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This paper replies to Porpora, King, and Varela's responses to my earlier paper “For Emergence”, focussing on the relationship between the concepts of social structure and social relations. It recognises the importance of identifying the mechanisms responsible whenever we make claims for the emergence of causal powers, and discusses the mechanism underlying one case of social structure: normative institutions. It also shows how critical realism reconciles the claims that both social structures and human individuals have emergent causal powers that combine to produce actual social events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to explain why and how the middle class in Korea decisively joined the democratic movement in 1987 by drawing special attention to the role played by the “middling grassroots” (MG). MG was formed out of the common experience of student activism and contesting subcultures, which were widely dispersed over Korean university campuses during the 1980s. In addition, this paper examines the contrasting views on the Korean democratic transition by Bruce Cumings and Adam Przeworski. This substantive analysis attempts to show how such discord can be resolved by working out a mediating variable between action and social structure. It is suggested that the concept of MG is a good example of such a mediating variable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Marriage is a significant event in life-course of individuals, and creates a system that characterizes societal and economic structures. Marital patterns and dynamics over the years have changed a lot, with decreasing proportions of marriage, increased levels of divorce and co-habitation in developing countries. Although, such changes have been reported in African societies including Namibia, they have largely remained unexplained. Objectives and Methods: In this paper, we examined trends and patterns of marital status of women of marriageable age: 15 to 49 years, in Namibia using the 1992, 2000 and 2006 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data. Trends were established for selected demographic variables. Two binary logistic regression models for ever-married versus never married, and cohabitation versus married were fitted to establish factors associated with such nuptial systems. Further a multinomial logistic regression models, adjusted for bio-demographic and socio-economic variables, were fitted separately for each year, to establish determinants of type of union (never married, married and cohabitation). Results and Conclusions: Findings indicate a general change away from marriage, with a shift in singulate mean age at marriage. Cohabitation was prevalent among those less than 30 years of age, the odds were higher in urban areas and increased since 1992. Be as it may marriage remained a persistent nuptiality pattern, and common among the less educated and employed, but lower odds in urban areas. Results from multinomial model suggest that marital status was associated with age at marriage, total children born, region, place of residence, education level and religion. We conclude that marital patterns have undergone significant transformation over the past two decades in Namibia, with a coexistence of traditional marriage framework with co-habitation, and sizeable proportion remaining unmarried to the late 30s. A shift in the singulate mean age is becoming distinctive in the Namibian society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I sketch a model for the transition from biologically to culturally based forms of social organization. The impetus for the transition arises from increased individualization among the non-human primates that can be observed as one moves phylogenetically from the Cercopithecoids and Ceboids (Old and New World monkeys) to the hominoids, especially the African apes. Increased individualization introduced a conflict with coherent and stable social integration that was only resolved among the hominid ancestors to modern Homo sapiens by shifting to a cultural/conceptual, rather than a behavioral/biological, basis for social organization. The shift entailed a change from evolution driven by individual fitness to evolution driven by the structural coherency of a conceptual system for social organization; that is, to selection based on group, rather than individual, level traits. Conceptually the transition depended upon the evolution of mental capacities such as a theory of mind and recursion, both of which are absent or occur only in minimal form among the non-human primates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sen's capability approach has a culturally specific side, with capabilities influenced by social structures and institutions. Although Sen acknowledges this, he expresses his theory in individualistic terms and makes little allowance for culture or social structure. The present paper draws from recent social theory to discuss how the capability approach could be developed to give an explicit treatment of cultural and structural matters. Capabilities depend not only on entitlements but on institutional roles and personal relations: these can be represented openly if capabilities are disaggregated into individual, social and structural capacities. The three layers interact, and a full analysis of capabilities should consider them all. A stratified method implies that raising entitlements will not on its own be enough to enhance capabilities and that cultural and structural changes will be needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the sociological importance of popular class imagery has gained considerable attention in recent years, much empirical research continues to interpret class identifications and conceptions of class structure as evidence of fundamental class perspectives. This paper challenges the underlying assumptions of this position by directly examining popular sentiments about class and inequality. The results show that neither nominal class affiliations, nor conceptions of class structure, encompass ideologically homogeneous perspectives. Working and, especially, middle class identifications embrace diverse class sentiments, and these discrepancies within class affiliations are reinforced by differences in political preferences. Similarly, conceptions of a dichotomous class structure are not inevitably associated with particular class sentiments any more so than are