kind consolidation. Globalization represents a process of economic, political and cultural connecting of all separate mankind societies (specific societies into the one whole, into a 'World' - 'Global' society (mega-society on the Planet with many contradictions. It is a meaningful way for money to bring profit in a peaceful manner. It leads not only to expanding of economic power through transnational and multinational economic corporations, but also to imposing way of life, social organization and categorized value system of countries - protagonists of globalization to others, as indicators of their creative capabilities and specific forms of their appearance, specialty and durability. These and other changes, as well as multiple and versatile consequences that accompany them, indicate the necessity of constructing a new social approach in their scientific cognition, with full respect of not only social but also natural laws on cognition and estimation of accomplishing social life. The social and especially sociological sciences should investigate and excogitate the next areas of global reality of contemporary society in this context. Macrostructures in the architecture of its construction: world community, socio-economic system that appears with globalization process and international community that appears by agreement between the states, their dynamic relationship and influence on flows and future of mankind civilization and social position of human. Diversity of the forms of cooperation, conflicts and collisions in the 'world' society and possibility of war conflicts regarding safety of not only specific people, regions and states, but also regarding the survival of human civilization, since it is obvious that such a conflict would have

Economics of Convention and New Economic Sociology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jagd, Søren

2007-01-01

The aim of the article is to explore potential common themes in economic sociology and economics of conventions. The article explores two issues raised by economics of conventions that may be of particular importance to economic sociology. First, the explicit exploration of the consequences...... of a plurality of forms of justification, as elaborated in économie de la grandeur. This perspective was recently taken up in economic sociology by David Stark's introduction of the notion ‘sociology of worth'. The second issue, recently suggested by André Orléan, is the need to denaturalize economic theory...... and economic action to demonstrate the social constructed nature of economic action. It is argued that these two issues demonstrate that a fruitful dialogue is indeed possible between economic sociology and economics of convention and should be encouraged....

A Third Use of Sociology of Scientific Knowledge: A Lens for Studying Teacher Practice

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Meyer, Daniel Z.; Avery, Leanne M.

2010-01-01

Over the last two decades, science educators and science education researchers have grown increasingly interested in utilising insights from the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) to inform their work and research. To date, researchers in science education have focused on two applications: results of sociological studies of science have been…

The Educational Imagination and the Sociology of Education in Australia

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Matthews, Julie

2013-01-01

A remarkable feature of the sociology of education is its proliferation under a broad gamut of research themes and topics. Understanding the relationship of education to social reproduction and social change are pivotal to the sociology of education, and have fruitfully informed research in fields such as gender and education, vocational education…

Three General Theoretical Models in Sociology: An Articulated ?(Disunity?

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Thaís García-Pereiro

2015-01-01

Full Text Available After merely a brief, comparative reconstruction of the three most general theoretical models underlying contemporary Sociology (atomic, systemic, and fluid it becomes necessary to review the question about the unity or plurality of Sociology, which is the main objective of this paper. To do so, the basic terms of the question are firstly updated by following the hegemonic trends in current studies of science. Secondly the convergences and divergences among the three models discussed are shown. Following some additional discussion, the conclusion is reached that contemporary Sociology is not unitary, and need not be so. It is plural, but its plurality is limited and articulated by those very models. It may therefore be portrayed as integrated and commensurable, to the extent that a partial and unstable (disunity may be said to exist in Sociology, which is not too far off from what happens in the natural sciences.

Sociology, economics, and gender: can knowledge of the past contribute to a better future?

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Nelson, Julie A

2010-01-01

This article explores the profoundly gendered nature of the split between the disciplines of economics and sociology that took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, emphasizing implications for current efforts to bring the fields more closely together. Drawing on historical documents and feminist studies of science, it investigates the gendered processes underlying the divergence of the disciplines in definition, method, and degree of engagement with social problems. The recently developed field of economic sociology and other efforts to bridge the disciplinary gap have the potential to heal this disciplinary split, if they are broadened, deepened, and made wiser and more self-reflective through the use of feminist analysis.

Pure Relationality as a Sociological Theory of Communication

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Sam Whimster

2018-01-01

Full Text Available In order to explain the success of populist politicians use of social media, we need to subtract the social from relationality and separate social relationships from network theory applications. A pure theory of relationality is suggested by Werner Heisenberg’s breakthrough in quantum mechanics. It is argued that sociology, to its detriment, has failed to incorporate a theory of communication, one adequate to the explosion of social media and the recent rise of populist politics, here instanced by Donald Trump. Realizing the underlying importance of communication technology in all social relationships, and treating these two aspects in a complementary fashion, is the purpose of this essay in sociological theory.

Basic statistics for social research

CERN Document Server

Hanneman, Robert A; Riddle, Mark D

2012-01-01

A core statistics text that emphasizes logical inquiry, notmath Basic Statistics for Social Research teaches core generalstatistical concepts and methods that all social science majorsmust master to understand (and do) social research. Its use ofmathematics and theory are deliberately limited, as the authorsfocus on the use of concepts and tools of statistics in theanalysis of social science data, rather than on the mathematicaland computational aspects. Research questions and applications aretaken from a wide variety of subfields in sociology, and eachchapter is organized arou

Team Dynamics. Essays in the Sociology and Social Psychology of Sport Including Methodological and Epistemological Issues.

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Lenk, Hans

This document contains nine essays on the sociology and social psychology of team dynamics, including methodological and epistemological issues involved in such study. Essay titles are: (1) Conflict and Achievement in Top Athletic Teams--Sociometric Structures of Racing Eight Oar Crews; (2) Top Performance Despite Internal Conflict--An Antithesis…

DISCUSS THE ISSUES CONCERNING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THEORY AND PRACTICE MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING AS PART OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCE

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Shaban MOHAMMADI

2015-01-01

Dominate the thoughts of positivism in America (Zimmerman, 1979; Watts & Zimmerman, 1979, 1986) and the development of case studies based on management accounting investigators throughout Europe (Panozzo, 1997; Drury & Tayles, 1994, 2005), evidence of improvements in accounting. During this process, management accounting in the economic concepts related to its development and the social sciences as well from sociology, psychology and organizational studies. Furthermore, this improvement may b...

Adorno and Social Physiognomics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Claus D.

2004-01-01

because of his esoteric writing style. However, the influence of the Habermasian reading of Adorno in the social sciences has also played a role in the stereotyped views that exist of him. One of the main tasks of the thesis has therefore been to provide an alternative reading of Adorno. It is well......In the following thesis I have sought to provide a defence of the Critical Theory of Theodor W. Adorno by providing the outlines to a reconstruction of his implicit sociological methodology, his Social Physiognomics. Adorno‟s thought has been haunted by misunderstandings since his death not least...... although this is no easy task. For this reason I end the thesis by a reconsideration of his ideas for empirical sociology and the implicit methodology that can be found in scattered remarks throughout his sociological works. This leads me to conclude that Social Physiognomics must be built...

Reconceptualizing resistance: sociology and the affective dimension of resistance.

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Hynes, Maria

2013-12-01

This paper re-examines the sociological study of resistance in light of growing interest in the concept of affect. Recent claims that we are witness to an 'affective turn' and calls for a 'new sociological empiricism' sensitive to affect indicate an emerging paradigm shift in sociology. Yet, mainstream sociological study of resistance tends to have been largely unaffected by this shift. To this end, this paper presents a case for the significance of affect as a lens by which to approach the study of resistance. My claim is not simply that the forms of actions we would normally recognize as resistance have an affective dimension. Rather, it is that the theory of affect broadens 'resistance' beyond the purview of the two dominant modes of analysis in sociology; namely, the study of macropolitical forms, on the one hand, and the micropolitics of everyday resistance on the other. This broadened perspective challenges the persistent assumption that ideological forms of power and resistance are the most pertinent to the contemporary world, suggesting that much power and resistance today is of a more affective nature. In making this argument, it is a Deleuzian reading of affect that is pursued, which opens up to a level of analysis beyond the common understanding of affect as emotion. I argue that an affective approach to resistance would pay attention to those barely perceptible transitions in power and mobilizations of bodily potential that operate below the conscious perceptions and subjective emotions of social actors. These affective transitions constitute a new site at which both power and resistance operate. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2013.

Energy and the social sciences. A preliminary literature survey

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sommers, P.

1975-01-01

The social science literature pertaining to energy problems is reviewed, and preliminary suggestions for research projects and research strategy are presented. Much of the social science literature on energy is in the field of economics, where such themes as econometric models, pricing policy, taxation, and government-industry interactions are discussed. Among the suggested research efforts is a study of proper economic criteria for determining rates of development of alternative sources of energy. The political science literature on energy is not well developed, but a review of it indicates interesting possibilities for research. The kinds of social and political institutions that would be most effective in an energy-constrained economy should be studied, and a comparative study of institutions now in existence in the United States and other countries is suggested. The social effects of centralized, comprehensive decision-making, which might be necessary in the event of significant shortages of energy, should be studied. The roles of community groups, interest groups, the media, government, etc., in decision-making should receive continuing attention. In the fields of sociology and psychology there is a need for more understanding of the attitudes, beliefs, and behavior of individuals about energy matters. The ways in which people adapt to energy shortages and changes in energy prices should be a subject for continuing studies. It is suggested that plans be made for surveys of coping strategies under emergency conditions as well as under conditions of gradual change. A possible long-range reaction to energy shortages and high prices might be a decrease in living-space available to individuals and families, and the work of psychologists in this area should be analyzed. 41 references.

Grounded Theory Method: Sociology's Quest for Exclusive Items of Inquiry

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Edward Tolhurst

2012-09-01

Full Text Available The genesis and development of grounded theory method (GTM is evaluated with reference to sociology's attempt to demarcate exclusive referents of inquiry. The links of objectivist GTM to positivistic terminology and to the natural scientific distinction from "common sense" are explored. It is then considered how the biological sciences have prompted reorientation towards constructivist GTM, underpinned by the metaphysics of social constructionism. GTM has been shaped by the endeavor to attain the sense of exactitude associated with positivism, whilst also seeking exclusive referents of inquiry that are distinct from the empirical realm of the natural sciences. This has generated complex research techniques underpinned by tortuous methodological debate: eschewing the perceived requirement to define and defend an academic niche could help to facilitate the development of a more useful and pragmatic orientation to qualitative social research. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1203261

‘Introducing Michael Gove to Loïc Wacquant’: Why Social Work Needs Critical Sociology

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Michael Garrett, Paul

2016-01-01

In 2013, Michael Gove, then Secretary of State for Education and Health in the UK coalition government, criticised social workers for laying insufficient emphasis on the ‘agency’ of individuals and for being too preoccupied with social and economic inequalities. Such a perspective, which is not unique to Gove, needs to be countered by reaffirming the significance of an expansively critical sociology for social work. In this context, the thematic concerns of the French theorist, Loïc Wacquant, illuminates key aspects of social work engagement with clients which Gove and his ideological associates appear intent on ignoring. The issues raised have significant political resonances given the pending UK General Election taking place in May 2015. PMID:27559203

Colour attitude test: the possibility of application in sociology

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V P Tkach

2009-09-01

Full Text Available The article provides the analysis of the cognitive potential of colour tests in sociology. Nowadays colour tests which are extensively used in the framework of psychology find practically no application in sociological research due to a number of their peculiarities. However, it should be recognized that such tests as colour attitude test demonstrate the richest cognitive potential for the identification of value preferences and social attitudes system at the level of the unconscious of various social groups. The methodological experiment carried out by the author has proved demonstratively the feasibility and high efficiency of colour attitude tests application in the framework of empirical sociological research.

Sustainability through the Lens of Environmental Sociology: An Introduction

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Md Saidul Islam

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Our planet is undergoing radical environmental and social changes. Sustainability has now been put into question by, for example, our consumption patterns, loss of biodiversity, depletion of resources, and exploitative power relations. With apparent ecological and social limits to globalization and development, current levels of consumption are known to be unsustainable, inequitable, and inaccessible to the majority of humans. Understanding and achieving sustainability is a crucial matter at a time when our planet is in peril—environmentally, economically, socially, and politically. Since its official inception in the 1970s, environmental sociology has provided a powerful lens to understanding the challenges, possibilities, and modes of sustainability. This editorial, accompanying the Special Issue on “sustainability through the Lens of Environmental Sociology”, first highlights the evolution of environmental sociology as a distinct field of inquiry, focusing on how it addresses the environmental challenges of our time. It then adumbrates the rich theoretical traditions of environmental sociology, and finally examines sustainability through the lens of environmental sociology, referring to various case studies and empirical analyses.

Implementation of Writing across the Curriculum (WAC) Learning Approaches in Social Work and Sociology Gerontology Courses

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Kolb, Patricia

2013-01-01

This article describes the goals and methods of the international Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) movement in higher education, and WAC-enriched learning approaches that the author used in teaching a social work gerontology practice course and a sociological theories of aging course. The author's in-class, low-stakes, nongraded writing…

The sociological knowledge and problematic behaviors’ prevention

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Aida Serjanaj

2017-03-01

Full Text Available This paper aims to highlight the importance of sociology knowledge in students attending teaching Master Program, specialists in education, experienced teachers, as well as high school graduates who study sociology in high school. The issues discussed involve not only the role of teacher on recording and straightening such problematic behaviors but even the ways of changing the situation on the future. Phenomena such as: culture, subculture, ethnicity, religion, race and gender diversity, prejudices and discrimination which derive by these kinds of diversities; inequality of social strata, the understanding of social role, cultural norms practicing and their respecting are present in our schools environment. These are reasons why teachers and students must have information about above-mentioned phenomena. Ministry of Education and Sport must add Sociology as a subject of core curricula of high school and teachers programs’ studies.

Hal in the Classroom: Science Fiction Films.

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Amelio, Ralph J.

The articles in this book provide political, social, sociological, psychological, sexual, mythical, literary, and filmic approaches to the study of science fiction film. "Journey into Science Fiction" by W. Johnson and "The Imagination of Disaster" by S. Sontag treat broadly the essentials of science fiction films. "For the Future: The Science…

Sociological perspectives for the study of nature

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Roxana Cruz-Doimeadios

2016-05-01

Full Text Available The objective of this work is to explain the society-nature relationship from the disciplines Environmental Sociologyand Cultural Sociology which reveal the arranging function of culture in the orientation of the everyday social doing with respect to the management of novel because it, passes over the thesis that Sociology of Culture states, which is centered in the role of the institucional component a as regulator of the social doing so as to stop the deterioration of the natural spaces. The result consist of the systematization of the theoretical grounds of the disciplines the allow to understand the meaning of culture in social organization around the individuals and groups doing on the nature as objest of analysis.

Connecting Life Span Development with the Sociology of the Life Course: A New Direction.

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Gilleard, Chris; Higgs, Paul

2016-04-01

The life course has become a topic of growing interest within the social sciences. Attempts to link this sub-discipline with life span developmental psychology have been called for but with little sign of success. In this paper, we seek to address three interlinked issues concerning the potential for a more productive interchange between life course sociology and life span psychology. The first is to try to account for the failure of these two sub-disciplines to achieve any deepening engagement with each other, despite the long-expressed desirability of that goal; the second is to draw attention to the scope for enriching the sociology of the life course through Erik Erikson's model of life span development; and the last is the potential for linking Eriksonian theory with current debates within mainstream sociology about the processes involved in 'individualisation' and 'self-reflexivity' as an alternative entry point to bring together these two fields of work.

