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Despite being a central topic, current theories of motivation in sociology remain underdeveloped. This paper supplements existing sociological theories on motivation with insights from affective and cognitive neuroscience to address this issue. The resulting sociological affective model of motivation treats affect as an independent force that sometimes coordinates with cognition while taking charge at other times. Drawing on recent work in the neuroscience of motivation and reward, the paper shows how two affective mechanisms—wanting and liking—can shed light on various behavioral outcomes of interest while allowing for sharper theorizing of key distinctions that need clarification in the literature. By examining the distinctive contribution of each process, the paper reveals a proactive, desire‐driven agent often overlooked by prevailing sociological models emphasizing a reactive actor responding creatively and deliberately when internal meanings and external cues are incongruent. The paper concludes by outlining the broader implications of this synthetic affective model of motivation for sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine how social identity, moral obligation and the relationship between the two shaped support for the 2016 Academics for Peace petition in Turkey. We examine the pre‐trial statements of nine defendants charged for signing the petition and appearing in court on the same day in December 2018. We first conduct an inductive thematic analysis on one statement, and then, using the themes from this analysis, we conducted a deductive thematic analysis on the remaining eight statements. In line with the existing studies, we find considerable evidence that social identity and moral obligation are invoked as key reasons for signing in this highly repressive context. However, rather than these being separate factors, the two are reciprocally constitutive. That is, social identities define moral obligations and, at the same time, enacting moral obligations defines identity (both the position of the individual in the group and the nature of the group in the world). In discussion, we consider the broader implications of a moralized view of social identities for our understanding of both collective action and social identity processes more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP) was founded in 1973 and has since its inception has been the flagship journal for the Society of Community Research and Action. AJCP publishes leading scholarship in community psychology and social action research. This special issue celebrates the 50 years of scholarship in AJCP by curating and assembling previously published articles in virtual special issues (VSIs) with accompanying commentaries. Nine VSIs were compiled as part of this special issue. Each of these VSIs were organized around themes that are of critical importance to community psychology and each VSI summarizes what has been learned from their included articles and future directions for the field. In this paper, we introduce this special issue on this collection of VSIs, discussing how each of these VSIs endeavor to push the field forward. Highlights: This special issue celebrates 50 years of the American Journal of community psychology.Nine virtual special issues (VSI) curated previously published papers in AJCP.We summarize these VSI introductions and discuss how each calls for future directions for the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussions on the body frequently foreground in empirical studies of social representations. However, there is scarce theoretical literature within social representations theory focusing on embodied social representation. This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of embodied, sensory experiences as part of social representation. More precisely, it attempts to elaborate how individual, social, bodily, and material layers work together in embodied social representation. This paper approaches the topic from four viewpoints: (1) social representation as action, (2) phenomenology, (3) embodied and socially situated cognition, and (4) sensory epistemologies and sensescapes. These approaches are used to provide insight into the conscious and unconscious processes of social representation and the multimodality of social representation. The paper contributes to the understanding of the role of sensory experiences and embodiment in the theory of social representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Gertrude Buck and collaborators developed a sociologically and pragmatist‐informed approach to language that has been neglected in later scholarship. Buck approached the study of language from the standpoint of pragmatist functional psychology, which is indebted to John Dewey's pragmatism at the University of Michigan, and which views language as a normal, dynamic action of human organisms engaged in necessary cooperative relations with one another. Her approach overcomes the small‐minded pragmatism that would criticize figurative or poetic language as impractical, and instead shows how figuration is essential to the particular ways in which language is action that conveys meaning to others and serves broader social functions. Buck's forgotten work helps overcome criticisms of the application of pragmatic action theory to language and literature, sketching how language structure may be explained on the basis of language as a natural social‐communicative act, how figurative language is inherent in the normal act of communicating situated bodily experiences to others, and how rhetorical speech and writing contributes to participation in democratic social processes. This paper also indicates how Buck's work has been partially rediscovered in Composition Studies, as well as prefigures later reader‐response esthetics and feminist analyses of language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the vertices of Jung's, Anzaldúa's and Benjamin's distinct ontologies and the way in which they connect in the shared recognition that what has been estranged in human history is enigmatically lodged in the world's fabric today. Cultural distress, in other words, is the outcome of what has become repudiated in the self and the collective across time. From this perspective, the paper argues that we have a collective responsibility to listen to the claims of the dead laid bare in moments of contemporary real‐world danger and it elaborates the psychical dimensions of being that are cultivated in times of danger. The author contends that these psychical presences are the dead of human history including our ancestral heritage that linger and possibly may penetrate our awareness. They haunt and hold a potential to animate our movement towards a sublimatory process that can be seen as a precursor to social responsiveness and action. The author explores this through her own experience with an example of the spawning of spiritual activism within the socio‐political maelstrom of AIDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community engagement (CE) at Rhodes University (RU) and community psychology draw on similar principles: using an asset‐based community development approach; recognising and drawing on the skills, capabilities, and knowledge of all parties, which they contribute to a partnership. Working from a strategic model of engagement, mutuality is foreground in all CE activities, where both student volunteers and community partners jointly benefit from the engagement. This paper examines CE at RU and how CE principles are translated into practise, using Siyakhana@Makana (S@M) as a case study. In S@M, a 19‐week‐long volunteer programme, community partners and student volunteers are jointly involved in planning, executing, and evaluating CE activities together. This paper illustrates how being involved in such CE activities has enabled community partners to mobilise for effective change in their communities. Community partners reflect on how they have been empowered to taken on leadership roles, addressing local challenges in collaborative ways, while drawing on the skills and knowledge that they have gained through their engagements in S@M. This resonates with the social action model of community psychology, a participatory approach that seeks to mobilise people to bring about change in the contexts in which they live. