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Why do many social scientists use convoluted, bloated phrases that render their papers incomprehensible? This essay traces the urge to indulge in pompous ramblings by analysing the author's own undergraduate essays in political science. There, the impenetrable diction hides an inability to grasp the subject. Stylistic blunders, such as mixed metaphors and a recurring use of the passive, not only make for a bad read; they often distort the issue. Surprisingly, in this respect the author's early attempts at academic writing have a lot in common with more established works. But what is the link between social science and bad language? This essay examines the connection between awkward language and academic research conditions in the context of two recent developments: growing pressure to measure the quality of academic writing in quantitative terms, and a creeping elimination of unregimented reading experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Theorien multipler Differenzierung haben Konjunktur. Sie teilen die Annahme, die Gegenwartsgesellschaft sei durch mehr als eine Differenzierungsachse (z. B. funktionale Differenzierung oder vertikale Ungleichheit) charakterisiert. Solche Theorien thematisieren Anregungen sozialen Wandels höchst unterschiedlich. Der Beitrag unterscheidet drei Ausprägungen: (1) Anregungen als von eher historischem Interesse; (2) als inflationärer Dauerzustand; (3) als durch spezifische Modi (Kritik/Kooperation) ermöglicht. Die evolutionär-institutionalistische Perspektive Seth Abrutyns stellt demgegenüber ein Theorieangebot dar, das multiple Differenzierung auch als Ergebnis der Gestaltungsarbeit institutioneller Entrepreneure auffasst. Sie verzahnt multiple Differenzierung und Wandel unmittelbar. Dabei stellt sie die Überzeugungsarbeit solcher Wandelarchitekten in den Vordergrund und spielt Gestaltung und Evolution nicht gegeneinander aus. Abrutyns Rekonstruktion stoppt kurz vor der Gegenwartsgesellschaft. Hieran anschließend beleuchtet der Beitrag philanthropische Organisationen als zeitgenössische institutioneller Entrepreneure. Theories of multiple differentiation have been gaining momentum. They share the assumption that contemporary society is characterized by more than one axis of differentiation (e.g., functional differentiation or vertical inequality). Such theories address the instigation of social change in very different ways. The paper distinguishes three types: (1) instigating as of more historical interest; (2) disturbance as the usual case; (3) as enabled by specific modes (critique/cooperation). In contrast, Seth Abrutyn's evolutionary institutionalist perspective presents a theoretical proposition that conceives of multiple differentiation also as the result of the formative work of institutional entrepreneurs. It directly links multiple differentiation and change. In doing so, it foregrounds the persuasive work of such change architects and does not play design and evolution off against each other. Abrutyn's reconstruction ends shortly before the present society. Following this, the article sheds light on philanthropic organizations as contemporary institutional entrepreneurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Laments the fact that the social strata model is still being used as the focal point of contemporary educational sociology and inequality research. Proposes models used in research on lifestyles and milieus conducted within the framework of empirical social research as alternatives. Provides two studies that illustrate these proposed methods. (DSK)

In this paper, we use empirical material from a series of interviews with political dissidents in diaspora to elaborate on a potential concept of diaspora that allows a view beyond the experience of migration. From this perspective, we address diasporic continuities of subjectifications, political struggles, and solidarity alliances. We argue that this concept of diaspora can be applied to grasp complex subject experiences as well as new alliances as a reality within the plural German society. We point out that looking through the diasporic lens opens alternative analysis on dynamics of authoritarian rule and helps to formulate approaches of emancipatory social change beyond nation-state borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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A call for papers is presented for a conference entitled "Forschen mit dem Mikrozensus," on research on social structure and social change in Germany, to be held in Mannheim, Germany, from November 11-12, 2014.