Beyond capital? The challenge for sociology in Britain.

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Holmwood, John

2014-12-01

This article offers a 'local', British, reading of Piketty's landmark book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, suggesting that the challenge it offers to sociological approaches to inequality is more fundamental than hitherto recognized. The variations in 'national trajectories' exposed by Piketty reveal Britain to be anomalous in terms of standard approaches to the path dependencies embedded in different welfare regimes. Using the recent work of Monica Prasad on 'settler capitalism' in the USA and the tax and debt-finance regime associated with it, the article suggests that colonialism and empire and its postwar unravelling has had deep consequences for British social stratification, albeit largely neglected by British sociologists. Finally, it points to the fact that the form of tax and debt-finance regime that has become reinforced in Britain is at the heart of recent radical reforms to higher education. These are the currently unexplicated conditions of our future practice as sociologists and, therefore, an obstacle to building a critical sociology on the foundations laid out by Piketty. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2014.

Ciencias sociales y salud en México: movimientos fundacionales y desarrollos actuales Social sciences and health in Mexico: founding schools and current trends

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Roberto Castro

2003-01-01

Full Text Available En este trabajo se describen algunos de los principales desarrollos de las ciencias sociales aplicadas a la salud en México en los últimos 25 años. El artículo inicia con una breve descripción de las tres corrientes fundacionales que han hecho de la salud su objeto de estudio: la antropología médica, de larga tradición en este país; la medicina social, impulsada principalmente desde la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco; y la sociología de la salud pública, impulsada desde el Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública. Tras revisar los principales aportes de cada corriente, así como los debates que entre ellas ha tenido lugar; describe los desarrollos recientes en este campo, mismos que constituyen una suerte de "segunda generación" de la sociología médica mexicana. La revisión se centra en los aportes en el campo de lo teórico, lo conceptual, y las áreas con más producción actual. Concluye señalando la importancia de este campo en México y la necesidad de reactivar los intercambios académicos entre las diferentes corrientes de pensamiento, como mecanismo para elevar la calidad de los trabajos.This paper describes the main developments of social sciences applied to health in Mexico. It begins with a brief description of the three founding schools that have taken health as their subject matter: medical anthropology, with a long tradition in this country; social medicine, developed basically by the Metropolitan Autonomous University at Xochimilco; and the sociology of public health, promoted mainly by the National Institute of Public Health. After reviewing the main contributions of these schools of thought, and the main debates that have taken place among them, this paper focuses on the main contemporary developments, a sort of "second generation" of Mexican medical sociology. This review distinguishes between theoretical, methodological, and substantive contributions, the last ones being those related to the most

Multicriteria and multiagent decision making with applications to economics and social sciences

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Maturo, Antonio; Hošková-Mayerová, Šárka; Kacprzyk, Janusz

2013-01-01

The book provides a comprehensive and timely report on the topic of decision making and decision analysis in economics and the social sciences. The various contributions included in the book, selected using a peer review process, present important studies and research conducted in various countries around the globe. The majority of these studies are concerned with the analysis, modeling and formalization of the behavior of groups or committees that are in charge of making decisions of social and economic importance. Decisions in these contexts have to meet precise coherence standards and achieve a significant degree of sharing, consensus and acceptance, even in uncertain and fuzzy environments. This necessitates the confluence of several research fields, such as foundations of social choice and decision making, mathematics, complexity, psychology, sociology and economics. A large spectrum of problems that may be encountered during decision making and decision analysis in the areas of economics and the social ...

Metaphor of society (a sociological essay

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Gennadii Vasil’evich Osipov

2014-11-01

Full Text Available The essay by Academician G.V. Osipov, who is the patriarch of Russian sociology, is dedicated to one of the most cognitive topics of modern sociology – identification of sociological metaphor as such and its application in research projects. This topic is avant-garde for the world sociological thought, and in Russia such kind of research is making its first steps. However, its future importance is difficult to overestimate. Sociological metaphor, if a methodology for its application is developed, can provide scientists with qualitatively new synthetic research tools. It can also bring together scientific structures and artifacts on the space of interdisciplinary and inter-subject borderland and give them qualitatively new intellectual and sensuous (system and mental technological capabilities for learning the surrounding world. The advantage of the following essay can be found in the fact that it is based on the objective analysis of the real embodiment of social metaphor in the work of art – a pictorial triptych “The Mystery of the 21st Century”. This is the first such experience in domestic sociological and artistic-painting practice. The authors of the final product are a scientist of great scientific and life experience and a young artist, who received in-depth sociological training and defended his Ph.D. in Sociology dissertation. But the main result of their collaboration is a product that combines scientific (sociological knowledge and insight and intuitive-creative artistic perception in a qualitatively new perception of the world and world outlook

Imagination and society: the role of visual sociology.

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Cipriani, Roberto; Del Re, Emanuela C

2012-10-01

The paper presents the field of Visual Sociology as an approach that makes use of photographs, films, documentaries, videos, to capture and assess aspects of social life and social signals. It overviews some relevant works in the field, it deals with methodological and epistemological issues, by raising the question of the relation between the observer and the observed, and makes reference to some methods of analysis, such as those proposed by the Grounded Theory, and to some connected tools for automatic qualitative analysis, like NVivo. The relevance of visual sociology to the study of social signals lies in the fact that it can validly integrate the information, introducing a multi-modal approach in the analysis of social signals.

W. E. B. Du Bois at the center: from science, civil rights movement, to Black Lives Matter.

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Morris, Aldon

2017-03-01

I am honoured to present the 2016 British Journal of Sociology Annual Lecture at the London School of Economics. My lecture is based on ideas derived from my new book, The Scholar Denied: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology. In this essay I make three arguments. First, W.E.B. Du Bois and his Atlanta School of Sociology pioneered scientific sociology in the United States. Second, Du Bois pioneered a public sociology that creatively combined sociology and activism. Finally, Du Bois pioneered a politically engaged social science relevant for contemporary political struggles including the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2017.

Dyadism in the Sociological Foundations of Luhmann and Latour: Communication and Association Compared

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Sergio Pignuoli Ocampo

2016-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper we compare the programs of Niklas Luhmann's General Theory of Social Systems (GTSS and Bruno Latour's Actor-Network Theory (ANT from a systematic perspective based on the comparison of functional equivalents related to what are considered the main problems addressed by sociology. We propose to compare three specific concepts from the theoretical foundations of their sociological programs, namely: the definition of sociology's unit of analysis and its connections to the unitary factor of social order and the sequential factor of social change. Our hypothesis suggests that, although they diverge in emphasis and nuances, both programs converge in the dyadic definition of the sociological unit of analysis.

Sociology of religion in the Netherlands

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de Groot, Kees; Sengers, Erik; Blasi, Anthony J.; Giordan, Giuseppe

In 1960, the Dutch journal of the Catholic Social-Ecclesial Institute (Kaski) Sociaal Kompas became Social Compass. This shift rounded off a period now considered as the heyday of Dutch sociology of religion. Ironically, in those years, Catholic sociologists in particular contested the legitimacy of

Gene by Social-Context Interactions for Number of Sexual Partners Among White Male Youths: Genetics-informed Sociology

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Guo, Guang; Tong, Yuying; Cai, Tianji

2010-01-01

In this study, we set out to investigate whether introducing molecular genetic measures into an analysis of sexual partner variety will yield novel sociological insights. The data source is the white male DNA sample in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Our empirical analysis has produced a robust protective effect of the 9R/9R genotype relative to the Any10R genotype in the dopamine transporter gene (DAT1). The gene-environment interaction analysis demonstrates that the protective effect of 9R/9R tends to be lost in schools in which higher proportions of students start having sex early or among those with relatively low levels of cognitive ability. Our genetics-informed sociological analysis suggests that the “one size” of a single social theory may not fit all. Explaining a human trait or behavior may require a theory that accommodates the complex interplay between social contextual and individual influences and genetic predispositions. PMID:19569400

"¿Nuevos o viejos debates? Las representaciones sociales y el desarrollo moderno de las Ciencias Sociales"

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Carlos Andrés Charry Joya

2006-12-01

Full Text Available The following article presents a debate on the different approaches social sciences have assumed on regards to social representations. With this in mind an analytical review is done, starting with the classical perspective (Durkheim, Mauss, all through modern discourse (Moscovici, to finally asses contemporary conceptual applications (Chartier, Goody. Such analysis intends to grab elements of discussion referring to the modern development of social sciences, as well as the links existing between Anthropology and Sociology.

Science and patience

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Denise Pumain

2001-06-01

Full Text Available At the start of the new century, geography seems quiet, in the midst of the universe of social sciences shaken by media debates: the teaching of economics has grown top-heavy with mathematics (or rather, in fact, with the excesses of abstract formalism, sociology has been mortified by a thesis glorifying astrology—but geography is doing fine, thank you very much! The impatience of the social sciences, from which society demands immediate answers to its questions, even when these answers have...

Sociology, environment and health: a materialist approach.

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Fox, N J; Alldred, P

2016-12-01

This paper reviews the sociology of environment and health and makes the case for a postanthropocentric approach based on new materialist theory. This perspective fully incorporates humans and their health into 'the environment', and in place of human-centred concerns considers the forces that constrain or enhance environmental capacities. This is not an empirical study. The paper uses a hypothetical vignette concerning child health and air pollution to explore the new materialist model advocated in the paper. This paper used sociological analysis. A new materialist and postanthropocentric sociology of environment and health are possible. This radically reconfigures both sociological theory and its application to research and associated policies on health and the environment. Theoretically, human health is rethought as one among a number of capacities emerging from humans interactions with the social and natural world. Practically, the focus of intervention and policy shifts towards fostering social and natural interactions that enhance environmental (and in the process, human) potentiality. This approach to research and policy development has relevance for public health practice and policy. Copyright © 2016 The Royal Society for Public Health. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sociology, Music Education, and Social Change: The Prospect of Addressing Their Relations by Attending to Some Central, Expanded Concepts

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Johansen, Geir

2014-01-01

Studies on sociology and music education are important because they can enlighten how music education relates to social change. By studying how music education changes and is changed by society we enable ourselves to describe how it can contribute to the understanding of social change generally. This may lay the ground for us in contributing to…

The enigma of the social relationship: prolegomena to a realist relational sociology

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Pierpaolo Donati

2018-12-01

Full Text Available This paper gives an outline of relational sociology, which understands and explains society and human existence as “relationally constituted”, i.e. as constituted by social relations. Modern and postmodern sociological mainstreams see relations as an emanation of the individual, whereas in reality individual’s identity depends on relations. The fallacy of individualism is due to the fact that current social theories avoid addressing what the author calls “the enigma of the relationship”, i.e. an order of reality able to unite the diff erent ones while preserving, and even promoting, their differences. This new approach understands relations as a sui generis reality that cannot be reduced to the terms of the relations, their qualities and properties, because the relation is “emergent”. Thus, it overcomes the fallacies of subjectivism and objectivism in understanding the nature of social reality and can make visible the enigma of its relational constitution. This approach stems from a new social (relational ontology, according to which substance and relation are co-principles of being. Such an ontology, in turn, needs to refer to a specifi c “theological matrix”, since every society depends on a kind of “symbolic code” that determines the uniqueness of its structures and sociocultural dynamics. Symbolic codes always have religious origins where “religion” broadly means the ultimate latent values of society. Within the framework of Western thinking, three symbolic codes or theological matrices can be observed, depending on how the diff erence between the Self and the Other is interpreted, namely dialectical, binary and relational. Within the dialectical symbolic code, the distinction between the Self and the Other is understood as a point of constant confl ict, discussion and negotiation: the theory of J. Habermas serves as a good example of this code. The binary matrix, presented by N. Luhmann, understands the diff erence

Teoria das representações sociais e ciências sociais: trânsito e atravessamentos Theory of social representations and social sciences: transit and crossings

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Angela Arruda

2009-12-01

Full Text Available Este texto pretende assinalar a relação da teoria psicossocial das representações sociais de Serge Moscovici com as ciências sociais, a partir da sua caracterização como uma abordagem de interpenetração da Psicologia com a Sociologia. Primeiramente fará uma breve análise sobre o trânsito entre Psicologia-Psicologia Social e Ciências Sociais, como um dos elementos de explicação para o entrecruzamento da Teoria das Representações Sociais (TRS com as ciências sociais. Em seguida pontuará como este entrecruzamento se coloca na abordagem moscoviciana, e como a TRS não escapa a ele. O argumento da autora é de que a base da relação entre essas áreas e a TRS está na concepção do social, presente no pensamento moscoviciano, o qual, ao mesmo tempo, não negligencia o quanto os aspectos psicológicos participam dos fatos sociais. O texto se encerra com alguns exemplos de pesquisa para ilustrar esta posição.This text intends to pinpoint the relationship between the psychosocial theory of social representations by Serge Moscovici and the social sciences, based on the characterization of this theory as an interpenetrative approach between psychology and sociology. Firstly, the transit between psychology-social psychology and sociology will be briefly presented as one of the elements that explain the intertwining of the Theory of Social Representations (TSR and social sciences. Next, it will be indicated how this intertwining is present in Moscovici's approach and how the TSR cannot escape it. The author's argument is that the relationship between these two fields is based on the conception of the social in Moscovici's thought, which does not neglect the importance of psychological aspects for social facts as well. The text concludes with some examples of research works that illustrate this point of view.

Guidelines for Teaching Undergraduate Sport Sociology. Guidance Document

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Coakley, Jay; Riemer, Brenda; Sailes, Gary; Harrison, Louis; Pittman, Beverly

2009-01-01

Sport sociology is a subdiscipline of sociology that, since the late 1960s, has produced knowledge about sports as social phenomena in a wide range of societies. It may be included as a major specialization area in graduate programs in kinesiology, sports studies and physical education departments, and is widely offered as a single undergraduate…

"Beyond “Doom and Gloom” and “Saving the World”: On the Relevance of Sociology in Civic Education

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Vjeran Katunaric´

2009-12-01

Full Text Available In this article some tenets of classical and contemporary sociology are examined with reference to social problems that are also topical in civic education. The social problems are: social inequality, inter-communal conflicts, and democratic participation. A major obstacle in adopting sociological interpretations of the social problems to contemporary civic education lies in sociological reservations toward liberal democracy as a remedy to the social problems. More properly, some utopian (from radical to conservative ramifications of the sociological analysis cannot actually be adopted in civic education. As a consequence, sociology is often distanced toward normative order and dominant forms of social power and practice of the actually existing societies, including liberal democracies. Thus, one can argue that sociology educates “young skeptics”, rather than “young citizens” as postulated in some national curricula of civic education. Still, sociology may serve in civic education as an abundant source of knowledge for unraveling prejudices and false forms of democracy in the contemporary society, and also for questioning some national solutions to pressing social problems. Also, as long as civic education has a tendency to idealize the actually existing forms of (liberal democracy and thus avoiding major criticism of the social order, teaching sociology in secondary education in concurrence with CE would be necessary for the sake of establishing a comprehensive education on the contemporary society and citizenship.