conceptions of society as a graded hierarchy. In modem societies, where many traditional, ascriptive class barriers, distinctions and privileges have been eroded, class assumes a more fluid and indefinite meaning in social consciousness, diluting the links between class affiliations, conceptions of social structure, and class sentiments proper. In essence, class sentiments cannot be taken for granted, and require systematic investigation in their own right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes up the current discussion and disagreement among ethnomethodologists and conversation analysts concerning how conversation analysis should address questions of "social structure." It also discusses the question of whether conversation analysis can address questions concerning the organisation of "work" as developed in the "studies of work" program of ethnomethodologists. Five different types of ethnomethodological and conversation analytic studies are delineated in order to show that, although they differ in problem selection and formulation, methodological preference and foci, they are not incompatible but complementary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To fully comprehend changes in the process of educational attainment in a Society, we must acknowledge changes in the social structure. This paper examines changes in the Dutch educational attainment process over a 25-year period. We compare the attainment levels of two generations of students, those born around 1940 and those born around 1965. The analysis is conducted in two stages. In the first stage, we use a variant of multiple correspondence analysis to determine whether changes in the Dutch systems of labor, welfare, and education have affected levels of attainment. In the second stage, we measure changes in the attainment process using a simple version of the Wisconsin model. Results of the first analysis show that changes in Dutch society have affected the educational attainment of certain groups. For example, the modernization of agriculture has had a positive effect on the attainment of farmer's children, and the extension of the welfare system has had a negative effect on the attainment of children from welfare families. The results of the second analysis show that there has been considerable change in the attainment process. The effect of achievement score on selection into secondary school has increased, and the effects of sex and residence have decreased. However, this increase in meritocratic selection has been offset by an increase in the effect of social class on achievement score. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Avoiding macrostructural or individualistic explanations as to why homeless individuals cannot get off the streets, this paper examines the social structure of Street life as it impinges on a sample of homeless persons' chances of obtaining nonshelter housing. Specifically, by interviewing 42 homeless individuals about a housing grant offered by New York State and the possibility of obtaining shared housing arrangements with such a grant, this study documents possible ways in which the social relations homeless people have with institutions and each other may dash potential efforts to obtain nonshelter housing. The research finds that distrust of the homeless among landlords and a high level of contingency with respect to welfare cases interact with distrustful personal relations among the sample of homeless themselves to reduce the likelihood of successful utilization of the housing grant. Due to sample limitations, findings from this study cannot be generalized to all homeless; nonetheless they offer insight into a dynamic which may be similar to those at work among other homeless sub-populations as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a gestural theory for the origin of syntax, certainly one of the most difficult questions in the study of language origins. This proposal recognizes both visible and vocal gestures as having an evolutionary role but suggests that visible gestures played a special role in the emergence of syntax. The fundamental kernel of syntax is seen as inherent in visible gestural communication and available for extension by means of ordinary evolutionary processes. In manual gesturing, a hand (as agent) moves (what verbs imply) and may act on another part of the body (as patient). It is proposed, then, that the formation of a manual gesture entails a preadaptive elementary syntax. As gesture becomes linguistic sign, it carries with it the seed of the basic syntactic relationship—it refers and also relates. The social behavior of the hominids could have supplied conditions that enhanced the fitness of individuals and groups with increasingly sophisticated communication systems. The embryo sentences already present in gestural communication might then have constituted preadaptive behaviors available for extension into increasingly complex syntactic structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeological investigations on the margins of ‘high civilizations’ have traditionally been guided by the assumption that polities in such zones were peripheral to core states. This paper argues that this assumption obscures the multiple dimensions along which core/periphery distinctions can be measured and ignores the possibility of mutual influence and interdependence among interacting societies at all size and complexity levels. This confusion is particularly evident in the study of southeastern Mesoamerica (adjoining portions of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador), usually viewed as peripheral to lowland Maya core states during the Late Classic period (A.D. 600-950). In an attempt to advance the study of polities bordering complex and extensive sociopolitical systems, a general model is outlined which sets out to identify the different dimensions of peripherality and specify the conditions under which various sorts of core/periphery relations are likely to develop. Late Classic political, economic, demographic, and cultural patterns from the Naco Valley, northwestern Honduras, are then examined to determine how this area was linked to lowland Maya core states (represented here by Copan and Quirigua) and what effects these ties had on indigenous developments. The essay concludes with an overview of Late Classic lowland Maya/non-Maya interactions in the Southeast and some general suggestions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]