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we attempt to rehabilitate the notion of role by linking sociological role theory to recent work on motivational, affective, and cognitive neuroscience specifying the internal mechanisms behind motivated action. We argue that there is nothing inherently problematic or retrogressive in the idea of "role," once its link to a purely normative account of motivated action is severed. Instead, by conceptualizing roles as emerging and persisting around structured reward systems, we are able to incorporate contemporary motivational science such that rewards become the proximate causal mechanisms currently missing in role theory. Consequently, a key implication of our argument is that the best way to link role, action, and structures is by reviving the idea of institutions as literal reward systems, which allows us to envision roles as the mechanisms via which the pursuit and delivery of rewards and goal‐objects are routinized. Implications for a motivational theory of roles, rewards, and institutions is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many institutions have found the strength to name racism and seek space for curriculum and other systemic changes. We argue this is happening against a backdrop of curriculum, regulatory and policy changes in education, and particularly initial teacher education and training (ITE/T), which are de‐racialised. We propose that a 'pocket of possibility' lies within such divergences, and present research leading to the creation of an anti‐racism framework for ITE/T to support action against this emergent landscape. The paper documents each aspect of the research and snapshots of the findings of a global literature review of anti‐racism in initial teacher education, which demonstrated the need for an embedded approach to anti‐racism, informed by critical understandings of whiteness and racism. We share some of the complexities, obstacles, and effective anti‐racism practices revealed in the review. The findings of the review led to the creation and analysis of a survey for ITE/T providers in England, which provided encouraging evidence of useful practice alongside needs of the profession. We conclude with a statement of intent and hope to maximise of the minimum entitlement of the Core Content Framework (CCF) by a purposeful undoing of the perpetual de‐racialisation of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Motivation: It is increasingly common for international development actors to work in difficult and fragile settings, yet much of our understanding of accountability through social and political action comes from more stable settings. As an increasing percentage of the world's population live in places characterized by fragility, it is essential to understand the context for accountability in these settings. Purpose: This article proposes a framework based on three domains of contestation: natural resources, identity, and legitimacy. Based on this framework, it unpacks the constraints towards progress on accountability in difficult settings, and the challenges in creating an environment for citizen claim‐making. Methods and approach: The article draws on research from a five‐year Action for Empowerment and Accountability (A4EA) programme which focused on examining social and political action in Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria, and Pakistan. Research papers from the programme were analysed together with a close reading of existing literature to decipher the common traits hampering citizen action and state response in difficult settings. Findings The core argument is that a weak state and the prevalence of non‐state groups vying for power are fundamental to difficult contexts in three different domains: natural resources, legitimacy, and identity, in which underlying contestation generates conflict, violence, and fragility. The three domains are set within two structural factors: historical legacies and social norms. The article traces how contestation in these domains within structural factors influences the behaviour of powerholders as well as the outlook of citizens who could make accountability claims. Policy implications: The article concludes by suggesting that lessons for development actors attempting to promote accountability in these settings are: to "work with the grain", e.g. recognize the context and work with it; explore possibilities for change at the local level, e.g. where alliance building and networking might be more feasible; and look for the small wins—because in a context fraught with difficulties, small achievements such as overcoming fear should be counted as a success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a conceptual account of Pierre Bourdieu's operational concept of habitus through the lens of social recognition. More precisely, a 'habitus of recognition', or 'recognitive habitus', is defined as a set of perceptive patterns and expectations whose main function is to actualize social behaviour that allows reciprocal recognition among social agents. In this respect, this paper explains why, thanks to the recognition paradigm, we can better grasp how habitus works as a pre‐reflective common sense capable of producing coordinated collective actions and social reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study aimed to investigate adolescent English learners' multimodal communicative competence. Grounded upon a social semiotic approach with the concepts of affordances and transmediation, this research was carried out in an after‐school programme at a secondary school in Korea. Three high school students participated in the multimodal composition project and produced narrative and argumentative multimodal texts. Multiple sources of data were gathered from interviews, video recordings with fieldnotes and student artefacts. The data were analysed using an inductive and deductive approach, along three orientations: modes as social action; modes as framing devices; and modes as agency representation. The students' multimodal texts were analysed based on multimodal text analysis. This study demonstrated that the participants personalised, avoided, modified and orchestrated semiotic modes to engage in multimodal composition. The study also revealed that the students' selection and use of semiotic modes were influenced by their audience awareness, genre knowledge and identities, and vice versa, all of which contributed to developing their multimodal communicative competence. The paper concludes with pedagogical implications for multimodal composition practices and suggestions for future multimodal composition studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper formulates a new perspective on Vissarion Belinskii's seminal role as the leading figure in early Russian realism–while attempting to account for the unique, culturally‐specific evolution of realism in Russia, particularly its fundamental interconnection with the rise of what we now call "the intelligentsia." Within this context, Belinskii's distinct mode of realism–epitomized in his call for "sociality or death"–can be termed "phenomenological," because it derived so much from the narrative logic of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, as a continuous striving for self‐realization. In this sense, Belinskii's influence hinged on his constructed, phenomenological metanarrative of Russian literary history: a philosophical narrative that established a logical evolution within Russian literature and explained the emergence of realism as a rational necessity. The conceptual foundations of Belinskii's metanarrative can be traced back to his period of intense immersion in Hegel's philosophy as a member of the Stankevich circle, when he and the others looked to Hegel's philosophy as a practical guide to personal self‐realization. Ultimately, however, Belinskii transposed this narrative of self‐realization onto the logic of Russian literary history. Accordingly, the realism of the Natural School marked the culminating moment when Russian literature finally attained self‐realization, legitimacy, cultural autonomy. The entire process, moreover, was contingent on the emergence of a certain kind of unified, self‐conscious reading public–which became the basis for what we now know as the intelligentsia. Thus, Belinskii's realist agenda was ultimately focused on fostering the development of this "imagined community," which entailed establishing a stable and autonomous niche for intelligentsia discourse within the competitive field of literary production, as well as shaping the distinct socio‐historical sense of self that engendered the intelligentsia's defining propensity for conscientious social action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bourdieu's concept of habitus relies heavily on insights from phenomenology, yet his theoretical effort falls short of existing phenomenological solutions to the problems of cognition, agency, and reflexivity in social action. These shortcomings are evident in the analytical and descriptive failures of the concept of habitus documented by critics. Turning to the work of Alfred Schutz, this paper offers his concept of pragma, meaning context, and theory of relevances as an alternative way to describe the embodied and temporal nature of social action and accounting for social determinations. The paper further parses out key differences between Schutz's social phenomenological understanding of embodied action and Bourdieu's habitus, including differences in understanding schemas of standardization and their relation with objectivities of the social world. The paper ends with a call for a critical reassessment of Schutz's social phenomenology, with potentially wide ranging implications not only for understandings of agency, but also of meaning and the constitution of objectivities of the social world, as well the underlying interpretive method of social science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The policy implementation process is often overlooked when policy is introduced potentially leading to policy failure. This is particularly relevant in complex policy areas where there is a lack of collaborative policy‐making and where implementation is in dispersed governance. This paper discusses the findings of a study examining a novel policy implementation support programme developed by the English Department of Health for the Care Act 2014, the most significant changes to the provision of social care for 60 years. Given the complexity of the changes, the Department of Health and its key partners introduced an Implementation Support Programme to increase the likelihood of effective implementation. As part of a suite of research studies, we examined the effectiveness of the implementation support programme in helping local authorities, responsible for social care delivery, implement the key Care Act priorities. We found that the support programme was effective in supporting 'implementation readiness' particular in situations where the context and policy itself are complex. We found that while important for the delivery of policy, such support programmes do not necessarily in themselves guarantee successful implementation. However, future evaluations of policy should include examining how the implementation is, or is not supported, in order to fully understand reasons for policy success and failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolution of Web 2.0 user‐generated content has opened the door to new forms of collective action and social movement building. In asking if the benefits outweigh the risks, this paper brings Gramsci's theorization of activism into the twenty‐first century, where the newspaper has been replaced by social medial tools and the Organic Intellectual has gone virtual. Through the examples of #BlackLivesMatter, #IdleNoMore, and #MarchForOurLives, this paper argues that the digital age, despite limitations, has created unique opportunities for unprecedented social movement building. Activists are identified as key educators and passionate persuaders in these nonformal sites of learning, demonstrating how, through #hashtag activism, these virtual organic intellectuals are emerging to disrupt and challenge power in the digital age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: A systematic review of trusted adult interventions for adolescents revealed that there was no common terminology, agreed explicit definition, or detail, regarding the personal qualities, functions and roles fulfilled by trusted adults that was used consistently across the papers. To provide clarity, we therefore aimed to produce a taxonomy of trusted adult input, using evidence drawn from our review.Methods: Data from the review findings were used to compile the taxonomy, moving from the general to the more specific, in a four stage process. This involved: (1) compilation of elements described in individual papers, (2) grouping of elements derived from stage 1 into categories, (3) examination of context and nature of the relationship, (4) development of a categorisation of trusted adult input.Findings: The resulting taxonomy encapsulates core essential qualities provided by people acting in trusted adult or mentoring roles, and gives details relating to what a young person might expect from individuals they put their trust in. The taxonomy consists of six categories relating to: delivery context, roles of trusted adults, nature of support, personal qualities, actions/functions, and impact.Conclusions: The taxonomy describes key elements that define the trusted adult role, and has the potential to inform the development of policies and guidelines relating to support provision. It may be used as a framework for the reporting of trusted adult interventions within research, and act as a helpful guide if a young person is in doubt about the behaviour or qualities displayed by an adult in their environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Toxic speech inflicts individual and group harm, damaging the social fabric upon which we all depend. To understand and combat the harms of toxic speech, philosophers can learn from