Social Set Analysis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vatrapu, Ravi; Hussain, Abid; Buus Lassen, Niels

2015-01-01

of Facebook or Twitter data. However, there exist no other holistic computational social science approach beyond the relational sociology and graph theory of SNA. To address this limitation, this paper presents an alternative holistic approach to Big Social Data analytics called Social Set Analysis (SSA......This paper argues that the basic premise of Social Network Analysis (SNA) -- namely that social reality is constituted by dyadic relations and that social interactions are determined by structural properties of networks-- is neither necessary nor sufficient, for Big Social Data analytics...

Social Climate Change: A Sociology of Environmental Philosophy

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Robert E. Manning

2003-01-01

Democracy demands that public policy ultimately reflect evolving social thought. However, in the nonmarket realm of public land management, and environmental policy more broadly, where price signals that drive the free-market economy are generally lacking, this requires a concerted effort on the part of social science to measure and monitor societal values and related...

Integration of Molecular Pathology, Epidemiology, and Social Science for Global Precision Medicine

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Nishi, Akihiro; Milner, Danny A; Giovannucci, Edward L.; Nishihara, Reiko; Tan, Andy S.; Kawachi, Ichiro; Ogino, Shuji

2015-01-01

Summary The precision medicine concept and the unique disease principle imply that each patient has unique pathogenic processes resulting from heterogeneous cellular genetic and epigenetic alterations, and interactions between cells (including immune cells) and exposures, including dietary, environmental, microbial, and lifestyle factors. As a core method field in population health science and medicine, epidemiology is a growing scientific discipline that can analyze disease risk factors, and develop statistical methodologies to maximize utilization of big data on populations and disease pathology. The evolving transdisciplinary field of molecular pathological epidemiology (MPE) can advance biomedical and health research by linking exposures to molecular pathologic signatures, enhancing causal inference, and identifying potential biomarkers for clinical impact. The MPE approach can be applied to any diseases, although it has been most commonly used in neoplastic diseases (including breast, lung and colorectal cancers) because of availability of various molecular diagnostic tests. However, use of state-of-the-art genomic, epigenomic and other omic technologies and expensive drugs in modern healthcare systems increases racial, ethnic and socioeconomic disparities. To address this, we propose to integrate molecular pathology, epidemiology, and social science. Social epidemiology integrates the latter two fields. The integrative social MPE model can embrace sociology, economics and precision medicine, address global health disparities and inequalities, and elucidate biological effects of social environments, behaviors, and networks. We foresee advancements of molecular medicine, including molecular diagnostics, biomedical imaging, and targeted therapeutics, which should benefit individuals in a global population, by means of an interdisciplinary approach of integrative MPE and social health science. PMID:26636627

Integration of molecular pathology, epidemiology and social science for global precision medicine.

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Nishi, Akihiro; Milner, Danny A; Giovannucci, Edward L; Nishihara, Reiko; Tan, Andy S; Kawachi, Ichiro; Ogino, Shuji

2016-01-01

The precision medicine concept and the unique disease principle imply that each patient has unique pathogenic processes resulting from heterogeneous cellular genetic and epigenetic alterations and interactions between cells (including immune cells) and exposures, including dietary, environmental, microbial and lifestyle factors. As a core method field in population health science and medicine, epidemiology is a growing scientific discipline that can analyze disease risk factors and develop statistical methodologies to maximize utilization of big data on populations and disease pathology. The evolving transdisciplinary field of molecular pathological epidemiology (MPE) can advance biomedical and health research by linking exposures to molecular pathologic signatures, enhancing causal inference and identifying potential biomarkers for clinical impact. The MPE approach can be applied to any diseases, although it has been most commonly used in neoplastic diseases (including breast, lung and colorectal cancers) because of availability of various molecular diagnostic tests. However, use of state-of-the-art genomic, epigenomic and other omic technologies and expensive drugs in modern healthcare systems increases racial, ethnic and socioeconomic disparities. To address this, we propose to integrate molecular pathology, epidemiology and social science. Social epidemiology integrates the latter two fields. The integrative social MPE model can embrace sociology, economics and precision medicine, address global health disparities and inequalities, and elucidate biological effects of social environments, behaviors and networks. We foresee advancements of molecular medicine, including molecular diagnostics, biomedical imaging and targeted therapeutics, which should benefit individuals in a global population, by means of an interdisciplinary approach of integrative MPE and social health science.

The social conditions of instrumental action: Problems in the sociological understanding of rational choice theory

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Bruno Sciberras de Carvalho

2008-01-01

Full Text Available This article critically analyzes new sociological approaches to the rational choice theory which - beyond examining political or economic practices - link the notion of instrumental rationality to social issues and themes. The article begins by highlighting the issue of trust, indicating the functionality of certain social arrangements in collective problem-solving. The paper goes on to demonstrate that problems emerge with the theory when it attempts to explain the feasibility of social norms in impersonal, comprehensive contexts. Thus, the fundamental point that appears to be missing from rational choice theory is the perception that individual decisions and instrumental conduct itself incorporate dispositions that in a sense are beyond the actors' control.

Trends and Developments in Multi-Authorship in five Social Science disciplines from 1991 to 2014

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Mayer, S.J

2016-07-01

This article explores developments in author numbers in five disciplines of the Social Sciences from 1991 to 2014, Economics, Educational Sciences, Political Science, Psychology, and Sociology. The relationship between the mean number of authors per article (in every discipline's five top journals) and three factors, publication year, international collaboration (IC), and article content (theoretical, experimental, or large-scale comparative) are analyzed. The findings show that single-authorship is decreasing and multi-authorship is on the rise, publication year was found to be significantly correlated with the number of authors. In addition, IC is positively correlated with the number of authors, even when publication year is controlled for. The content type “theoretical articles” is negatively related to the number of authors, even when publication year is controlled for. (Author)

Standardization in measurement philosophical, historical and sociological issues

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Schlaudt, Oliver

2015-01-01

The application of standard measurement is a cornerstone of modern science. In this collection of essays, standardization of procedure, units of measurement and the epistemology of standardization are addressed by specialists from sociology, history and the philosophy of science.

Pour une Sociologie des Apprentissages (Toward a Sociology of Learning)

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Porcher, Louis

1977-01-01

A language, a social practice, cannot be taught or learned apart from determining sociological factors. The effect of this sociological understanding on foreign language methodology, particularly the functional approach, and learner-centered education is discussed. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

Sociology of Knowledge Perspective on Entrepreneurship

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Turcan, Romeo V.

2018-01-01

This chapter addresses one of the enduring questions in sociology of knowledge: how is it possible that subjective meanings become objective facticities? It adopts this question to understand the entrepreneurship phenomenon, and, more specifically, to understand how new business or venture ideas...... and new sectors or industries (as subjective meanings) are legitimated and institutionalized (become socially established as reality). Building on Berger and Luckmann’s Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, the chapter suggests an alternative order objectivation of meaning to understand entrepreneurship...

Introduction: why a Sociology of Pandemics?

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Dingwall, Robert; Hoffman, Lily M; Staniland, Karen

2013-02-01

Infectious disease has re-emerged as a public health threat in an increasingly globalised era, adding trans-national actors to traditional national and local government actors. This special issue showcases new sociological work in response to this challenge. The contributors have investigated the social construction of new and re-emerging diseases; the development of surveillance systems, public health governance; the impact of scientific/technical modalities on uncertainty and risk, the interplay of infectious disease, public health and national security concerns, and public and media responses. The case studies range broadly across North America, Europe and Asia and define new agendas for medical sociologists and public health policymakers. © 2012 The Authors. Sociology of Health & Illness © 2012 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness/Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Social Network Analysis as an Organizational Diagnostic Tool: The Case of Small Business in Russia

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Rasskazov, Sergey; Rubtcova, Mariia; Derugin, Pavel; Pruel, Nikolay; Malychev, Valeriy

2016-01-01

The science of social networks is at the intersection of computer science, communication studies, mathematics and sociology. The first area is already ‘invested’ by communications networks, hardware and software, and has attracted many users. Communication science studies the network not only as a computer network, but also as a network of discourse. Contributions of mathematics; the Theory of Graphs and various related calculations. ‘Weak’ in this triad is a sociological interpretation of qu...

Sociología de la salud en México Medical Sociology in Mexico

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Roberto Castro

2011-09-01

Full Text Available

En este trabajo se realiza un análisis del campo de la sociología médica en México en los últimos 30 años. Se inicia con una descripción de las tres escuelas que fundaron el campo en este país: a la antropología médica, de larga tradición en este país, anclada en la Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia, el Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas (UNAM, y el Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social;b la medicina social, impulsada principalmente desde la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco, y que tuvo como punto de partida la creación de la Maestría en Medicina Social en 1975; y c la sociología de la salud pública, impulsada desde el Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública a partir de su fundación en 1987. Tras revisar los principales aportes de cada corriente, así como los debates más importantes que tuvieron lugar entre ellas –y que sirvieron para delimitar el espacio de acción e influencia de cada una– se describen los desarrollos más trascendentes en este campo, mismos que contribuyeron a desarrollar la “segunda generación” de la sociología médica mexicana. Dentro de esta segunda generación, se señalan las principales contribuciones de orden teórico, metodológico y sustantivo. Éstas últimas, a su vez, se dividen en áreas específicas: salud reproductiva, violencia contra las mujeres, subjetividad y salud, y políticas, práctica médica y utilización de servicios de salud.

In this paper the field of medical sociology in México during the last 30 years is analyzed. First, a description is made of the three founding schools in this country: a the tradition of medical anthropology, based on the National School of Anthropology and History, the Institute of Anthropological Research (National Autonomous University of Mexico, and the Center of Research and Graduate Studies in Social Anthropology; b the tradition of social medicine, prompted by the

Requerimientos laborales para Ciencias Sociales: Una mirada a sociología y trabajo social

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Sandra Iturrieta-Olivares

2014-01-01

Full Text Available El artículo tiene como finalidad describir algunos de los requerimientos del mercado laboral chileno para las profesiones de las ciencias sociales, en particular para la sociología y el trabajo social. En el entendido que las profesiones son dinámicas, interactúan entre ellas y se influyen mutuamente, intentando mantener sus jurisdicciones laborales y agregar otras nuevas, se desarrolló una investigación empírica, enmarcada en el paradigma explicativo con enfoque cuanti-cualitativo, para conocer las actuales tendencias sobre la superposición de los límites profesionales entre tales profesiones. De manera que, luego de revisar avisos de ofertas laborales, y hacer encuestas a empleadores, sociólogos y trabajadores sociales en ejercicio, además de entrevistar a estos últimos, es posible concluir que ambas profesiones confluyen en el campo de la intervención social directa, compartiendo requisitos referidos al tiempo y tipo de experiencia; al nivel de estudios; y los conocimientos exigidos por el mercado laboral. A partir de esta realidad se insta a las instituciones de educación superior del país y a los órganos del Estado chileno competentes en esta materia, a regular la oferta formativa para trabajadores sociales, y a definir de modo perentorio, concreto y exhaustivo, los campos laborales, áreas de desempeño y perfiles profesionales de cada una de estas carreras, ello con el afán de tener profesionales que se sientan retribuidos e integrados y de la necesaria cohesión social del país.

Behaviour change and social blinkers? The role of sociology in trials of self-management behaviour in chronic conditions.

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Ong, Bie Nio; Rogers, Anne; Kennedy, Anne; Bower, Peter; Sanders, Tom; Morden, Andrew; Cheraghi-Sohi, Sudeh; Richardson, Jane C; Stevenson, Fiona

2014-02-01

Individual-focused self-management interventions are one response to both an ageing society and the purported increase in chronic conditions. They tend to draw on psychological theories in self-management interventions, but over-reliance on these theories can reinforce a narrow focus on specified attitudinal and behavioural processes, omitting aspects of living with a chronic condition. While advances have been made in health behaviour change theory and practice, scant attention has been paid to the social, with the question of social context remaining under-theorised and under-explored empirically. This is particularly noticeable in trials of behaviour change interventions for self-management. The common sociological critique is that these ignore context and thus no explanation can be given as to why, for whom and under what circumstances a treatment works. Conversely, sociologists are criticised for offering no positive suggestions as to how context can be taken into account and for over-emphasising context with the risk of inhibiting innovation. This article provides an overview of these issues and provides examples of how context can be incorporated into the rigid method of trials of self-management for chronic conditions. We discuss modifications to both trial interventions and design that make constructive use of the concept of context. © 2014 The Authors. Sociology of Health & Illness © 2014 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness/John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Sociological theory and Jungian psychology.

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Walker, Gavin

2012-01-01

[[disenchantmentCarl JungpsychoanalysissociologyMax Weber ] In this article I seek to relate the psychology of Carl Jung to sociological theory, specifically Weber. I first present an outline of Jungian psychology. I then seek to relate this as psychology to Weber’s interpretivism. I point to basic methodological compatibilities within a Kantian frame, from which emerge central concerns with the factors limiting rationality. These generate the conceptual frameworks for parallel enquiries into the development and fate of rationality in cultural history. Religion is a major theme here: contrasts of eastern and western religion; the rise of prophetic religion and the disenchantment of modernity. Weber’s categories ‘ascetic’ and ‘mystic’ seem applicable to his own and Jung’s approaches and indeed temperaments, while a shared ironic view of rationality leads to similar visions of the disenchanted modern world. I conclude that Jung is sociologically coherent, but in an entirely different sense from Freud: rather than a constellation of family, socialization, ideology, social continuity, there is an analysis of cultural history against a background of adult normal psychology. I conclude that sociology should acknowledge Jung, but not in terms of over-arching theory. Rather Jungian insights might be used to orient new enquiries, and for reflexive analysis of sociology’s methodological debates.

The media of sociology: tight or loose translations?

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Guggenheim, Michael

2015-06-01

Sociologists have increasingly come to recognize that the discipline has unduly privileged textual representations, but efforts to incorporate visual and other media are still only in their beginning. This paper develops an analysis of the ways objects of knowledge are translated into other media, in order to understand the visual practices of sociology and to point out unused possibilities. I argue that the discourse on visual sociology, by assuming that photographs are less objective than text, is based on an asymmetric media-determinism and on a misleading notion of objectivity. Instead, I suggest to analyse media with the concept of translations. I introduce several kinds of translations, most centrally the distinction between tight and loose ones. I show that many sciences, such as biology, focus on tight translations, using a variety of media and manipulating both research objects and representations. Sociology, in contrast, uses both tight and loose translations, but uses the latter only for texts. For visuals, sociology restricts itself to what I call 'the documentary': focusing on mechanical recording technologies without manipulating either the object of research or the representation. I conclude by discussing three rare examples of what is largely excluded in sociology: visual loose translations, visual tight translations based on non-mechanical recording technologies, and visual tight translations based on mechanical recording technologies that include the manipulation of both object and representation. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2015.

Global aspirations, local realities: the role of social science research in controlling neglected tropical diseases.

