13 results
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2. Debating sociology and climate change.
- Author
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Bhatasara, Sandra
- Subjects
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SOCIOLOGY education , *CLIMATE change , *SOCIAL problems , *SOCIOLOGISTS , *PHYSICAL sciences - Abstract
This paper deals with the role of sociology in climate change research and policies. Climate change can be regarded as one of the greatest challenges facing the world today. It has attracted attention from several disciplines, with the physical sciences regarded as dominating climate change research. Apparently, despite that climate change is inherently a social problem, sociologists have been slow in tackling it, at both theoretical and policy levels. Even so, available literature contains assorted and interesting sociological contributions and insights. As such, this paper posits that sociologists are interested in climate change issues, have a lot to offer and they can draw from a number of sub-fields. For instance, using sociology of sustainable consumption sociologists can tackle how societies can re-organise consumption patterns and habits, sociology of education provokes more intriguing research into the construction of climate change science, knowledge and solutions and feminist sociology can extend robust research into how the material and discursive dimensions of climate change are profoundly gendered. Importantly, critical sociology provides a repertoire of concepts and novel methods that can be deployed in climate change research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2015
- Full Text
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3. Curriculum Research and Curricular Politics.
- Author
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Whitty, Geoff
- Subjects
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CURRICULUM , *INSTRUCTIONAL systems , *SOCIOLOGISTS , *SOCIOLOGY , *POLITICAL science - Abstract
This paper is intended to place the other papers in this issue of the journal in a broader theoretical and political context. It considers some of the ways in which sociologists of education have approached the analysis of the curriculum and discusses the extent to which their work can be seen as a contribution to political struggles in and around the curriculum. It pays particular attention to the ways in which recent American and Australian work in this field has developed and to some of the criticisms that have been made of the political orientation of such work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 1987
- Full Text
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4. The Importance of Race Among Black Sociologists.
- Author
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Evans, Art
- Subjects
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RACE , *BLACK people , *RACE relations , *SOCIOLOGY , *SOCIOLOGISTS , *SOCIAL sciences - Abstract
This paper explores the importance of race and racial attitudes among sociologists by attempting to document the existence of what has been called a "black insiders doctrine" and showing that black sociologists are more likely than their white counterparts to subscribe to this doctrine. Data in this paper are based on a survey questionnaire administered during the winter of 1978. The findings show that: (1) race is a strong predictor in determining how sociologists perceive the role and characteristics of black sociologists and (2) black sociologists do not think highly of whites who study race relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 1980
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5. The Politics of Drugs: an Inquiry in the Sociology of Social Problems.
- Author
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Reasons, Charles
- Subjects
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SOCIOLOGISTS , *SOCIOLOGY , *SOCIAL sciences , *CRIMINOLOGY , *CRIMINAL law - Abstract
This paper outlines the career of Maurice F. Parmelee, sociologist, government official, nudist, and author of thirteen books, including the first American criminology text (1918). The contents of the latter are examined and contrasts with contemporary textbooks are noted. Parmelee's career is an anomoly, for although he published abundantly, he faded into sociological obscurity. Some conjecture is offered about scholarly career paths generally, drawn out of the Parmelee case. Finally, the paper argues that historical accounts of the development of American criminology are incomplete, for they fail to mention a number of early figures, including Parmelee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 1974
- Full Text
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6. Cultural capital: objective probability and the cultural arbitrary.
- Author
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Moore, Rob
- Subjects
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SOCIAL capital , *CULTURAL capital , *SOCIOLOGISTS , *EQUALITY , *SOCIOLOGY - Abstract
This paper attempts to explicate and locate the concept of 'cultural capital' in terms of Pierre Bourdieu's more general theory of the forms of capital and their transubstantiations. It examines the manner in which the relationship between the economic field, and its relations of inequality and power, and the cultural field involves a process of systematic misrecognition on the basis of which the positions and relations of the cultural field come to be recognized as 'arbitrary'. In these terms, pedagogic action is defined as 'symbolic violence'. It is suggested that the relationship between 'objective probability structures' and cultural fields can be usefully approached through the 'dual aspect' theory of the philosopher, Benedict Spinoza. Finally, a tension is noted between the manner in which educational differences between classes are explained and the manner in which differences within classes are explained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2004
- Full Text
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7. Bourdieu's reflexive sociology and 'spaces of points of view': whose reflexivity, which perspective?