epidemiology, while epidemiologists can benefit from lessons of philosophy of language. In medicine and public health, research into remedies for toxins pushes in two directions: individual protections (personal actions, avoidances, preventive or reparative tonics) and collective action (specific policies or widespread "inoculations" through which we seek herd immunity). This paper is the beginning of a project of identifying potential inoculations and antidotes to toxic speech. The essay brings a social practice theory of language, with special reliance on language‐games and inferential roles, into conversation with concepts from the study of biologic toxins. Some speech harms are acute while others are chronic and insidious; they have different methods of delivery, come in variable doses, and not everyone is equally susceptible to the power to harm. I argue that of the many kinds of challenges we might issue against toxic speech, challenging its expressive commitments has the greatest potential to stop the damage. The essay explores the different sorts of protections that inoculations and antidotes might offer against discursive toxins and sketches how to imagine these in the practices that govern our speech. The paper does not make policy recommendations, but an epidemiology of discursive toxicity reveals several kinds of "more speech" that might fight against "bad speech." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to bring recent work on metaphysical grounding to bear on the phenomenon of social construction. It is argued that grounding can be used to analyze social construction and that the grounding framework is helpful for articulating various claims and commitments of social constructionists, especially about social identities, e.g., gender and race. The paper also responds to a number of objections that have been (or could be) leveled against the application of grounding to social construction from Elizabeth Barnes (2014), Mari Mikkola (2015), and Jessica Wilson (2014). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use a violence framework to describe an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid, and the subsequent cultural and structural violence that played out in one community after the raid. First, we focus on testimonies given about the ICE raids at two city council meetings, compared with how the raids were characterized in the local paper. We document cultural and structural violence in the newspaper reporting, through ideology and narratives (as forms of cultural violence) and percepticide (as a form of structural violence). We then analyze the process undertaken by 9–12‐year‐old youth researchers to construct a problem definition, and the script they wrote to explain the problem. We describe the "dangerous seeing" they engaged in to decode fictions about violence and create a rupture for solidarity and social action. Finally, we examine how elementary school leadership responded to these youth. Through fieldnotes, we document the cultural violence (via the control of public space) and structural violence (via percepticide and the obscuring of the social origins of social problems) perpetrated by school leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Participatory action research (PAR) is a research methodology that uses collective and endemic knowledge to inform action and address social concerns. The aim of this study was to understand how one PAR team (comprised of university and community researchers) navigated power dynamics, especially considering the team's power differentials. Methods: Drawing upon phenomenological and case study methodologies, this qualitative study used loosely structured interviews and journaling with all members of the PAR team (N = 5) to explore explored how the team navigated power throughout the PAR process. Findings: This study found that PAR team members navigated the PAR process using values as a constant guide, especially in negotiating power and resource realities and when distinguishing equity from equality. Conclusion: This paper offers a set of power and values mapping practices which may guide power‐diverse PAR teams by addressing power and values realities in their own unique and contextually bound PAR processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The status of immigrant families resettled to the United States in the past decade has been fraught with upsurges of governmental policies that have systematically increasing the levels of oppression, violence, and abuses of human rights. The socio-political-economic toll of xenophobic practices on specifically targeted immigrant populations is magnified by the psychological and relational impact they have on individuals, families, and communities. This manuscript is conceptualized as an ongoing call for social action and specific mobilization by mental health professionals in response to the increasing threats to civility and dignity faced by various immigrant communities. The paper is organized in three sections: (a) an overview of the effects of immigration policy on immigrant family experiences; (b) the impact of mental and relational health on immigrant populations; and (c) elaborations of three exemplar community projects designed to support immigrant families. The manuscript concludes with a discussion exploring avenues for promoting a stronger base for solidarity and social action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The 'How to ...' series focuses on how to do qualitative research. But how can qualitative research enhance patient care? This paper aims to support health care practitioners, educators and researchers who are interested in bridging the gap between research and practice (both clinical and educational), to guide improvements that can ultimately benefit patients. We present action research and The Change Laboratory method as two approaches that typically involve qualitative research and have potential to change practice, blending scientific inquiry with social action. These approaches establish close research–practice partnerships and help answer tricky 'why' and 'how' questions that may unlock deep insights to enhance learning and patient care. ... how can qualitative research enhance patient care? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has recently been an abundance of scholarly attention in geography to the assemblage-like nature of contemporary social movements. While assemblage theory has rightly emphasised the performative, translocal, discursive-material and affective aspects of social movements, less attention has been focused on the way these flexible assemblages territorialise power and attempt to order social activities in place. Through an analysis of contemporary anti-militarisation protests in Okinawa, this paper interrogates how translocal social movements use direct action tactics such as the occupation of land and sea spaces to not only resist state power, but to produce their own governance over places. Driven by different globally circulating normative perspectives on the value of national security versus personal security, these social movements have engaged in contests with states over the construction of military facilities and the practice of military activities in local environments. Analysing Foucauldian and Deleuzean perspectives on governing apparatuses, this paper investigates the spatial practices of both Okinawan social movements and the American and Japanese governments to demonstrate how occupation functions as a tactic of political