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Bardosh, Kevin

2014-01-01

Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) are both drivers and manifestations of poverty and social inequality. Increased advocacy efforts since the mid-2000s have led to ambitious new control and elimination targets set for 2020 by the World Health Organisation. While these global aspirations represent significant policy momentum, there are multifaceted challenges in controlling infectious diseases in resource-poor local contexts that need to be acknowledged, understood and engaged. However a number of recent publications have emphasised the "neglected" status of applied social science research on NTDs. In light of the 2020 targets, this paper explores the social science/NTD literature and unpacks some of the ways in which social inquiry can help support effective and sustainable interventions. Five priority areas are discussed, including on policy processes, health systems capacity, compliance and resistance to interventions, education and behaviour change, and community participation. The paper shows that despite the multifaceted value of having anthropological and sociological perspectives integrated into NTD programmes, contemporary efforts underutilise this potential. This is reflective of the dominance of top-down information flows and technocratic approaches in global health. To counter this tendency, social research needs to be more than an afterthought; integrating social inquiry into the planning, monitoring and evaluating process will help ensure that flexibility and adaptability to local realities are built into interventions. More emphasis on social science perspectives can also help link NTD control to broader social determinants of health, especially important given the major social and economic inequalities that continue to underpin transmission in endemic countries.

Medical sociology as a vocation.

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Bosk, Charles L

2014-12-01

This article extends Weber's discussion of science as a vocation by applying it to medical sociology. Having used qualitative methods for nearly 40 years to interpret problems of meaning as they arise in the context of health care, I describe how ethnography, in particular, and qualitative inquiry, more generally, may be used as a tool for understanding fundamental questions close to the heart but far from the mind of medical sociology. Such questions overlap with major policy questions such as how do we achieve a higher standard for quality of care and assure the safety of patients. Using my own research, I show how this engagement takes the form of showing how simple narratives of policy change fail to address the complexities of the problems that they are designed to remedy. I also attempt to explain how I balance objectivity with a commitment to creating a more equitable framework for health care. © American Sociological Association 2014.

[A sociological approach to vulnerability].

Science.gov (United States)

Pelège, Patrick

2012-01-01

The term precarity covers many realities. It has become one of those "portmanteau words" which, as a resuIt of being constantly reassessed, is losing its meaning. In order to avoid an overly sectional approach to the mechanisms of social precarity, or exclusion, it is necessary to understand in more general terms the sociological processes around the concept of the social tie and its effects of rupture.

Technology and Science in Classroom and Interview Talk with Swiss Lower Secondary School Students: A Marxist Sociological Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Roth, Wolff-Michael

2013-01-01

In much of science education research, the content of talk tends to be attributed to the persons who produce the sound-words in a speech situation. A radically different, sociological perspective on language-in-use grounded in Marxism derives from the work of L. S. Vygotsky and the members of the circle around M. M. Bakhtin. Accordingly, each word…

The denial of death thesis: sociological critique and implications for palliative care.

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Zimmermann, Camilla; Rodin, Gary

2004-03-01

It has become commonplace to say that contemporary western society is 'death-denying'. This characterization, which sociologists have termed the 'denial of death thesis', first arose in the social science, psychological and clinical medical literature in the period between 1955 and 1985. During the same time period, the hospice and palliative care movements were developing and in part directed themselves against the perceived cultural denial of death in western society. While the denial of death has been taken for granted by the lay public as well as by clinicians, in the sociological literature it has been increasingly questioned. In this paper we use sociological critiques of the denial of death thesis to raise critical questions about the theory and practice of contemporary palliative care. In particular, we argue that the emphasis of palliative care should not be on extinguishing the denial of death but on the relief of suffering.

Relationship between Philosophy and Sociology in Durkheim as Continuity and Rapture

OpenAIRE

Kardeş, M. Ertan; Turhan, Özden

2011-01-01

This article aims to analyze the relationship between Émile Durkheim's sociology and its philosophical contexts. Departing from Durkheim's book Sociology and Philosophy, a collection of Durkheim's essays, the article proposes a lecture on Durkheim's thought underlining  the tension and the mutual interaction between normativity and descriptivity. This article also provides a deeper examination on whether the “social philosophy” [philosophie du social] or “sociolo...

Miedo al crimen, desigualdad y cambio social en México reflexiones a la luz de Durkheim y la Sociología de las emociones/Fear of crime, inequality and social change in Mexico reflextions in the light of Durkheim and the sociology of emotions

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David Foust Rodríguez

2011-08-01

Full Text Available Este ensayo tiene el doble propósito de ser caja de resonancia de las intuiciones durkheimianas sobre la importancia de las emociones tanto en la sociología como en la socialidad misma, así como brindar una oportunidad para imaginar veredas para la investigación sobre las repercusiones sociales y políticas del miedo al crimen en México. En la primera parte expondremos algunas de las pistas que Durkheim ofreció en la línea de nuestros propósitos; en la segunda, amplificaremos esas pistas en la sociología de las emociones, particularmente con ayuda de Turner (2007; en la tercera parte retomaremos estas notas para explorar algunas ideas que pueden ayudar a hacer florecer la investigación sobre miedo al crimen, la desigualdad y el cambio social en México.

[Psychological theory and implicit sociology.].

Science.gov (United States)

Sévigny, R

1983-01-01

This text is based on the hypothesis that every theory on the psychology of personality must inevitably, in one manner or another, have a sociological referent, that is to say, it must refer to a body of knowledge which deals with a diversity of social contexts and their relations to individuals. According to this working hypothesis, such a sociology is implicit. This text then discusses a group of theoretical approaches in an effort to verify this hypothesis. This approach allows the extrication of diverse forms or diverse expressions of this implicit sociology within this context several currents are rapidly explored : psychoanalysis, behaviorism, gestalt, classical theory of needs. The author also comments on the approach, inspired by oriental techniques or philosophies, which employs the notion of myth to deepen self awareness. Finally, from the same perspective, he comments at greater length on the work of Carl Rogers, highlighting the diverse form of implicit sociology. In addition to Carl Rogers, this text refers to Freud, Jung, Adler, Reich, Perls, Goodman, Skinner as well as to Ginette Paris and various analysts of Taoism. In conclusion, the author indicates the significance of his analysis from double viewpoint of psychological theory and practice.

Sociological Perspectives.

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Townley, Charles; Middleton, Mike

This monograph examines sociological perspectives and their applications. It is intended to help the college student coming to sociology for the first time to recognize that there are several perspectives within sociology and to disentangle the mass of terms associated with each. The first distinctive sociological perspective came from the work of…

Philosophy of the social sciences

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J. A. Kimelyev

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Philosophy of social science is a branch of philosophy where relations between philosophy and social sciences are traced and investigated. The main functions of philosophy of social science are: to work out social ontology, methodology and metatheory of social science.

Sociology of bodies/emotions

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Adrián Scribano

2012-12-01

Full Text Available This paper aims at pointing out that the division between a sociology of the bodies and the emotions is, to say the least, unnecessary. The basic idea that runs through this argument is very simple but needs to be justified: it is not possible to search and reflect on bodies/emotions separately, as if it were any chance of one not referring to the other and viceversa. The strategy of the exposition we have selected is as follows: 1 we outline in an introductory manner the existing approaches in the social studies on bodies and emotions, 2 we point out three kinds of reasons/motives to argue the inadequacy of the categorical/aporetic division of a sociology of the bodies and one of the emotions, 3 we put forward our perspective regarding a sociology of bodies/emotions, and 4 we analize the problem of hunger as an example of our viewpoint. Finally, we invite to reflect on the exposed as a means to open a possible discussion in methodological, theoretical, epistemological and political terms.

2004 American Sociological Association Presidential address: for public sociology*.

Science.gov (United States)

Burawoy, Michael

2005-06-01

Responding to the growing gap between the sociological ethos and the world we study, the challenge of public sociology is to engage multiple publics in multiple ways. These public sociologies should not be left out in the cold, but brought into the framework of our discipline. In this way we make public sociology a visible and legitimate enterprise, and, thereby, invigorate the discipline as a whole. Accordingly, if we map out the division of sociological labor, we discover antagonistic interdependence among four types of knowledge: professional, critical, policy, and public. In the best of all worlds the flourishing of each type of sociology is a condition for the flourishing of all, but they can just as easily assume pathological forms or become victims of exclusion and subordination. This field of power beckons us to explore the relations among the four types of sociology as they vary historically and nationally, and as they provide the template for divergent individual careers. Finally, comparing disciplines points to the umbilical chord that connects sociology to the world of publics, underlining sociology's particular investment in the defense of civil society, itself beleaguered by the encroachment of markets and states.

El objeto de la sociología. Hecho social y consecuencias no intencionadas de la acción

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EMILIO LAMO DE ESPINOSA

1989-01-01

Full Text Available La definición del objeto de la sociología ha oscilado entre versiones objetivistas (el hecho social de Durkheim o versiones nominalistas (la teoría de la acción de Weber. A partir del dato de que el extrañamiento de la sociedad forma parte de la experiencia cotidiana de los actores, se trata de fundamentar este extrañamiento en las consecuencias no queridas de la acción, distinguiendo así entre acción y acto resultante. La función de la sociología es restablecer la transparencia colectiva en un mundo cuya diversificación hace que los actores no sepan lo que producen.

Social Anthropology and Social Science History

Science.gov (United States)

2015-01-01

In the 1970s, when the social science history movement emerged in the United States, leading to the founding of the Social Science History Association, a simultaneous movement arose in which historians looked to cultural anthropology for inspiration. Although both movements involved historians turning to social sciences for theory and method, they reflected very different views of the nature of the historical enterprise. Cultural anthropology, most notably as preached by Clifford Geertz, became a means by which historians could find a theoretical basis in the social sciences for rejecting a scientific paradigm. This article examines this development while also exploring the complex ways cultural anthropology has embraced—and shunned—history in recent years. PMID:26549914

Remembering a sociology of Human Rights

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Levy, Daniel

2014-12-01

Full Text Available A sociology of human rights sounds almost like a contradiction in terms. Sociology is about social groups, about particular experiences, about how people, embedded in space and time, make sense of their lives and give meaning to their world. It deals with power and interest and the social bases of our experiences. On the other hand, human rights are about human beings in general, without temporal or spatial references, not about groups and their boundaries. Human rights are about humanity, located in the world and connected to an inviolable nature. Global media representations, among others, create new cosmopolitan memories, providing new epistemological vantage points and emerging moral-political interdependencies. As such, memories of the Holocaust contribute to the creation of a common European cultural memory based on the abstract notion of human rights. Sociologically, a theory of human rights has to show how universal and particular memories co-exist, are reconciled etc. and what it means for the recognition of the “other”, and the broadening of circles of solidarity.Una sociología de los derechos humans suena casi como un oxímoron. La sociología se fija en los grupos sociales, en las experiencias particulares, y en cómo las personas, marcadas por el espacio y el tiempo, dan sentido a sus vidas y atribuyen un significado al mundo. Trata del poder, el interés y la base social de nuestras experiencias. Contrariamente, los derechos humanos se refieren a humanos en general, sin referencias temporales ni espaciales, y no a grupos y sus límites. Los derechos humanos tratan de la humanidad, ubicado en el mundo y conectado con su naturaleza inviolable. Representaciones mediáticas globales, entre otras, crean memorias cosmopólitas nuevas, disponiendo nuevos puntos de vista epistemológicos y interdependencias morales-políticas emergentes. Así, las memorias del Holocausto contribuyen a la creación de una memoria cultural europea com

Choices and Chances: The Sociology Role-Playing Game--The Sociological Imagination in Practice

Science.gov (United States)

Simpson, Joseph M.; Elias, Vicky L.

2011-01-01

This article introduces a sociology role-playing game (RPG) used to demonstrate the broad range of social forces, institutions, and structures in a semester-long series of in-class and homework assignments. RPGs and other simulation games have been frequently suggested as a useful teaching methodology because of their unique ability to allow…

Usbong na Pagtatáya: Tangka sa Pagpapalawig sa Katuturan ng Sosyolohiya sa Pilipinas (Usbong na Pagtatáya Assessing the Affordance of Sociology in the Philippines

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Dennis S. Erasga

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The affordance of sociology implicates not only the “functionality” (Fil. gamit element, but embraces the dimension of “relevance” (Fil. katuturan. Henceforth, the germaneness of sociology as a discipline in exploring Philippine social realities and in making sense of the Filipino actions and interactions can no longer be gauged in terms of casual invocation/legitimation of its (Western discursive trappings. The usefulness of sociology can only be realized if it is used as a perspective and such requires a reflective stance on the whole praxis of appropriating the practices, protocols, and principles of the Eurocentric sociology. As a corollary issue, the paper investigates the ambivalence that characterized the disciplinal identity of sociology—an identity simultaneously forged by the literary and scientif ic traditions during the Industrial Revolution period. Filipino sociologists, however, can exploit this ambivalent identity to launch a sociology that is both faithful to the demands of the individual experiences of Filipinos and fateful to their collective history. The Filipinos’ pakikipagkapuwa is used as a tool to lift the ideological veil that shrouds the very practice of “theorizing” in the social sciences in the country, and at the same time, to present an effective example of the unique affordances of an autonomous sociology that thrives in the Philippines.

Gaining Rights to Citizenship: The Presence of Social Sciences in Agricultural Research and the Global Progress of

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AMIR KASSAM

2012-04-01

Full Text Available This article first presents reflections on the joint work carried out by Michael Cernea and this paper's author over 8-9 years for gaining "room, recognition and resources" within the CGIAR for sociological and socio-anthropological research on farmers, their practices and needs. The status of social research inside the CGIAR has gone through ups and downs in the uphill battle for expanding social research within this organization. Social scientists have constantly worked to feed their findings into the Centers' biophysical research. The paper documents the contribution of Michael Cernea, the first sociologist who acceded to CGIAR's top science and policy bodies, to strengthening the presence and influence of sociological and anthropological knowledge within CGIAR's institutional architecture and scientific products.The second part of this study presents the high promise of Conservation Agriculture (CA - a new paradigm for non-tillage agricultural production that offers improved productivity and environmental protection. CA principles are universally applicable. The author offers global data on the impressive advances and distribution of CA, which covers already some 125 million ha distributed across all continents and agro-ecologies. CA is a farmer-driven socio-cultural phenomenon which has expanded at a yearly rate of 7 mil. ha during the past decade.

Social Set Visualizer

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Flesch, Benjamin; Vatrapu, Ravi; Mukkamala, Raghava Rao

2015-01-01

approach to computational social science mentioned above. The development of the dashboard involved cutting-edge open source visual analytics libraries (D3.js) and creation of new visualizations such as of actor mobility across time and space, conversational comets, and more. Evaluation of the dashboard......Current state-of-the-art in big social data analytics is largely limited to graph theoretical approaches such as social network analysis (SNA) informed by the social philosophical approach of relational sociology. This paper proposes and illustrates an alternate holistic approach to big social data...

Towards a Realist Sociology of Education: A Polyphonic Review Essay

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Grenfell, Michael; Hood, Susan; Barrett, Brian D.; Schubert, Dan

2017-01-01

This review essay evaluates Karl Maton's "Knowledge and Knowers: Towards a Realist Sociology of Education" as a recent examination of the sociological causes and effects of education in the tradition of the French social theorist Pierre Bourdieu and the British educational sociologist Basil Bernstein. Maton's book synthesizes the…

Object-oriented sociology and organizing in the face of emergency: Bruno Latour, Graham Harman and the material turn.