- Author
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Kenwaya, Jane and Mcleod, Julie
- Subjects
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SOCIOLOGY , *REFLEXIVITY , *SOCIOLOGISTS , *SUBJECTIVITY , *RELATIVITY - Abstract
This paper considers Bourdieu's concepts of perspectivism and reflexivity, looking particularly at how he develops arguments about these in his recent work, The Weight of the World (1999) and Pascalian Meditations (2000b). We explicate Bourdieu's distinctive purposes and deployment of these terms and approaches, and discuss how this compares with related methodological and theoretical approaches currently found in social and feminist theory. We begin by considering three main ways in which 'reflexivity' is deployed in current sociological writing, distinguishing between reflexive sociology and a sociology of reflexivity. This is followed by a discussion of the main aspects of Bourdieu's approach to 'reflexive sociology' and its relation to his concepts of social field, perspectivism and spaces of point of view. He argues that we need to interrogate the idea of a single 'perspective' and account especially for the particularity and influence of the 'scholastic' point of view. He characterizes this latter point of view as unaware of its own historicity and as largely concerned with contemplation and with treating ideas primarily as abstractions ( Bourdieu, 2000b ). Bourdieu's intervention is to argue, as he has throughout his work, for a more reflexive account of one's location and habitus, and for sustained engagement with ideas and social issues as practical problems. Bourdieu exhorts researchers to work with 'multiple perspectives' ( Bourdieu et al. , 1999 , p. 3), the various competing 'spaces of points of view', without collapsing into subjectivism or relativism. We then consider recent feminist engagements with and critiques of Bourdieu's notion of reflexivity and chart some of the main points of contention regarding its relevance and conceptual potential for theorizing gender identities and transformations in current times. We conclude with a brief outline of how we are working with a reflexive sociological approach in a cross-generational study of young women in difficult circumstances, 'on the margins' of education and work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2004
- Full Text
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8. From Keighley to Keele: personal reflections on a circuitous journey through education, family, feminism and policy sociology.
- Author
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David, Miriam E.
- Subjects
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FEMINISM & education , *SOCIOLOGY , *EDUCATION , *FEMINISTS , *SOCIOLOGISTS - Abstract
This paper uses the methods of personal reflection and auto/biography to consider the ways in which global social and political transformations have influenced a key generation of feminist sociologists entering the academy and attempting to introduce feminist knowledge and pedagogy into academic curricula. Three critical events on or around 22 November are used to highlight key political moments, the associated development of changing themes in forms of analysis of social transformations, and the part played by feminism and sociology within higher education. They are the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1963, the Israeli–Arab war in 1973 and the resignation of Margaret Thatcher in 1990. The argument is that there has been a clear relation between changing social and political contexts and methodological understandings, which have drawn on developing feminist perspectives and reflexive sociological analysis, especially as embraced within the sociology of education. In particular, the shift from a political and professional perspective on social change and family life towards one that engages with personal issues is noteworthy. It is one of the hallmarks of both feminist notions associated with reflexivity and developing sociological methodologies and policy sociology. Thus, the personal and the political are now central methodological forms of feminist and sociological analysis within education and, especially, the sociology of education, influencing pedagogy within higher education, especially associated with developments in professional postgraduate education. I weave my personal reflections on my professional developments through an analysis of the key moments related to specific policy regimes and changing forms of understandings within the fields of policy sociology and sociology of education. I conclude with current concerns about the balances between the personal and professional within educational research and policy sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2002
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9. Rational Solidarity and Functional Differentiation.