praxis for both state and non-state actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a recent resurgence of what is often termed "prefigurative politics": activity in which people channel political effort into demonstrating in the present the types of social relations and practices sought at a future point in time. This paper engages with literature on prefigurative politics through reference to everyday forms of political and social action in the north Indian village of Bemni, Uttarakhand. We show that young people who migrated between urban centres and Bemni village played important roles as mentors, political activists and social helpers. They served as exemplars, seeking to alter the behaviour and attitudes of those around them at the everyday level. We make three key points on the geographies of this action. First, we diverge from most accounts of prefigurative politics in pointing to how such politics can be embedded in everyday life as well as unfolding within distinctive urban spaces, such as camps. Second, we highlight how migrants use their spatial knowledge and social skill to develop alliances, which, in turn, sustain prefigurative politics in the village, even as they move in and out of Bemni. Third, we demonstrate the significance among young people of a geographical narrative of "atmosphere" (mahaul) – and an associated notion that youth can change the mahaul through their practice. In making these points, we show that prefigurative politics can be a compelling conceptual touchstone, broad enough to address multiple geographical themes but focused enough on one idea – enacting goals in the process of struggle – to draw thinkers together and generate meaningful debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to trace a pathway connecting contemplative knowledge and practices with the social sciences. Contemplative knowledge and practices offer material for reflection in social science even concerning their very foundation. I'll found an opportunity for meshing our disciplinary tools with this knowledge as I introduced it in a health promotion program. The result will be a transdisciplinary confluence of different lines of inquiry contributing to a new perspective of self and social action. First of all I will give a definition of contemplative knowledge and practices. Then, I will make a bridge between the contemplative approach and the social sciences, showing the contribution that symbolic interactionism can play. I will illustrate the perspective drawing on an action research program called Auriga aimed at smoking cessation and reduction among health professionals. The aim of this paper is focused on the specification of the conceptual background in which such kind of program has been developed. Finally, I outline some implications it could represent for what might be called transformative sociology. I believe that contemplative knowledge could contribute to disentangle some of the unanswered questions and concerns in the social sciences, once they dismiss for a while their scientistic perspective. The secular redefinition of tools mainly belonging to the wisdom traditions represents an innovation that can reshape what we intend by the self and experience, contributing to what is called the "social transformation from within," a pragmatic and wise approach to change at any level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How might historical perspectives assist the goal of improving humanitarian responses? This introduction to a special issue of Disasters on the history of humanitarian action explores this question and outlines how the other submissions to the edition, each with its own approach and focus area from the nineteenth-century to the present today, make different contributions to understanding of humanitarian action. The paper argues that the value of history lies not so much in the information it might offer, but in the challenges it can pose to habitual ways of thinking and in the skills of investigation and interpretation it fosters. These attributes make historical perspectives a potentially valuable addition to the critical questioning of humanitarian practitioners and policymakers. The paper advocates integrating history into a more reflective attitude to change and a more adventurous and holistic approach to innovation, as opposed to simply using it to 'learn lessons'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until now geographical research on creative labour has tended to characterise it either in terms of 'hot' jobs in 'buzzing' places or precarious, often poorly paid working conditions. This article argues for a subtler consideration of the complex combination of factors at play within the cultural ecology of art-making. The lure of creative labour has been explained by three key rationales: intrinsic motivators of personal satisfaction and social status; risk-taking; and the challenging, self-affirming nature of creative work. Place-making is advanced here as a fourth rationale for volunteering in creative labour. The co-production of Yorkshire Sculpture Park as an affective, practised and material (art) place is explored through the new concept of embodied and emotional philanthropy. Capturing the unbounded and processual qualities of place-making, this paper provides insights into how volunteers labour beside the artist and paid workers to help co-create an internationally renowned art and environmental attraction. Philanthropy is therefore opened from referring to rich, individualistic donors, to include those who gift time, passion and labour. The paper also argues that volunteering, as a form of gifting, is especially significant during times of economic instability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper is motivated by growing interest in noncognitive skills and the fact that many, if not most, economic and social actions require agents to plan ahead. More specifically, we use unique data from the US, UK, and Italy to show that two major classes of social resource—personality and social capital—are significant predictors of planning capacity. We use the data to estimate frontier models that help establish three empirical facts about the ability to plan. First, planning ability depends on a rich array of social resources including networks, the freedom to participate, neighbourhood co‐operation, and trust (social capital) and personality traits such as extroversion, conscientiousness, and emotional stability. Secondly, we provide evidence that some personalities are more efficient than others in using resources to help them plan. Thirdly, we develop evidence of three personality profiles, referred to as ‘over‐controlled’, ‘resilient’ and ‘under‐controlled,’ and highlight the fact that these three profiles benefit differently from various aspects of social resources capital. We discuss these findings and conclude that a wide range of economic policies designed to facilitate individual planning may need to allow for heterogeneities in social resources if they are to be successful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the Speak Good Singlish Movement, which was started as a response to the Speak Good English Movement, the latter having been initiated by the Singapore government. The Speak Good Singlish Movement represents a good example of linguistic chutzpah, where speakers demonstrate confidence in their language choices while also having the metalinguistic awareness and sophistication needed to articulate rationales for these choices. The