Science.gov (United States)

Pierides, Dean; Woodman, Dan

2012-12-01

This paper explores the material turn in sociology and the tools it provides for understanding organizational problems highlighted by the Royal Commission into the 2009 'Black Saturday' bushfires during which 173 people died in the Australian State of Victoria. Often inspired by Bruno Latour's material-semiotic sociology of associations, organization scholars employing these tools focus on the messy details of organization otherwise overlooked by approaches assuming a macroscopic frame of analysis. In Latour's approach no object is reducible to something else - such as nature, the social, or atoms - it is instead a stabilized set of relations. A Latourian approach allows us to highlight how the Royal Commission and macroscopic models of organizing do unwitting damage to their objects of inquiry by purifying the 'natural' from the 'social'. Performative elements in their schemas are mistaken for descriptive ones. However, a long standing critique of this approach claims that it becomes its own form of reduction, to nothing but relations. Graham Harman, in his object-oriented philosophy develops this critique by showing that a 'relationist' metaphysics cannot properly accommodate the capacity of 'objects' to cause or mediate surprises. Through our case of the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, we argue that a purely relational model of objects loosens a productive tension between the structural and ephemeral that drives sociological analysis. By drawing on elements of Harman's ontology of objects we argue that it is necessary for material-semiotic sociology to retain a central place for the emergence of sociological objects. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2012.

Social science that matters

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Flyvbjerg, Bent

2006-01-01

Social science is headed down a dead end toward mere scientism, becoming a second-rate version of the hard sciences. We neeed to recognise and support a different kind of social science research - and so should those who demand accountability from researchers. This paper asks what kind of social...... science we - scholars, policy makers, administrators - should and should not promote in democratic societies, and how we may hold social scientists accountable to deliver what we ask them for....

Complementary Social Science?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Blok, Anders; Pedersen, Morten Axel

2014-01-01

of measurement device deployed. At the same time, however, we also expect new interferences and polyphonies to arise at the intersection of Big and Small Data, provided that these are, so to speak, mixed with care. These questions, we stress, are important not only for the future of social science methods......The rise of Big Data in the social realm poses significant questions at the intersection of science, technology, and society, including in terms of how new large-scale social databases are currently changing the methods, epistemologies, and politics of social science. In this commentary, we address...

INSTRUMENTAL CONCEPTUALIZATION SUBJECT AREA SOCIOLOGY: SOME POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

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E. V. Maslennikov

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The article outlines some of the possible ways of integrating the deployment tool conceptualizing domains of sociology on the basis of the machine sets of steps3. Substantiates the urgency of the problem of application of structural constructs of mathematics as a structure-formalism domain of sociology as a combination of theoretical knowledge. Formulated understanding of the sociological dimension in a broad sense of the concept of research as a measurement based on the use of instrumental in conceptualizing the methodology of sociological research. Under instrumental conceptualization refers to the construction of complex conceptual (conceptual schema structurally interconnected relationships between their individual elements, which are the units of the consideration related conceptual integrity, derived from interpretation of the properties “Set” construct. The paper proposes a definition based on the properties set in the scale set by the structure of N. Bourbaki4 relations systems in the data sets under the structural dimension of social phenomena to understand the interpretation of the investigated properties of social phenomena in terms of a construct that lies at the basis of the theoretical model that reflects the diversity of these qualities with the help of conceptual schemes that determine the quality of each as a structure of relations systems (ie, property in these qualities. In conclusion, the article lists presented in a number of publications, some preliminary results of the application of the methodology of conceptualizing instrumental in related disciplines from sociology. These works can perform suggestive role in the knowledge and understanding of methods of problem fields and objectives of the work on the conceptualization of theoretical sociology, using the mathematical theory of forms. 

N.I. LAPIN’S SOCIOLOGY OF ORGANIZATIONS

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A. I. Kravchenko

2016-01-01

Full Text Available In the Soviet period, sociology of organizations was not a leading trend, as used in its conceptual apparatus, the depth and thoroughness of the study of the problems is not always impressed by the ideological authorities. Much more loyal looked sociology of work, to prove the superiority of socialism over capitalism. But this feature makes it possible to consider it not outdated set of fundamental knowledge, based on which we can move forward boldly. A prominent contribution to the development of the field sociology has made a prominent Russian scientist N.I.Lapin, which modern readers know as a specialist in completely different directions. Over the study of the structure and functioning of organizations, cohesion small working group of brigade forms of work organization, leadership and management styles, formal and informal structure of the relationship, skill mix, professional selection and placement of personnel, labor discipline, organizational innovation, conditions and remuneration, motivation and stimulation, finally, the education of the worker and ideological activities in the workplace in the 1960–80s worked hundreds if not thousands of professionals of various profiles and preparedness: sociologists, psychologists, economists, philosophers, teachers, lawyers, engineers. The methodological basis of sociology of organizations have N.I. Lapin are an innovative approach, the theory of social groups, value-regulatory approach and the three-functional diagram of the organizational structure. 

SOCIAL CHANGE – BETWEEN THE CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES AND THE SOCIOLOGICALTHEORIES IN THE XXTH CENTURY

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Gabriela MOTOI

2017-10-01

Full Text Available In this article we have presented the most important theories about social change from the perspective of comparative analysis (XIXth and XXth century. Thus, in the first part of the article, we have presented the classical perspectives on social change, which belong to some famous sociologists from the XIXth century, Who have approached this issue: Auguste Comte, Emile Durkheim, Alexis de Tocqueville, Max Weber, or Karl Marx. The common point of these theories is that they all understand social change as a social progress. This idea is no longer found in the twentieth century, where the theoretical approaches to social change are equally varied. Thus, the second part of the article presents the theories of change from four sources: the ‘Chicago School’ (William Ogburn and William I. Thomas; the neo-evolutionary theory of Robert Nisbet; the French Sociology perspective (Pierre Bourdieu and Raymond Boudon and, finally, a more actual perspective, that of Anthony Giddens.

Sociology and positivism in 19th-century France: the vicissitudes of the Société de sociologie (1872-4).

Science.gov (United States)

Heilbron, Johan

2009-10-01

Little is known about the world's first sociological society, Emile Littré's Société de Sociologie (1872-4). This article, based on prosopographic research, offers an interpretation of the foundation, political-intellectual orientation and early demise of the society. As indicated by recruitment and texts by its founding members, the Société de Sociologie was in fact conceived more as a political club than a learned society. Guided in this by Littré's heterodox positivism and the redefinition of sociology he proposed around 1870, the Société de Sociologie was intended first and foremost to accompany intellectually the political changes that Littré considered imperative in the early years of the Third Republic (1870-1940). This expectation found little echo among the members of the society, and it seems possible that Littré himself and his closest associates were the ones to interrupt the society's meetings. Some of its members' general studies on the status of the social sciences and their main divisions were continued in the framework of the journal "La Philosophie positive" (1867-83), but the authors most committed to those studies were on the margins of the Littré network. Neither the dominant positivist republicanism, centered around Littré and Dubost, nor the general sociology of the more peripheral members of the network (Mesmer, Roberty, Vitry) represented an important intellectual contribution to the formation of academic sociology in France. Given that the Société de Sociologie did contribute to diffuse the project of a sociological science and developed forms of sociology coherent enough to be rejected by the pioneers of university sociology, the group constitutes a significant case of failure in the history of the discipline.

The contributions of sociology and politology to energy practice; Der Beitrag der Soziologie und der Politologie fuer die Energiepraxis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gloor, D.; Meier, H. [cultur prospectiv, Zurich (Switzerland)

1996-02-01

In the present investigation, the position of research in the field of sociology and politology in the area of energy politics is presented and the additional research requirement is explained. In order to demonstrate the possible usefulness of the social science knowledge in the energy world, the report was also discussed at a workshop with scientists and energy experts. (author) figs., tabs., refs.

Quantitative Methodology in Sociology: The Last Twenty-five Years.

Science.gov (United States)

Schuessler, Karl F.

1980-01-01

Argues that recent work in research methods in sociology consists largely of adapting methods developed elsewhere (statistics, demography, economics) for answering relatively simple questions about social change. These questions reflect practical as well as theoretical concerns. Discusses social indicators, social forecasting, cohort, occupational…

Nacimiento y primeros pasos de la Sociología del Derecho en Noruega. Vilhelm Aubert y el Grupo de Oslo || About The Genesis Of The Sociology Of Law In Norway. Vilhelm Aubert And The School Of Oslo

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Guillermo Vicente y Guerrero

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Resumen: Tras concluir la Segunda Guerra Mundial se fue desarrollando en Noruega una corriente pragmática que interconectaba las diversas ciencias sociales a través de una metodología de carácter empírico. De este proceso emergió una nueva ciencia: la Sociología del Derecho, que en los veinte años siguientes al fin de la guerra se fue consolidando a través de un notable número de investigaciones de campo dirigidas por Vilhelm Aubert al calor de su Instiitutt for samfunnsforsking. Este enfoque sociológico del fenómeno juridico supone la principal aportación de la Filosofía del Derecho noruega al realismo jurídico nórdico.   Abstract: After the Norwegian liberation from the German domain when the Second World War finished, a pragmatic stream which interconnected the different social sciences through a methodology of empirical nature developed in Norway. A new science siemmed from this process strongly: the Sociology of Law, which in the subsequent twenty years after the war, grew stronger due to a vast number of field investigations headed by Vilhelm Aubert and his Institutt for Samfunnsforsking.

Life Strategies of Young People: Sociological Research Experience

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Lyubov’ Borisovna Osipova

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Modern reality is the world of formation of various life prospects of a young person. The relevance of the topic depends, firstly, on insufficient sociological research into the mechanism of formation and realization of life strategies of modern youth; and, secondly, on the need to substantiate the sociological concept of youth life strategies in terms of professional self-determination with regard to its social and group characteristics. In this context, young people as the most active social group are of great interest to the authors who consider them a research target. Due to the transitivity of a social status and the incomplete processes of social maturity formation young people need a targeted design of their future. The sociological analysis of the issue involves a clarification of the concept of “life strategy” at the conceptual level (A.A. Volokitin, S.N. Ikonnikova, E.I. Golovakha, Yu.A. Zubok, V.T. Lisovsky, M.N. Rutkevich, G.V. Leonidova, K.A. Ustinova, etc.. The article presents the author’s definition of “life strategies”, which is a dynamic system of perspective individual orientation aimed at designing one’s life in the future. At the same time the results of the author’s sociological research are presented, including a standardized interview, questionnaires, which provide an opportunity to form an idea about the living choices of young people living in Yugra. The declining influence of social institutions and the emerging opportunities for developing their life prospects on their own challenges young people to select their life targets and ways of their implementation independently. The article justifies the necessity of intensified activation of new forms of young students’ management when planning their life trajectory. Life strategies disclose its content in specific life situations associated with choice. The key choice is the career choice of young people which directly depends on the socio

L’IDENTITÉ: DE LA SOCIOLOGIE AUX SCIENCES SOCIALES / LA IDENTIDAD: DE LA SOCIOLOGÍA A LAS CIENCIAS SOCIALES / IDENTITY: FROM SOCIOLOGY TO SOCIAL SCIENCES

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Yasmine Alaoui

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The main objective of this paper is to explore the notion of identity from different angles: ethnography, sociology, psychology, psychoanalysis, anthropology, geography and urbanism. The aim of this article is not to list the aspects of identity exhaustively, but to give an overview of the main areas that have dealt with territorial identity and propose a typology ranging from personal identity to the territorial identity through the individual and the collective. At the genesis of this paper many questions: What does one mean by identity? What is the relation between identity and territory and can it be a lever of territorial attractiveness? The desire to develop this notion has been spiced up by the sense of urgency manifested by the majority of territories in the continuous search for the valorization of their suffering identity of the”disease" of the century: globalization.

Acces to Czech Social Survey Data

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Krejčí, Jindřich

2002-01-01

Roč. 38, č. 6 (2002), s. 809-826 ISSN 0038-0288 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z7028912 Keywords : social science data archives * research infrastructures * comparative surveys Subject RIV: AO - Sociology, Demography Impact factor: 0.113, year: 2002

Florida's Instructional Materials Specifications. K-12 Social Studies, 2004-2005 Adoption.

Science.gov (United States)

Florida State Dept. of Education, Tallahassee.

An effective social studies program provides coordinated, systematic study, drawing upon such disciplines as economics, geography, history, law, philosophy, political science, psychology, religion, and sociology. It prepares students to be personally and socially aware, promotes multiple perspectives, encourages intellectual curiosity, promotes…

Problems With Sociology Education in Turkey on Its 100th Anniversary

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Aytul Kasapoglu

2016-02-01

Full Text Available Although sociology education began a century ago in Turkey, sociology is considered a scientific discipline rather than a profession in which graduates can earn money. The primary aim of this article is to identify the essence of this problem in sociology education based on students’ and sociologists’ views. To achieve the study objectives, a phenomenological study based on standpoint theory was designed and conducted with 25 students and 20 working sociologists. The findings reveal that sociology education is quite far removed from being considered a professional education. Theoretical courses without field studies are not in accordance with the requirements of both the public and private sectors. Students and sociologists are quite romantic regarding what sociology is and what sociologists do. Students mostly begin the study of sociology involuntarily and without a clear understanding of the discipline. Sometimes students find themselves in a paradox or dilemma: Although the knowledge and skills they have developed during their sociology education enable students to express themselves effectively and understand social events more comprehensively, the risk of unemployment is a severe threat. Even if they are employed, graduates are disappointed because they are not prepared to conduct the tasks that their jobs demand. Students assess these activities as social work and thus inappropriate. To solve the problems of sociology as a profession in society and as an academic field in the university, both problems must be clearly defined and programs must be carefully reconfigured to meet the demands of both society and sociologists.

AGROFORESTRY KALIWU IN SUMBA: A SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

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Budiyanto Dwi Prasetyo

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Agroforestry is one of the popular land management systems in Indonesia. The system helps the farmers to increase agricultural production, social life, and ecological stability. Traditional community in Sumba had been implementing agroforestry for a long time, known as Kaliwu and as a part of the indigenous knowledge. Kaliwu as a system is constructed socially through an intensive interaction between local people and its environment and transmitted from generation to generation. This study aimed to asses sociological aspects in behind Kaliwu practices, which allegedly become key factor the sustainability of this system socially, exist until now. The study was conducted for a year in 2009 in the Waimangura Village, Sumba Island. As social research, data was collected through social survey on 30 respondents, in-depth interview, observation, and literature review. Data was analyzed by using quantitative and qualitative procedures. The results indicated that sociologically, Kaliwu as an authentic knowledge of land management system passed on from generation to generation and constructed along with the socio-historical practices by the local people of Sumba. Social norms (adherence to traditional values, arrangement of labour systems, conflict management and social institution of farmer group became social factors that play significant role to make kaliwu sustainable.