- Author
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Hagen, Roar
- Subjects
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RATIONAL choice theory , *SOCIOLOGISTS , *SOCIOLOGY , *SOCIAL choice , *SOCIAL control - Abstract
The article is based on the idea that the problem of unity or integration of modern society has not yet been solved in sociological theory. The paper attempts a new solution based on a creative synthesis of elements from Talcott Parsons' functionalism, rational choice theory, and Niklas Luhmann's new systems theory. The core idea is that the state and the political sphere work together as an integrating centre of modern societies. Present approaches understand the political allocation of resources either as an exchange process or as solidarity caused by internalized social norms. None of them embodies a concept of collective rationality; therefore they cannot give a dynamic account of the public allocation of collective goods. This dichotomy of individual rationality and norm-guided behaviour will be produced and reproduced on the level of general theory in the discussion on the problem of order or collective action as long as sociology is founded on the assumption that society is made up of individual human beings and their actions. However, by replacing action with Luhmann's concept of communication and rethinking collective action within this new framework, it becomes possible to develop a concept of collective rationality. This new conceptualization is used to clear up problems and overcome shortcomings in Luhmann's own theory of modern society as functionally differentiated. Observed as a consequence of action, function is collective action. A solution to the problem of collective action or social order is found with the emergence of rational solidarity as a medium that symbolizes the difference between individual and collective rationality as a unity: one should sacrifice individual opportunities to achieve collective goals and solve problems for the society to which one belongs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2000
- Full Text
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10. Dreams of Wholeness and Loss: Critical sociology of education in South Africa.
- Author
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Muller, Johan
- Subjects
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SOCIOLOGISTS , *SOCIAL sciences , *EDUCATIONAL sociology , *EDUCATIONAL change , *SOCIOLOGY - Abstract
South African sociologists of education are living through a momentous and highly particular transition at the same time as they participate in global trends and debates This paper reviews changes in their framing concerns as they move from an oppositional positionality to a far more ambiguous space that seems to require of them to choose between critique and reconstruction The resultant re-positioning and the changes forms of appropriation of international themes as local priorities shift is the central concerns of this review [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 1996
- Full Text
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11. On Two Critiques of the Marxist Sociology of Education.
- Author
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Nash, Roy
- Subjects
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EDUCATIONAL sociology , *MARXIAN school of sociology , *SOCIOLOGISTS , *EDUCATION , *SOCIOLOGY - Abstract
Marxist sociology of education has been criticized in recent papers by Hickox and Hargreaves. It is argued that these writers largely misunderstand and misrepresent the work they criticize Hickox attributes a position to Marxist sociologists of education which few, if any, now hold Hargreaves makes a more powerful case, but is insufficiently familiar with Marxist scholarship to grasp the nature of the Marxist project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 1984
- Full Text
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12. The Present State of Sociological Theory.
- Author
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Homans, George C.
- Subjects
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SOCIOLOGY , *SOCIAL sciences , *THEORY , *PROPOSITION (Logic) , *SOCIOLOGISTS , *SOCIAL structure - Abstract
Sociology has fractured into a number of schools, each claiming to be distinct from the others and to have its own theory. The trouble with the theories is that most of them fail to make their general propositions explicit. Were they made explicit, all the theories would turn out to contain at least the general propositions of behavioral psychology, and the intellectual unification of sociology could begin. The paper discusses the reasons why many sociologists are reluctant to accept this argument. It also discusses other claimants to the status of theory, including "pattern" theories, functional theories (one of which is really behavioral), and the difficulties created by some uses of the concept, social structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 1982
- Full Text
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13. Verstehen, Language and Warrants.
- Author
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Heap, James L.
- Subjects
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SOCIOLOGISTS , *BEHAVIORAL scientists , *CRITICISM , *SOCIAL history , *SOCIOLOGY - Abstract
The rationality that guides the sociological community has generated principles to evaluate members' work. Under the sway of these principles, Georg Simmel surfaces either as a peripheral member of the community or as an outright failure. His critics have argued that his work is "fragmented," that he begins without having formulated "guiding statements," that he is "unsystematic" and "undisciplined." Yet we can discover in Simmel's writings a distinct rationality that upsets this criticism by its transcendence of it. Had these particular critics read his work more carefully they might have discovered that Simmel had anticipated their criticism and had carefully reevaluated its source of authority. In this paper 1 address the problems of discipline and systematic unity in sociological writing in order to unmask the rationality held within the sociological community and to formulate Simmel's unique contribution as a member of that community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 1977
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
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