paper argues that linguistic chutzpah is especially important in relation to the global spread of English, where speakers are often confronted with the need to make decisions about language while not being able to rely on traditional sources of authority (such as the speech community or prescriptive grammars). Under such circumstances, speakers need to be able to adopt confident stances about their language choices, even while knowing that these choices may be met with criticism. To make this point, the paper also describes two cases involving anxieties about appropriate language use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses photovoice to examine the ways in which Chicanx youths hone their critical and multimodal literacy skills in a secondary ethnic studies course. While the institutionalization of secondary ethnic studies courses swiftly expands in school districts across the United States, more research is necessary to understand the nature of these courses. This inquiry examines student photovoice compositions, participant observations, and in-depth semistructured interviews to ascertain some of the affordances of an ethnic studies course from the perspectives of participating students. The following question guides this paper: How do students articulate the importance of ethnic studies in their lives? Students' creations of photovoice compositions allowed them to communicate ideas around ethnic studies in authentic ways that valued their cultural practices and resources. Findings highlight student literacies of social action across three domains: individual, community, and structural. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The neurosciences challenge the 'standard social science' model of human behaviour particularly with reference to violence. Although explanations of violence are interdisciplinary it remains controversial to work across the division between the social and biological sciences. Neuroscience can be subject to familiar sociological critiques of scientism and reductionism but this paper considers whether this view should be reassessed. Concepts of brain plasticity and epigenetics could prompt reconsideration of the dichotomy of the social and natural while raising questions about the intersections of materiality, embodiment and social action. Although violence is intimately bound up with the body, sociologies of both violence and the body remain on the surface and rarely go under the skin or skulls of violent actors. This article argues for a non-reductionist realist explanation of violent behaviour that is also interdisciplinary and offers the potential to generate nuanced understandings of violent processes. It concludes that sociology should engage critically and creatively with the neuroscience of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The many critical approaches to an ‘ethnicity framework’ have fallen short of a very possible conclusion—that the language of ethnicity provides, for the most part, a poor paradigm with which to work. In the present paper we seek not only to re-state some key weaknesses of this paradigm but also to suggest that these weaknesses are more general in an over-ethnicised sociology. There are numerous critiques of particular models or elements of ethnicity thinking, including critiques of primordialist approaches (Fenton 2003), of multiculturalism ( Barry 2000 ), and of the over-objectification of groups (Brubaker 2004; see also Jenkins 2008). The major critiques constitute a strong case against ‘thinking with ethnicity’; the broader weaknesses are more general in contemporary ‘identitarian’ sociology. From this position we turn to the question of offering an alternative approach in a sociology which emphasizes agency, and is grounded in an analysis of actors in material situations. This is allied to the concept of ideational resources, social categories and identities upon which actors draw, and a middle-range view of causality and tendency in social change. Ideas of ancestral belonging are among those ideational resources, and these ideas and assumptions are played out in a context of material and political change. The subject of study is not ethnicity, but power, resources, social relations and institutions (which may and may not be) informed by cultural identities and ideas of ancestry. The strategy of the paper will be first to re-state the deficiencies of ‘ethnicity thinking’ and second to offer an alternative framework for thinking about social action and social structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a dynamic theory of embodiment that aims to get beyond the absent moving body in embodied social theory. The first somatic revolution, inspired by Merleau Ponty, provided theories based on the feeling and experience of the body. The theory of dynamic embodiment focuses instead on the doing itself as embodied social action, in which the embodied person is fore-grounded as a complex resource for meaning making. This represents a theoretical enrichment of the earlier turn to the body in social theory, which tended to separate the semiotic, as necessarily representational and/or linguistic, from the somatic as a wide range of corporeal processes and practices assumed to be separated from mind, language and/or conscious thought. We argue that overcoming this persistent Cartesianism requires a New Realist approach to the proper location of human agency as a causal power, one that promotes a bio-psycho-social concept of personhood. Part one of the paper presents a general framework for this perspective, while part two applies this paradigm ethnographically to illustrate how bringing semiosis and somatics together requires a robust conception of multi-sensory modalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the Rhode Island Tobacco Control Enhancement Project (TCEP), a state-university-community technical assistance system. TCEP was developed under the auspices of the Rhode Island Department of Health's Tobacco Control program and was designed to build capacity among nine community-based organizations to mount comprehensive tobacco control interventions in five diverse communities within the state. This paper: (1) provides a description of community mobilization ; (2) presents a logic model for planning and decision making used by state-university-community partners; (3) describes training, technical assistance services and implementation; and, (4) describes the evaluation and program improvement activities used to support on-going project development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AIM: This paper reports an action research project that promoted posturing face down following macular hole surgery and aimed to enhance patient outcomes. This paper gives an overview of the process and outcomes of the first three of four phases of the project: problem identification, planning and action. The fourth phase, which was an evaluation of the project, is reported in another paper. BACKGROUND: Surgical repair for macular hole is common procedure carried out worldwide, and patients are required to posture face down for several weeks after this surgery. There is anecdotal evidence that many patients find this difficult to carry out. In the context of increasing medical specialization, nursing practice must be developed to meet the needs of patients being treated. This study will, therefore, be relevant beyond the particular specialty and geographical location described. METHOD: The methodology was participative and cyclical. Initially, a