Unfolding the social

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Blok, Anders; Krarup, Troels

2011-01-01

An important philosopher and anthropologist of science, Bruno Latour has recently outlined an ambitious programme for a new sociological empiricism, in continuation of his actor-network-theory (ANT). Interrogating issues of description, explanation and theoretical interpretation in this ‘sociology...... of associations’, we argue that certain internal tensions are manifest. While Latour's philosophy of social science demands an absolute abandonment of theory in all its forms, proposing instead to simply ‘go on describing’, he is in practice employing versions of common sense explanation and pragmatic......-constructivist theory to make ends meet. The core of this tension, we claim, can be located in Latour's meta-theoretical commitments, in effect obscuring important ways in which human subjects employ things, effects and symbols beyond their simple, ‘empirical’ existence. To illustrate these claims, we deploy...

Richard Swedberg, The Art of Social Theory

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Carleheden, Mikael

2015-01-01

to systematic consideration. Swedberg attributes this strange absence to what he sees as the miserable state of contemporary social theory. We must, he claims, avoid two misconceptions: ‘empiricism’ and ‘abstract theory’. In the first case, theory is reduced to the task of summarizing the outcome of empirical......It is a rare event when a new general field of research opens up within sociology. However, with this book, Richard Swedberg intends to do just that. It is not just another book on social theory. It is a book on ‘theorizing’. And that makes all the difference. Swedberg has chosen the term ‘art......’, but also ‘craft’, to emphasize the practical side of doing theory. This topic has been strangely absent, not just in sociology but in the social sciences in general. In order to see this absence, we should ask ourselves how education in sociology is conventionally organized. The answer is by a taken...

Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook Conference : "What is International in Science?"

CERN Document Server

Shinn, Terry; Sörlin, Sverker; Denationalizing science : the contexts of international scientific practice

1993-01-01

Present trends indicate that in the years to come transnational science, whether basic or applied and involving persons, equipment or funding, will grow considerably. The main purpose of this volume is to try to understand the reasons for this denationalization of science, its historical contexts and its social forms. The Introduction to the volume sets out the socio-political, intellectual, and economic contexts for the nationalization and denationalization of the sciences, processes that have extended over four centuries. The articles examine the specific conditions that have given rise to the growth of transnational science in the 20th century. Among these are: the need for cognitive and technical standardization of scientific knowledge-products, pressure toward cost-sharing of large installations such as CERN, the voluntary and involuntary migration of scientists, and the global market for R&D products that has emerged at the end of the century. The volume raises many new questions for research by his...

Just truth? Carefully applying history, philosophy and sociology of science to the forensic use of CCTV images.

Science.gov (United States)

Edmond, Gary

2013-03-01

Using as a case study the forensic comparison of images for purposes of identification, this essay considers how the history, philosophy and sociology of science might help courts to improve their responses to scientific and technical forms of expert opinion evidence in ways that are more consistent with legal system goals and values. It places an emphasis on the need for more sophisticated models of science and expertise that are capable of helping judges to identify sufficiently reliable types of expert evidence and to reflexively incorporate the weakness of trial safeguards and personnel into their admissibility decision making. Copyright © 2013. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Main features of narrow sociological theories explaining mental disorders

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Opalić Petar

2006-01-01

Full Text Available In the introduction, the author states that sociological theories explaining mental disorders in the narrow sense have originated as an opposition to medical, i.e. biological model of interpreting mental disorders. With regard to this, the following sociological theories explaining mental disorders are presented in more detail: theory of anomie by Durkheim and Merton (with Merton’s typology of deviant behavior, social roles theory by Parsons, labeling theory by Scheff and other authors, theoretical career model of the mentally ill, the concept of psychic disorder of etnomethodology and finally, the anti-psychiatric interpretation of mental disorders. It is concluded that, although historically older, sociological theories of the onset of mental disorders are filling the epistemological void that occurred in understanding the role of society on the whole and a series of social factors particularly on the different aspects of understanding mental disorders.

A sociological dilemma: Race, segregation and US sociology

Science.gov (United States)

2014-01-01

US sociology has been historically segregated in that, at least until the 1960s, there were two distinct institutionally organized traditions of sociological thought – one black and one white. For the most part, however, dominant historiographies have been silent on that segregation and, at best, reproduce it when addressing the US sociological tradition. This is evident in the rarity with which scholars such as WEB Du Bois, E Franklin Frazier, Oliver Cromwell Cox, or other ‘African American Pioneers of Sociology’, as Saint-Arnaud calls them, are presented as core sociological voices within histories of the discipline. This article addresses the absence of African American sociologists from the US sociological canon and, further, discusses the implications of this absence for our understanding of core sociological concepts. With regard to the latter, the article focuses in particular on the debates around equality and emancipation and discusses the ways in which our understanding of these concepts could be extended by taking into account the work of African American sociologists and their different interpretations of core themes. PMID:25418995

The social logic of boxing in black Chicago. Towards a sociology of pugilism

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Loïc J. D. Wacquant

2007-11-01

Full Text Available This paper is dedicated to the memory of Aaron, Spanish manchild and gym buddy, whom the ring could not save from the street. This paper benefited from the reactions, critical comments and encouragement of a number of colleagues, among whom Pierre Bourdieu, Rogers Brubaker, Dan Chambliss, Lynn S. Chancer, Rick Fantasia, Harvey Molotch, Bill Wilson, and members of the Center for European Sociology in Paris. My gratitude also goes to my colleagues in the "sweet science" who taught me much more than how to throw a left jab, and to the friends and family who supported me morally during this strenuous project (with special mention to Elizabeth Bonamour du Tartre for a major on-site assist. This research was made possible in part by the financial support of the Maison des sciences de l'homme, a Lavoisier Fellowship from the French governement, and the Milton Fund of Harvard University.

The Communicability of Non-Communicable Diseases: An Overview of Sociological Contributions to Ideas of Contagion

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hindhede, Anette Lykke

2018-01-01

-communicable diseases from a distinct sociological view of non- communicable diseases as infectious. I conduct a historical anamnesis of sociological theories that inform contemporary sociological thinking about contagion and/or collective action and the social clustering of (health) behaviour, with a particular focus...

Globalisation and Social Sciences in Africa | Sawyerr | African ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

African Sociological Review / Revue Africaine de Sociologie. Journal Home · ABOUT THIS JOURNAL · Advanced Search · Current Issue · Archives · Journal Home > Vol 3, No 1 (1999) >. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads. Username, Password, Remember me, or Register. Globalisation and Social ...

Can the sociology of social problems help us to understand and manage 'lifestyle drift'?

Science.gov (United States)

Carey, Gemma; Malbon, Eleanor; Crammond, Brad; Pescud, Melanie; Baker, Philip

2017-08-01

Lifestyle drift is increasingly seen as a barrier to broad action on the social determinants of health. The term is currently used in the population health literature to describe how broad policy initiatives for tackling inequalities in health that start off with social determinants (upstream) approach drift downstream to largely individual lifestyle factors, as well as the general trend of investing a the individual level. Lifestyle drift occurs despite the on-going efforts of public health advocates, such as anti-obesity campaigners, to draw attention to the social factors which shape health behavior and outcomes. In this article, we explore whether the sociology of social problems can help understand lifestyle drift in the context of obesity. Specifically, we apply Jamrozik and Nocella's residualist conversion model to the problem of obesity in order to explore whether such an approach can provide greater insight into the processes that underpin lifestyle drift and inform our attempts to mitigate it. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Toward a sociology of the Brazilian Corporate Sustainability Index?

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Marina de Souza Sartore

2011-12-01

Full Text Available In order to collaborate with the academic debate about the social construction of economic tools, this article captures the social construction of the Corporate Sustainability Index (ISE of Bovespa. From an economic approach, the index is the numeric representation of financial profitability of sustainable enterprises, however, from that of sociology, the ISE is the window to apprehend the symbolic struggles that constitute the Brazilian market of Socially Responsible Investment (SRI. This idea is demonstrated by the recovery of the chronological history of the development of ISE which shows the elements of the arbitrary political process searching for its economic neutrality. This article emphasizes the need to explore sociologically the financial indexes as well as other classification tools of the economic world.

A health economist on medical sociology: reflections by an unreconstructed reductionist.

Science.gov (United States)

Culyer, A J

1985-01-01

Eleven papers in medical sociology, recommended as representative by the Medical Sociology Group of the British Sociology Association, are evaluated by a health economist using five criteria: appeal of intellectual content, insights into political philosophy, explanatory power, predictive power and opportunities for social improvements. The paper concludes that the medical sociology literature is quite weak when judged by these criteria, though stronger on some than others. Sociologists often seem to confuse issues that involve value judgements with ones that do not, and generally seem to display a disconcerting obsession with methodological issues of the most fundamental kind that has inhibited medical sociology from developing interesting analyses of many issues on which, in principle, it ought to have much to offer.

introductory concepts on sociological jurisprudence: jhering ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

eliasn

sociological theory whose main and pervasive message is that “law is a social .... content of law is infinitely varied and relative to the different societies. There is thus ... All legal principles for Jhering can be reduced to the security of condition of.

Mainstreaming the social sciences in conservation.

Science.gov (United States)

Bennett, Nathan J; Roth, Robin; Klain, Sarah C; Chan, Kai M A; Clark, Douglas A; Cullman, Georgina; Epstein, Graham; Nelson, Michael Paul; Stedman, Richard; Teel, Tara L; Thomas, Rebecca E W; Wyborn, Carina; Curran, Deborah; Greenberg, Alison; Sandlos, John; Veríssimo, Diogo

2017-02-01

Despite broad recognition of the value of social sciences and increasingly vocal calls for better engagement with the human element of conservation, the conservation social sciences remain misunderstood and underutilized in practice. The conservation social sciences can provide unique and important contributions to society's understanding of the relationships between humans and nature and to improving conservation practice and outcomes. There are 4 barriers-ideological, institutional, knowledge, and capacity-to meaningful integration of the social sciences into conservation. We provide practical guidance on overcoming these barriers to mainstream the social sciences in conservation science, practice, and policy. Broadly, we recommend fostering knowledge on the scope and contributions of the social sciences to conservation, including social scientists from the inception of interdisciplinary research projects, incorporating social science research and insights during all stages of conservation planning and implementation, building social science capacity at all scales in conservation organizations and agencies, and promoting engagement with the social sciences in and through global conservation policy-influencing organizations. Conservation social scientists, too, need to be willing to engage with natural science knowledge and to communicate insights and recommendations clearly. We urge the conservation community to move beyond superficial engagement with the conservation social sciences. A more inclusive and integrative conservation science-one that includes the natural and social sciences-will enable more ecologically effective and socially just conservation. Better collaboration among social scientists, natural scientists, practitioners, and policy makers will facilitate a renewed and more robust conservation. Mainstreaming the conservation social sciences will facilitate the uptake of the full range of insights and contributions from these fields into

The social nature of health and illness--evolution of research approaches in Polish classical medical sociology.

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Piątkowski, Włodzimierz; Skrzypek, Michał

2012-01-01

The cognitive identity of medical sociology has developed in a historical perspective in the context of a specific double frame of reference comprising medicine and general sociology. The purpose of this study is to reconstruct the process of the development of the subdiscipline's research specificity in Poland, drawing attention to the general-sociological context of the conceptualization of basic interpretive and analytical sociomedical categories. In this aspect, the presented study is based on the analysis of Polish sociomedical and general-sociological research published from the early 1960s until 1989. The purpose of the study is also to describe in this perspective the structure of the research field of contemporary Western medical sociology, which was a major point of reference in this process. A look at the chronology of how the scientific identity of medical sociology developed in Poland from a historical perspective shows the gradual balancing-out of the subdiscipline's medical references, typical of the early stage of its development, and manifested in the implementation of research projects for the requirements of doctors, through consistently developed and cultivated connections with general sociology manifested in complementing the knowledge of society with aspects related to health and illness. A sine qua non condition for undertaking this scope of research was to work out strictly sociological formulations of these concepts, which was accomplished as a result of the successful reception of general sociology by the subdiscipline in question. The contemporary understanding of the research field of Polish medical sociology defined by Magdalena Sokołowska and developed as part of the 'school of medical sociology', which she initiated, is characterized by the maintenance of close relations with general sociology (affiliations of sociomedical departments in academic sociological institutions, etc.), and at the same time, by partnership cooperation with

Game theory and its applications in the social and biological sciences

CERN Document Server

Colman, Andrew M; Humphreys, Peter; Negrine, Ralph

2013-01-01

Andrew Coleman provides an accessible introduction to the fundamentals of mathematical gaming and other major applications in social psychology, decision theory, economics, politics, evolutionary biology, philosophy, operational research and sociology.

Piketty, economics and sociology: The analytical and political agenda on inequality

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marko Grdešić

2015-01-01

Full Text Available This article considers the work of Thomas Piketty on inequality, with special emphasis on the reception of his ideas in the social sciences. First, a quantitative analysis of the works that cite Piketty’s most important publications examines the reception of Piketty in academic debates. Next, the critiques of Piketty from economics and sociology, two often opposed disciplines that have devoted the most attention to discussing Piketty, are considered. This article supplements existing critiques with additional suggestions that are relevant to both the scientific analysis of inequality and the process of imaging various reforms that could cope with the problem of inequality.

Do Underachievers Need Sociology?

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Aladin El-Mafaalani

2009-12-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a promising model for using sociological learning to support the education of young people who are socially disadvantaged or display behavioral problems. A great many of these students are trapped in patterns of negative behavior. The goal of the model is to enable these young people to think explicitly about the role they are playing and to encourage them to strike out in a new direction. To this end, Erving Goffman’s sociological insights are used to stage a theatrical performance about school. This approach is informed by the microsociological tradition of proceeding from the concrete to the abstract in order to facilitate inductive learning and self-reflection. Goffman’s theory of social action provides the social-theoretical background for the theatrical action, while also serving as a medium of contrast for the analysis of the individual, interaction, and institution in subsequent reflections about school. In this way, sociological theory not only serves as a theoretical foundation for the lesson, but is also explicitly its subject.Der Aufsatz zeigt eine erfolgversprechende Möglichkeit auf, soziologisches Lernen als Beitrag zur Förderung sozial benachteiligter und verhaltensauffälliger Jugendlicher in der Schule zu implementieren. Die meisten dieser Schüler sind in ihren Handlungsmustern gefangen. Ziel ist es, diesen Jugendlichen die Möglichkeit zu eröffnen, bewusst über ihre Rolle nachzudenken und einen anderen Weg einzuschlagen. Hierfür werden Erkenntnisse aus Erving Goffman‘s Soziologie für ein schulisches Schauspiel genutzt, um ganz im Sinne der mikrosoziologischen Tradition vom Konkreten auf das Abstrakte zu schließen und damit induktives Lernen sowie Selbstreflexion zu ermöglichen. Goffman‘s Theorie sozialen Handelns bildet für das szenische Spiel zunächst das sozialtheoretische Hintergrundrauschen, um schließlich in der Reflexion der sozialen Situation in der Schule als Kontrastmittel f

Toward a neighborhood resource-based theory of social capital for health: can Bourdieu and sociology help?

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Carpiano, Richard M

2006-01-01

Within the past several years, a considerable body of research on social capital has emerged in public health. Although offering the potential for new insights into how community factors impact health and well being, this research has received criticism for being undertheorized and methodologically flawed. In an effort to address some of these limitations, this paper applies Pierre Bourdieu's (1986) [Bourdieu, P. (1986). Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241-258). New York: Greenwood] social capital theory to create a conceptual model of neighborhood socioeconomic processes, social capital (resources inhered within social networks), and health. After briefly reviewing the social capital conceptualizations of Bourdieu and Putnam, I attempt to integrate these authors' theories to better understand how social capital might operate within neighborhoods or local areas. Next, I describe a conceptual model that incorporates this theoretical integration of social capital into a framework of neighborhood social processes as health determinants. Discussion focuses on the utility of this Bourdieu-based neighborhood social capital theory and model for examining several under-addressed issues of social capital in the neighborhood effects literature and generating specific, empirically testable hypotheses for future research.

"The casual cruelty of our prejudices": on Walter Lippmann's theory of stereotype and its "obliteration" in psychology and social science.

Science.gov (United States)

Bottom, William P; Kong, Dejun Tony

2012-01-01

Reflecting on his wartime government service, Walter Lippmann (1922) developed a theory of policy formulation and error. Introducing the constructs of stereotype, mental model, blind spots, and the process of manufacturing consent, his theory prescribed interdisciplinary social science as a tool for enhancing policy making in business and government. Lippmann used his influence with the Rockefeller foundations, business leaders, Harvard and the University of Chicago to gain support for this program. Citation analysis of references to "stereotype" and Lippmann reveals the rapid spread of the concept across the social sciences and in public discourse paralleled by obliteration by incorporation of the wider theory in behavioral science. "Stereotype" is increasingly invoked in anthropology, economics, and sociology though Lippmann and his wider theory ceased being cited decades ago. In psychology, citations are increasing but content analysis revealed blind spots and misconceptions about the theory and prescription. Studies of heuristics, biases, and organizational decision substantiate Lippmann's theory of judgment and choice. But his model for social science failed to consider the bounded rationality and blind spots of its practitioners. Policy formulation today is supported by research from narrow disciplinary silos not interdisciplinary science that reflects an awareness of history. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Social Science Collaboration with Environmental Health.

Science.gov (United States)

Hoover, Elizabeth; Renauld, Mia; Edelstein, Michael R; Brown, Phil

2015-11-01

Social science research has been central in documenting and analyzing community discovery of environmental exposure and consequential processes. Collaboration with environmental health science through team projects has advanced and improved our understanding of environmental health and justice. We sought to identify diverse methods and topics in which social scientists have expanded environmental health understandings at multiple levels, to examine how transdisciplinary environmental health research fosters better science, and to learn how these partnerships have been able to flourish because of the support from National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). We analyzed various types of social science research to investigate how social science contributes to environmental health. We also examined NIEHS programs that foster social science. In addition, we developed a case study of a community-based participation research project in Akwesasne in order to demonstrate how social science has enhanced environmental health science. Social science has informed environmental health science through ethnographic studies of contaminated communities, analysis of spatial distribution of environmental injustice, psychological experience of contamination, social construction of risk and risk perception, and social impacts of disasters. Social science-environmental health team science has altered the way scientists traditionally explore exposure by pressing for cumulative exposure approaches and providing research data for policy applications. A transdisciplinary approach for environmental health practice has emerged that engages the social sciences to paint a full picture of the consequences of contamination so that policy makers, regulators, public health officials, and other stakeholders can better ameliorate impacts and prevent future exposure. Hoover E, Renauld M, Edelstein MR, Brown P. 2015. Social science collaboration with environmental health. Environ Health

Magic vs. Science in the Historiography of Science: The Social-Historical Construction of Rationality

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carlos Alvarez Maia

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The historiography of scientific studies has suffered from a great impact, that is rarely referred to, from anthropological analyses of magic in so-called primitive societies. The emphasis brought by criticism during the 1950/1960’s of Evans-Pritchard’s 1937 classic, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande, brought a fresh look at certainties already consolidated in Western thought, especially those relating to rational human characteristics and science. For the history, these criticisms were interesting because they were presented science as a historically situated activity, in the same way as magic. It favours, therefore, the proximity of historians tout court with the history of the sciences that resists its absences even today. This renewal helped to create a scenario that would enable David Bloor to develop the strong program of Sociology of Knowledge in the 1970s. Such a program indicates the analogous process that involves both the social production of beliefs and that of scientific truths. The comparison between magic and science usually presents them in a hierarchy. As if there were an evolutionary process in which magical thinking necessarily preceded scientific thought. The one, more precarious, would belong to the prehistory of the scientific thought, which would be the climax of modern rational action. In this paper I evaluate the proximity of magic-science from the point of view of contemporary studies about scientific activity, questioning the concepts of rationality and logic as if they were exclusive qualities of scientific activity. A kind of metaphysical gift that would show the superiority of individuals over others, as much as of science over magic. I give special emphasis to the exposition of how rationality and logic are socio-historical characteristics acquired throughout history by human subjects in their experiential practices, and which are present both in magic and technical activities; these, an embryo of

Communicating science in social settings.

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Scheufele, Dietram A

2013-08-20

This essay examines the societal dynamics surrounding modern science. It first discusses a number of challenges facing any effort to communicate science in social environments: lay publics with varying levels of preparedness for fully understanding new scientific breakthroughs; the deterioration of traditional media infrastructures; and an increasingly complex set of emerging technologies that are surrounded by a host of ethical, legal, and social considerations. Based on this overview, I discuss four areas in which empirical social science helps clarify intuitive but sometimes faulty assumptions about the social-level mechanisms of science communication and outline an agenda for bench and social scientists--driven by current social-scientific research in the field of science communication--to guide more effective communication efforts at the societal level in the future.

Computational Social Science and Ethical Decisions (Scienze Sociali Computazionali e Decisioni Etiche

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Vanessa Russo

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The development of the web, in the last 20 years, has opened new areas of analysis and new phenomena sociologically relevant for social research. However, the research work in digital space presents a series of ethical and deontological problems. In this context the members of the Association of Internet Researchers (AOIR have composed and edited a document with a series of ethical guidelines for social research. The work of the AOIR group not include Italian researchers; for this reason, the aim of this paper is propose a commented translation of the contents of Ethical decision-making and Internet research for make the ethical factor one of the main tools for computational sociology.

Physiological Sociology. Endocrine Correlates of Status Behaviors,

Science.gov (United States)

1975-01-01

affiliative bonding. One psychiatric illness which manifests itself in social structural relationships in a profound was is sociopathic behavior. By the...very nature of the sociopathic individual, persons with the disorder display altered social behavior (Robins, 1966). The question as to whether such...Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971. Goldman, H., Lindner, L., Dinitz, S., and Allen, H. The simple sociopath : Physiologic and sociologic

Social science research in malaria prevention, management and control in the last two decades: an overview.

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Mwenesi, Halima Abdullah

2005-09-01

In the recent past, considerable progress has been made in understanding how human behavior and social organization, macro- and micro-level economic processes, and health and political systems affect responses to malaria at global, national, community, household, and individual levels. Advances in malaria-related social, behavioral, economic, evaluation, health systems, and policy (social science) research have resulted in improvements in the design and implementation of malaria prevention, management and control (PMC) strategies. Indeed, the past two decades chronicle dramatic advances in the implementation of evidence-based interventions, drawn not only from biomedical but also from social science research. Malaria awareness-raising, advocacy, case management, and prevention efforts have reaped the benefits of social science research and as a result, many programs are implemented and evaluated in a more effective manner than in the past. However, the pace at which findings from social science research are integrated into program and policy implementation is unsatisfactory. Additionally, examples remain of programs that fail to utilize findings from social science research and as a result, achieve minimal results. Furthermore, there is a sizeable body of knowledge that is underutilized and which, if assimilated into programs and policies, could accelerate progress in malaria PMC. Examples include information on meaningful community participation, gender, socio-economic status, and health systems. Regrettably, although social science input is necessary for almost all interventions for malaria management and control, the numbers of scientists working in this area are dismal in most of the key disciplines-medical anthropology; demography; geography and sociology; health economics and health policy; social psychology; social epidemiology; and behavior-change communication. Further, skills of program workers charged with implementation of interventions and strategies

Colour attitude test: the possibility of application in sociology

OpenAIRE

V P Tkach

2009-01-01

The article provides the analysis of the cognitive potential of colour tests in sociology. Nowadays colour tests which are extensively used in the framework of psychology find practically no application in sociological research due to a number of their peculiarities. However, it should be recognized that such tests as colour attitude test demonstrate the richest cognitive potential for the identification of value preferences and social attitudes system at the level of the unconscious of vario...

Communicating science in social settings

Science.gov (United States)

Scheufele, Dietram A.

2013-01-01

This essay examines the societal dynamics surrounding modern science. It first discusses a number of challenges facing any effort to communicate science in social environments: lay publics with varying levels of preparedness for fully understanding new scientific breakthroughs; the deterioration of traditional media infrastructures; and an increasingly complex set of emerging technologies that are surrounded by a host of ethical, legal, and social considerations. Based on this overview, I discuss four areas in which empirical social science helps clarify intuitive but sometimes faulty assumptions about the social-level mechanisms of science communication and outline an agenda for bench and social scientists—driven by current social-scientific research in the field of science communication—to guide more effective communication efforts at the societal level in the future. PMID:23940341

The Crisis of the Sociology of Education and Its Reflections in Turkey: On the Critique of Functionalist and Eclecticist Pragmatic Tradition

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Esgin, Ali

2013-01-01

Basis of the study: The claims that the sociology of education has been in a crisis seem to be dependent upon the insufficiencies in doing science and acquiring results with the ontological and epistemological foundations of sociology as a discipline of science. The sociology of education has taken shape from the outset in the framework of…

Challenges in Computational Social Modeling and Simulation for National Security Decision Making

Science.gov (United States)

2011-06-01

34 Sociological Theory 25:268-291. Mead , George Herbert . 1913. "The social self." Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods 10:374-380...Coastal Science and Policy, and University Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Sociology with adjunct appointments in Biology...Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and formerly of the U.S. Defense Modeling and Simulation Office (DMSO) to discuss the history and importance of

When Worlds Collide: Sociology, Disciplinary Nightmares, and Fromm's Revision of Freud.

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McLaughlin, Neil

2017-08-01

After decades of neglect, sociology is experiencing a revival of interest in psychoanalytic insights, and Erich Fromm's work is uniquely valuable for encouraging dialogue between the two fields. A recipient of a PhD in sociology as a young man in the 1920s, Fromm was a prominent psychoanalytic theorist and clinician, as well as a social researcher and public intellectual in the 1930s, up to his death in 1980. After a historical account of the relative neglect of Fromm in both disciplines, this paper examines the place of his psychoanalytic theory within sociology today as a way of discussing sociology's complicated relationship to psychoanalysis and the insights each field can offer the other.

The Societal Impact of Extraterrestrial Life: The Relevance of History and the Social Sciences

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Dick, Steven J.

This chapter reviews past studies on the societal impact of extraterrestrial life and offers four related ways in which history is relevant to the subject: the history of impact thus far, analogical reasoning, impact studies in other areas of science and technology, and studies on the nature of discovery and exploration. We focus particularly on the promise and peril of analogical arguments, since they are by necessity widespread in the field. This chapter also summarizes the relevance of the social sciences, particularly anthropology and sociology, and concludes by taking a closer look at the possible impact of the discovery of extraterrestrial life on theology and philosophy. In undertaking this study we emphasize three bedrock principles: (1) we cannot predict the future; (2) society is not monolithic, implying many impacts depending on religion, culture and worldview; (3) the impact of any discovery of extraterrestrial life is scenario-dependent.

Architecture and health care: a place for sociology.

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Martin, Daryl; Nettleton, Sarah; Buse, Christina; Prior, Lindsay; Twigg, Julia

2015-09-01

Sociologists of health and illness have tended to overlook the architecture and buildings used in health care. This contrasts with medical geographers who have yielded a body of work on the significance of places and spaces in the experience of health and illness. A review of sociological studies of the role of the built environment in the performance of medical practice uncovers an important vein of work, worthy of further study. Through the historically situated example of hospital architecture, this article seeks to tease out substantive and methodological issues that can inform a distinctive sociology of healthcare architecture. Contemporary healthcare buildings manifest design models developed for hotels, shopping malls and homes. These design features are congruent with neoliberal forms of subjectivity in which patients are constituted as consumers and responsibilised citizens. We conclude that an adequate sociology of healthcare architecture necessitates an appreciation of both the construction and experience of buildings, exploring the briefs and plans of their designers, and observing their everyday uses. Combining approaches and methods from the sociology of health and illness and science and technology studies offers potential for a novel research agenda that takes healthcare buildings as its substantive focus. © 2015 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness.

Senator Fred Harris's National Social Science Foundation proposal: Reconsidering federal science policy, natural science-social science relations, and American liberalism during the 1960s.

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Solovey, Mark

2012-03-01

During the 1960s, a growing contingent of left-leaning voices claimed that the social sciences suffered mistreatment and undue constraints within the natural science-dominated federal science establishment. According to these critics, the entrenched scientific pecking order in Washington had an unreasonable commitment to the unity of the sciences, which reinforced unacceptable inequalities between the social and the natural sciences. The most important political figure who advanced this critique, together with a substantial legislative proposal for reform, was the Oklahoma Democratic Senator Fred Harris. Yet histories of science and social science have told us surprisingly little about Harris. Moreover, existing accounts of his effort to create a National Social Science Foundation have misunderstood crucial features of this story. This essay argues that Harris's NSSF proposal developed into a robust, historically unique, and increasingly critical liberal challenge to the post-World War II federal science establishment's treatment of the social sciences as "second-class citizens."

Review: Jörg Strübing (2005. Pragmatistische Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung. Theorie und Methode. [Pragmatist Science and Technology Research: Theory and Method

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Dirk vom Lehn

2006-09-01

Full Text Available There is a curious ignorance of interactionist theory and research in German sociology. Whilst Symbolic Interactionism plays a central role in courses on social theory, such courses often neglect more recent interactionist concepts and studies. Jörg STRÜBING's book introduces some of these concepts and ideas to German sociology by revealing their contribution to science and technology research and to social theory. The book explains in detail the development of interactionism and its contribution to science and technology studies. It is of interest to those studying science and technology research as well as to those interested in social theory. It should be added to reading lists of courses on science and technology studies and should contribute to the wider dissemination of interactionist theories and studies as well as to interactionist science and technology research. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0604249

Fashion in the context of contemporary sociological research

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A. I. Voronkova

2016-03-01

Full Text Available The correlation between the content of the various options of fashion’s theory and research strategies of national sociological schools is identified and analyzed in the article. To those schools belong scientists from the USA, France and Germany: R. Barthes, H. Blumer, J. Baudrillard, P. Bourdieu, Th. Veblen, G. Simmel, W. Sombart. In particular, representatives of American sociology study fashion, especially in the context of a definition of psychological factors affecting both the individual (Th. Veblen, and so on Collective (G. Bloomer behavior of members of modern society. French researchers P. Bourdieu, R. Barthes and J. Baudrillard offer analyze fashion as a social phenomenon that puts the functioning of all spheres of personality and needs, especially solid theoretical interpretations. German sociologists examined fashion, especially as one of many forms of life (G. Simmel, in which the trend towards social cohesion combined with the trend towards individual differences that are beginning to engage in the conditions of formation and development of capitalist society (W. Sombart. It is substantiated that the historical development of each country affected the establishment of national sociological schools. This reflected not only in the formation of the leading areas of research, but also on specificity of the analysis of other social phenomena and processes, particularly in the study of the problem field of fashion.