fact-finding exercise was undertaken, using qualitative interviews with 18 members of staff to elicit their perspectives on the posturing of patients. Based on the fact-finding exercise, seven action objectives were set. While these were being implemented, three further research projects were identified and undertaken. Two were qualitative studies: one investigated patients' experiences of the surgery and posturing, and the second concerned nurses' developing working theories on the promotion of posturing and effects of nursing care on patient outcomes. Another pilot study was a randomized controlled trial to consider the effect of two different posturing regimes on patient outcomes. In addition to regular action research group meetings, these studies served to inform and monitor the changes as they were put into practice. The work was carried out from 1998 to 2002. FINDINGS: Several factors appeared to influence whether patients postured after surgery, namely: education of staff and patients, appropriately timed services, clear lines of responsibility for patient care, good communication and availability of equipment. CONCLUSION: The research suggests that an approach to care is required that appreciates and deals with the multiple factors that influence whether patients carry out the posturing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines parent participation in local Sure Start partnerships within the broader context of public involvement in policy-making processes. Public participation is set against a background where an emphasis on participatory democracy is seen as a solution to shortcomings identified with policy-making and implementation. However, the meaning of public participation is by no means straightforward and gives rise to problems at several levels. Many of these problems emanate from concerns with power and legitimation. While these concerns highlight important aspects of public participation in public and social administration, this paper, drawing on Foucault's concept of “pastoral power”, examines whether public participation is better viewed as a predictable part of governance in modern Western democracies where subjects need to be recruited to exercise power over themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT:There have been many readings of Mead's work, and this paper proposes yet another: Mead, theorist of the social act. It is argued that Mead's core theory of the social act has been neglected, and that without this theory, the concept of taking the attitude of the other is inexplicable and the contemporary relevance of the concept of the significant symbol is obfuscated. The paper traces the development of the social act out of Dewey's theory of the act. According to Mead, Dewey's theory does not sufficiently account for consciousness. Grappling with this problematic leads Mead to several key ideas, which culminate in his theory of the social act. The social act and taking the attitude of the other are then illustrated by the analysis of a game of football. The interpretation presented has two novel aspects: first, symbolisation arises not simply through self taking the attitude of the other, but through the pairing of this attitude with the complementary attitude in self; second, self is able to take the attitude of the other to the extent that self has in actuality or in imagination previously been in the social position of the other. From this standpoint the key issue is how the attitude of self and other become integrated. New directions for empirical research, aimed at advancing this question are outlined. Finally, the paper shows how the social act can contribute to our contemporary concerns about the nature of the symbolic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theory of autopoiesis, that is systems that areself-producingorself-constructing, was originally developed to explain the particular nature oflivingas opposed to non-living entities. It was subsequently enlarged to encompass cognition and language leading to what is known as second-order cybernetics. However, as with earlier biological theories, many authors have tried to extend the domain of the theory to encompass social systems, the most notable being Luhmann. The pur-pose of this paper is to consider critically the extent to which the theory of autopoiesis, as originally defined, can be applied to social systems-that is, whether social systems are autopoietic. And, if it cannot, whether some weaker version might be appropriate. It addresses this question by considering whether autopoiesis can be applied to the theoretical conceptions of Giddens and Bhaskar. It follows an earlier paper that evaluated Luhmann's autopoietic social theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the questions: What has work published in Sociology of Health and Illness contributed to our understanding of ‘healthcare organisation’? What are the key research issues for the future? The paper reviews past articles with these questions in mind and uses the first issue of the Journal as a starting point for identifying themes and issues which have remained relevant throughout the first 25 years of its history. I argue that, though the disparate contributions in this area sometimes fail to build on earlier research, when read together they offer a valuable picture of a complex range of healthcare settings and their social organisation. The importance of insights gained from other areas of sociological work is emphasised and some significant examples are identified. The willingness to cross boundaries into other disciplines is also recognised as a strength and this is seen as an important issue for future research, as is increased attention to international comparative research. In similar vein the author argues that the multiplicity of methodological approaches allows the reader to weigh the value of different kinds of data and to look for common underlying patterns of action. It is suggested that future work could usefully revisit past studies, so that we consolidate and accumulate knowledge of the field and avoid a cycle where we continually retread old ground. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the implications for conceptualizing social action which arise from a consideration of whether human beings are capable of knowing ultimate (universal, unconditionally valid) values. This issue is framed within the view that the validity of our understanding of social action is inextricably linked with the validity of our conception of humankind: the scope and variety of social action has potentialities and limitations that are inscribed by the nature of human beings qua human beings. The paper suggests an enlargement, through the addition of a proposed conceptual tool, of the framework that comprises Weber's typology of social action. It argues that the common human properties of the person in whom social action is embedded should not arbitrarily exclude questions of the genesis of values. An analytical argument is put forward through an examination of the extent to which a faculty for values insights is implicated in Weber's concept of charisma and ethical analysis of political leadership. The notion of values-intuitive rational action is then outlined and discussed. The analytical argument is supported by theorizing from developmental psychology and examples of such action are given. Methodological difficulties in investigating the latter and the interrelationship of such action with institutional and social contexts are briefly discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares moral panic with the potential political catastrophes of a risk society. The aim of the comparison is threefold: 1. to establish the position of risk society threats alongside more conventional moral panics; 2. to examine the conceptual shifts that accompany the new types of threats; and 3. to outline the changing research agenda. The paper suggests that as new sites of social anxiety have emerged around environmental, nuclear, chemical and medical threats, the questions motivating moral panic research have lost much of their utility. Conceptually, it examines how the roulette dynamics of the risk society accidents expose hidden institutional violations that redound into 'hot potatoes' that are passed among and fumbled by various actors. Changing conceptions of folk devils, claims making activities, and of a safety are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research on which this paper is based is part of a wider study of quality assurance and the voluntary sector. The focus of this paper is on complaints procedures, as part of quality assurance mechanisms, where voluntary agencies are the contracted service providers. The authors argue that, with the introduction of contracting and particularly with its farther development, the way in which complaints mechanisms currently operate will need to be revised if they are to be an effective part the quality assurance process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents John Goldthorpe's response to several comments about his paper which analyzed the uses of history in sociology. According to Goldthorpe, his main concern was to show that history and sociology necessarily differed in the nature of the evidence that they used or, more precisely, in the ways in which this evidence came into being. He claims that in his paper, he emphasizes that historians cannot hope to produce descriptions that are free of general ideas about social action, process and structure. His argument concerning the differences in evidence available to historians and sociologists is that the latter have the possibility of engaging in research that itself generates evidence, over and above, not as distinct from, that of exploiting relics. Goldthorpe clarifies the argument with which his paper began was that (i) pace Abrams and Giddens, history and sociology are not the same thing; (ii) that one important way in which they differ is the nature of the evidence on which historians and sociologists draw; and (iii) that sociologists, in being able to generate their own data in the present, rather than being restricted to the relics of the past, are in a position of advantage that should be recognized and not given up without good reason.

This paper addresses the impact of class position on collective action by comparing workers' and business' associational organizability. Hypotheses on this are derived from class theory, collective action theory and organization theory. When examining them via a crossnational comparison of labor unions and business interest associations, class-specific differences arise: a higher organizability accrues to business interest associations in terms of the ability to recruit members, but to unions in terms of internalizing interests and making members comply. No theory's hypotheses are completely consistent with these findings. Their shortcomings are discussed, and a revised theoretical approach is developed. The paper's final section discusses some consequences of the observed differences for business' and unions' interest policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents additional thoughts about collective behavior with reference to two papers on the Kent State University incident which papers were written as applications of theory of collective behavior. The author developed this theory to establish general analytic relations among a set of variables that he had discovered to be important in the genesis of hundreds of episodes of collective behavior. One of the most original and strongest aspects of the theory was its emphasis on the behavior of agents of social control as determinants of the timing, content, direction, and outcomes of episodes of collective behavior. The author stressed social-structural aspects, but he underplayed the importance of psychological mechanisms in the dynamics of episodes of collective behavior. In this article, the author developed a few new thoughts about the psychological and organizational characteristics of collective behavior in reading the two papers. These thoughts are developed under three headings, strategies to fix blame and assign illegitimacy in episodes of conflict; the relations among different agents of social control as these influence the development of an episode; and shifts in the definition of the situation, and the implication of these shifts for the application of the value-added model.

In this introduction to the special issue, we describe some of the rewards and challenges of community-based arts initiatives for our discipline. We explore the inherent tensions between art and science that are reflected in community-based arts activities. We pose larger questions about researching community-based arts activities and defining the arts as a means of promoting social change. The diversity of populations, settings, and issues represented by the papers in the special issue are described and a common set of values, methods of inquiry and action are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Suicide as a form of political protest is a little studied social phenomenon that cannot be dismissed simply as being irrational or patholognomic. We consider protest suicide to be a meaningful social action as purposive political act intended to change oppressive policies or practices. This paper synthesizes theoretical propositions associated with suicide in general, and protest suicide in particular, so as to construct a general explanatory model of protest suicide as a social phenomenon. Then, it analyzes protest suicide as a meaningful social action. People considering protest suicide have to discern the logic of the situation in which such action is to take place. This involves answering two fundamental questions: Is suicide an acceptable course of social action? Is the envisaged protest suicide likely to achieve their hopes, aspirations and goals? How these questions are answered gives rise to a set of protest suicide archetypes. Our analysis generates a more sophisticated understanding of the potential reasons for, and motivations behind, protest suicide as a social phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how and when newspapers, environmental nongovernmental organizations, businesses, and the government converge on environmental events. Using data on the 2010 BP Oil Spill from newspaper articles in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, press releases by Greenpeace and Sierra Club, press releases by BP, Halliburton, Transocean, ExxonMobil, and Shell, and press statements by the White House Press Secretary, we examine an event’s potential to trigger convergence of social and political action. By treating events as political actants, we examine arguments from the agenda-setting and social movement literatures on timing, simplicity, and visuality to understand when political actors converge. We find that convergence is related to temporal cycles but not simplicity or visuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]