Social Dynamics of Science

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Sun, Xiaoling; Kaur, Jasleen; Milojević, Staša; Flammini, Alessandro; Menczer, Filippo

2013-01-01

The birth and decline of disciplines are critical to science and society. How do scientific disciplines emerge? No quantitative model to date allows us to validate competing theories on the different roles of endogenous processes, such as social collaborations, and exogenous events, such as scientific discoveries. Here we propose an agent-based model in which the evolution of disciplines is guided mainly by social interactions among agents representing scientists. Disciplines emerge from splitting and merging of social communities in a collaboration network. We find that this social model can account for a number of stylized facts about the relationships between disciplines, scholars, and publications. These results provide strong quantitative support for the key role of social interactions in shaping the dynamics of science. While several ``science of science'' theories exist, this is the first account for the emergence of disciplines that is validated on the basis of empirical data.

Digital Social Science Lab

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Svendsen, Michael; Lauersen, Christian Ulrich

2015-01-01

At the Faculty Library of Social Sciences (part of Copenhagen University Library) we are currently working intensely towards the establishment of a Digital Social Science Lab (DSSL). The purpose of the lab is to connect research, education and learning processes with the use of digital tools...... at the Faculty of Social Sciences. DSSL will host and facilitate an 80 m2 large mobile and intelligent study- and learning environment with a focus on academic events, teaching and collaboration. Besides the physical settings DSSL has two primary functions: 1. To implement relevant social scientific software...... and hardware at the disposal for students and staff at The Faculty of Social Sciences along with instruction and teaching in the different types of software, e.g. Stata, Nvivo, Atlas.ti, R Studio, Zotero and GIS-software. 2. To facilitate academic events focusing on use of digital tools and analytic software...

Straus: as duas sociologias médicas Straus: the two medical sociologies

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Everardo Duarte Nunes

2007-06-01

Full Text Available Analisou-se o trabalho pioneiro de Robert Straus, de 1957, denominado "The nature and status of Medical Sociology". Straus, um dos fundadores da sociologia médica, trouxe contribuições fundamentais para o campo e criou o primeiro departamento de ciências do comportamento em uma escola médica. No texto analisado, Straus estabelece as diferenças entre sociologia na medicina e sociologia da medicina. São apresentados comentários sobre a perspectiva atual da sociologia médica e sobre o autor.Robert Straus' pioneer work, "The nature and status of Medical Sociology," written in 1957, was reviewed. Straus, one of the founders of medical sociology, made major contributions to this field and created the first department of behavior sciences in a medical school. In the work reviewed, Straus establishes the differences between sociology in medicine and medical sociology. Comments are made on the current perspective of medical sociology and about the author.

Making Sociology Relevant: The Assignment and Application of Breaching Experiments

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Rafalovich, Adam

2006-01-01

Breaching experiments involve the conscious exhibition of "unexpected" behavior, an observation of the types of social reactions such behavioral violations engender, and an analysis of the social structure that makes these social reactions possible. The conscious violation of norms can be highly fruitful for sociology students, providing insights…

Las ciencias sociales: convergencias disciplinarias y conocimiento de fronteras. El caso de la sociología

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Cèsar Manzanos Bilbao

2002-01-01

Full Text Available En este artículo el autor aborda los criterios que otorgan validez a la realidad social, mismos que constituyen uno de los núcleos del debate epistemológico contemporáneo de la sociología. A lo largo de su trabajo, el autor se plantea las siguientes preguntas, las cuales se tornan el eje de su reflexión: ¿quiénes construyen la realidad social?; ¿cuáles son las definiciones dominantes?; ¿cómo se materializan, universalizan y moldean las definiciones elevadas al rango de científicas y las formas de organización e interacción social establecidas y normalizadas? Al contrastar los puntos de vista de diversos autores y de una sólida argumentación, el autor da cuenta de nuevas claves estructurales que podrían orientar a los futuros modelos de organización en el ámbito de las transformaciones sociales mediante novedosas formas de consenso.

Enacting the social relations of science

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Kristian Hvidtfelt

2008-01-01

This article investigates the writings of Danish science journalist Børge Michelsen from 1939 to 1956. As part of the international social relations of science movement in the period, Michelsen transformed science journalism from mere reporting on issues pertaining to science into performing...... the social function of science journalism: advancing and enacting the social relations of science. Based on analyses of Michelsen's articles and other initiatives, this study suggests that the social function of science journalism practiced by Michelsen showed many new and conflicting aspects. From...... new links to reinforce mutual relations between scientists and policy-makers, between scientists and journalists, and between science and the public. Finally, in the concluding remarks, the contemporary significance of Michelsen's social function of science journalism is discussed....

Towards a Sociology of the Mobile Phone

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Jim McGuigan

2005-01-01

Full Text Available Use of the mobile phone is an immensely significant social and cultural phenomenon. However, market hype and utopian dreams greatly exaggerate its importance. The fundamental issue for sociology is the process of change. Bound up with contemporary issues of change, the mobile phone is a prime object for sociological attention both at the macro and micro levels of analysis. This article considers the strengths and weaknesses of four methods for studying the sociality of the mobile phone (social demography; political economy; conversation, discourse and text analysis; and ethnography, the different kinds of knowledge they produce, and the interests they represent. Recent ethnographic research on the mobile phone, particularly motivated by issues around the uncertain transition from 2G to the 3G technology, has examined the actual experience of routine use. Interpretative research is now supplementing purely instrumental research, thereby giving a much more nuanced understanding of mobile communications. Critical research on the mobile phone, of which there is little, is beginning to ask skeptical questions that should be pursued further.

The Corpus Status of Literature in Teaching Sociology: Novels as "Sociological Reconstruction"

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Carlin, Andrew P.

2010-01-01

Using fiction in teaching sociology involves what Harvey Sacks calls "sociological reconstruction". Numerous comments on teaching sociology provide advice and suggestions on the use of literature and "what counts" as "sociological" literature, including specific titles. This paper goes further: while the use of literature is a routine feature of…

Social Work and Science

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Gehlert, Sarah

2016-01-01

Interest has grown in the past few years about the place of social work in science. Questions remain, such as whether social work should be considered a science, and if so, where it fits into the constellation of sciences. This article attempts to shed light on these questions. After briefly considering past and present constructions of science…

RESPECTING THE CONFIDENTIALITY AND ANONYMITY IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN SOCIOLOGY

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Maria OPREA

2018-06-01

Full Text Available Ethics, a philosophical discipline, formulates a set of principles that must be followed, in respect of good and truth, fundamental values of humanity. The world of scientific research, of all kinds, also obeys moral imperatives and principles and is called upon to answer to society not only in relation to the discoveries themselves but, above all, in relation to the possible destructive effects on man or his life environment. The researcher in the sphere of social sciences is more involved in the act of responsibility, the more the topic subject of the study is the individual, the social group, the social environment. He must rigorously follow the principles and requirements of fair, honest, objective studies that do not harm the dignity of the human being. In line with the ethical rigors of scientific research, the article aims to highlight some aspects of respecting the principle of confidentiality and anonymity in qualitative research in the field of sociology, with reference to the study of vulnerable groups in Arad County.

SOCIAL, HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF TUBERCULOSIS.

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Mason, Paul H; Roy, Anupom; Spillane, Jayden; Singh, Puneet

2016-03-01

Tuberculosis (TB) researchers and clinicians, by virtue of the social disease they study, are drawn into an engagement with ways of understanding illness that extend beyond the strictly biomedical model. Primers on social science concepts directly relevant to TB, however, are lacking. The particularities of TB disease mean that certain social science concepts are more relevant than others. Concepts such as structural violence can seem complicated and off-putting. Other concepts, such as gender, can seem so familiar that they are left relatively unexplored. An intimate familiarity with the social dimensions of disease is valuable, particularly for infectious diseases, because the social model is an important complement to the biomedical model. This review article offers an important introduction to a selection of concepts directly relevant to TB from health sociology, medical anthropology and social cognitive theory. The article has pedagogical utility and also serves as a useful refresher for those researchers already engaged in this genre of work. The conceptual tools of health sociology, medical anthropology and social cognitive theory offer insightful ways to examine the social, historical and cultural dimensions of public health. By recognizing cultural experience as a central force shaping human interactions with the world, TB researchers and clinicians develop a more nuanced consideration of how health, illness and medical treatment are understood, interpreted and confronted.

Herding, social influence and economic decision-making: socio-psychological and neuroscientific analyses

OpenAIRE

Baddeley, Michelle

2010-01-01

Typically, modern economics has steered away from the analysis of sociological and psychological factors and has focused on narrow behavioural assumptions in which expectations are formed on the basis of mathematical algorithms. Blending together ideas from the social and behavioural sciences, this paper argues that the behavioural approach adopted in most economic analysis, in its neglect of sociological and psychological forces and its simplistically dichotomous categorization of behaviour ...

A Forgotten Social Science?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Martin-Nielsen, Janet

2011-01-01

The post–World War II era was one of great triumph for American linguists—and yet linguistics is all but absent from the historical literature on postwar social science. This paper aims to illuminate this curious situation: to understand its provenance, evaluate its merits, and contextualize...... of linguistics has led to a parallel isolation in the historical literature. Ultimately, this paper poses a pivotal and timely question: How is the postwar social science space construed within the existing historiographic framework, and how should it be construed in order to maximize understanding? I propose...... it broadly. I argue that the historiographic lacuna results from two factors: (1) the opt-out of linguists from the wider American social science community, and (2) historical-developmental and -orientational factors that stand linguistics apart from the social science mainstream. The resultant isolation...

Determinateness and Indeterminateness in Schumpeter's Economic Sociology: The Origin of Social Evolution

OpenAIRE

Yagi, Kiichiro

2008-01-01

This article traces Schumpeter's texts that fit his definition of "economic sociology" given in the introductory chapter of History of Economic Analysis (1954). The findings are as follows: (1) Since his early years, Schumpeter had a vision of "socio–cultural development" that was characterized by a general interdependence and a distinction between statics and dynamics. (2) Schumpeter adopted the term "evolution" to describe the historical change in his economic sociology. Moreover, he would ...

Operational Social Influence in the Vietnam War: An Analysis of Influence Tactics Used by the U.S. Marine’s Combined Action Program and the Viet Cong in South Vietnam

Science.gov (United States)

2011-03-01

LITERATURE REVIEW A. THE SCIENCE OF SOCIAL INFLUENCE Sociology, the study of society, can be traced back to the time of Plato (428–327 BC). Sociology looks...produces a drive to reduce that tension and may result in a rationalization trap.”120 One of the most studied theories in Social Psychology is

Why Sociology Is Silent Concerning Borders

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S.E. Nikolov

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Border in sociological sense means a barrier that separates social groups, strata, their values, and the difference between ways of life between particular social groups. Such groups may be separated by many dividing lines, or borders: social/living conditions, opportunities/prospects, legal rights/customs, viewpoints, and so on. Sometimes mobility does not permit other than individual, or small-group, crossing of these borders. It seems really strange why border topic is almost completely absent from the sociology. It is so pertinent to the fate and shaping of various social groups, depending from the location of the border. We think of a boundary whenever we think of an entity demarcated from its surroundings. Events, too, have boundaries – temporal ones: their beginning, climax, final. All our lives are bounded in the continuum between our births and our deaths. A philosopher would imply also that even imaginary, abstract entities, such as concepts or layouts, have boundaries of their own. One may say that condition for all this boundary/border talk is coherent, and whether it reproduces the world around us’ structure, or the organizing activity of our intellect, are matters of deep philosophical controversy. Borders are difficult to disappear totally even within the European Union, providing some obstacles to the freedom of movement to those left still outside the Schengen agreement.

Health sociology from post-structuralism to the new materialisms.

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Fox, Nick J

2016-01-01

The article reviews the impact of post-structuralism and postmodern social theory upon health sociology during the past 20 years. It then addresses the emergence of new materialist perspectives, which to an extent build upon insights of post-structuralist concerning power, but mark a turn away from a textual or linguistic focus to address the range of materialities that affect health, illness and health care. I conclude by assessing the impact of these movements for health sociology. © The Author(s) 2015.

The sociology of scientific work the fundamental relationship between science and society

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Vinck, Dominique

2010-01-01

More than ever before, science and technology play a significant role in modern society as evidenced by the development of nanotechnologies and the controversies surrounding GMOs and climate change. This book comprehensively explores the flourishing field of science and technology studies and examines its creation, development and interaction with contemporary society. Dominique Vinck examines the various relationships between science and society including the emergence of sciences, the dynamics of innovation and technical democracy. He also investigates the principal social mechanisms of science and technology such as institutions, organizations, exchanges between researchers and the construction of scientific knowledge, expertise and innovation. The book provides a thorough overview of the field and reviews the major theoretical and methodological approaches as well as the current state of research on a range of topics. This original book will strongly appeal to students and researchers in the social scie...

Paradigmas y enfoques teóricos en la sociología de la música

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Noya, Javier

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The aim of this paper is to present the state of affairs on the theoretical currents in the sociology of contemporary music. Internationally, the sociology of music has been productive in empirical research, especially in the European tradition. The theoretical scenario found in the sociology of music is based on a pluralistic paradigm which follows general trends in sociology. This shows in a variety of approaches, which we will present here, which differ according to the plane in which they operate: macro, meso and micro. We provide a summary of classic proposals like Weber, Adorno, Bourdieu and DeNora, and include new methodological proposals from social network analysis, ethnography and cultural studies. We consider that in order to consolidate a theoretical framework we must avoid the postmodern trap, which avoids sociological criticism, and recognize the need for doing true social theory.El objetivo de este artículo es plantear un estado de la cuestión sobre las corrientes teóricas en la sociología de la música actual. A escala internacional, la sociología de la música ha sido un campo pródigo en teorías más que en investigación empírica, sobre todo en la tradición europea. El escenario teórico que encontramos en la sociología de la música sigue el pluralismo paradigmático de la sociología general. Esto se refleja en una variedad de enfoques, que presentaremos aquí, y que diferenciamos según el plano en el que operan: macro, meso y micro. Ofrecemos una síntesis de las propuestas de clásicos como Weber, Adorno, DeNora y Bourdieu, e incluimos nuevas propuestas metodológicas desde el análisis de redes sociales, la etnografía y los estudios culturales. Para consolidar un marco teórico de referencia debemos huir de la trampa postmoderna, que renuncia a la crítica sociológica, y reconoceremos el carácter necesario de una verdadera teoría social.

An Annotated List of New Social Studies Projects.

Science.gov (United States)

Knight, Merle M., Comp.

The curriculum materials developed by 34 projects are described in this directory. The discussions are organized by discipline: Anthropology, Economics, Geography, History, Political Science, Social Psychology, Sociology, and General and Interdisciplinary. Each individual project note includes: project name, director, address, and a summary of the…