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In order to understand today's social and political situation in East-Central Europe, one should examine in particular the consequences of post-socialist transformation. The negative and often very painful effects of the social changes that affected Central and Eastern Europe in the last three decades have not been overcome until today. This makes it all the more important to be better »prepared« philosophically for future social changes. François Jullien offers several suggestions for this. In the first part of my paper, taking Jullien's The Silent Transformations as a point of departure, I show that many of the problems that exist in East-Central Europe to this day result in large part from placing too much emphasis on the event of the revolution and too little on the transformation that occurred before its eyes. In the second and third parts, I indicate, pace Jullien, a way towards a moderate, »sober«, but nevertheless creative and productive understanding of the active agent by appealing to the work of Hans-Herbert Kögler and Fabian Heubel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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My paper will explore the interrelation between past, present and identity, as well as the dynamics of social change in contemporary German and Romanian literature, as exemplified by Jana Hensel's Zonenkinder (2002) and Ioana Bradea's Scotch (2010). Both authors belong to a new generation of writers who, having experienced the collapse of the communist regime as adolescents, investigate the traumatic experience of change and adjustment to the social, economic and cultural realities of post-communist societies. While Hensel aims at recreating the lost Heimat (motherland) as an Erinnerungsraum (space of remembrance) and portraying the social tensions of the post-unification decade from an Eastern German perspective, Bradea focuses on depicting the desolate post-communist industrial landscape, as well as the everyday lives of anonymous Romanians caught in the vagaries of transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Gerold Tietz was born in 1941 in Horka (north Bohemia) in a family of Sudeten Germans. Germans lived in this village together with Czechs, Roma people and Jews. The family also involved Czech relatives and many of German relatives spoke good Czech and kept relations with Czech cultural groups. After the war Gerold Tietz and his family were expelled to Swabia. He studied history, French and political science. From 1969 the graduated historian lived in Esslingen where he taught in the grammar school for thirty years. In the autobiographically oriented novels Böhmische Fuge (1997), Böhmisches Richtfest (2007) and in Böhmische Grätschen (2009) Tietz tried to depict official social-political events connected with famous political and cultural figures as well as the stories of ordinary days of “small people” who had to face the consequences of historic changes which influenced their lives. The paper analyses the conditions of Czech and German coexistence and confronts the authentic historic context. Nevertheless, negative features of these ethnic groups are not overlooked and the positive ones are presented as a positive contribution to the current European multiculturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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A study that is focussed on the conversion from the social sin and on the transformation of the social structures affected by sin must take into account not only the strictly religious and ecclesial field, but also the phenomena in socialcommunity life. According to the way in which the paradigm of the change of values in the society is interpreted and to the consequences that result from it on the realization and organization of life on a personal and social level, in this paper at first it is described a mostly optimistic thesis. In a second step, it is presented a thesis with rather pessimistic tendencies. Finally, a realistic thesis is analyzed, which emphasizes the ambivalence of changing values and highlights the significance of the synthesis of values for a good direction of life in modern society [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker treated the problematic implications of scientific-technological progress, emerging in the lifetime of his generation, under the key-word "ambivalence". Obviously it means a proto-theoretical, fuzzy concept that cannot be introduced explicitly per definition; starting with an intuitive perception, "ambivalence" should gradually gain meaning by using it in different argumentative contexts. Following a circular course (Kreisgang)--a procedure typical for Weizsäcker's style of thought--, he moves successively from explicit ambivalence in the application sphere of science through ambivalent features in scientists' behaviour and action up to the general ambivalence of human existence, disclosed only at an anthropological level of deliberation. The given paper delineates the ambivalence concept used by Weizsäcker during the 1960s and 1970s.

From 1970 to 1980 Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker headed the Max-Planck-lnstitut zur Erforschung der Lebensbedingungen der wissenschaftlich-technischen Welt (MPI for the study of the living conditions of the world of science and technology) in Starnberg, jointly with Jürgen Habermas since 1971. From the start, the Max Planck Society regarded the new institute as an experiment that might perhaps be aborted a few years later. This is exactly what happened. With the retirement of Weizsäcker, his section was closed and the whole institute was renamed. In 1981. Habermas resigned, and then the institute was closed. This paper focusses on some of the problem constellations within the institute that partly explain its development and eventual closure: its birth out of the idea of scientific policy advice, the debates within the Max Planck Society and the complex relationship between Weizsäcker and Jürgen Habermas.

This paper deals with changes in economic behaviour. It demonstrates how economic decision-making is formed by values and institutions, which provide a framework of economic processes. Changes in this framework appear as a result of human creativity and can be influenced by several kinds of policy measures (economic policy, educational policy, social policy). In a liberal society, such measures should aim at providing opportunities to participate in economic and social life for all citizens and at strengthening the link between liberty and responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlabelled: BACKGROUND AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS: In the current paper, it is analyzed whether the extent of loneliness of adults in the second half of their lives has changed between 1996 and 2008 in Germany. Because patterns of objective social integration have evolved differently in different birth cohorts (familial integration in earlier birth cohorts more fragile, more solid in later birth cohorts), we expected different trends in the extent of loneliness in different birth cohorts., Design and Methods: The three waves of the German Ageing Survey (DEAS) constitute the database for the analysis: 1996 (n = 3,979), 2002 (n = 2,766) and 2008 (n = 4,392). Loneliness was measured with the de Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale. The German Ageing Survey (DEAS) is a nationwide representative survey of the German population aged 40-85 years., Results: Only a minority of people report being very lonely in the second part of life. Between 1996 and 2008, there is a positive trend in the extent of loneliness in the second half of life, i.e., the prevalence of loneliness decreased during this period of time. From 1996 to 2008, the youngest respondents (40-54 years of age) and the middle aged respondents (55-69 years) demonstrated a decline from 1996 to 2002 followed by an increase in loneliness between 2002 and 2008. The oldest respondents (70-85 years of age) experienced a steady decline in loneliness. Gender differences (men are somewhat lonelier than women) remain stable between 1996 and 2008., Discussion and Conclusion: While people who are currently old are socially well integrated and, hence, experience loneliness only to a small degree, there is a higher risk for persons who are currently in middle adulthood because their social networks have become increasingly more fragile. Further changes have to be observed.

At first glance, the relationship between work and title appears to be exhausted: for works of art are unique specimens that exist unchanged over long periods of time, just like their titles. They offer unchanged models for interpretation, and extensive elucidations - in particular of classical - works are available. But experience shows that the view of a work changes during social developments. Linguistic expressions in titles are also subject to constant change of meaning. Any clarification of the relationship between the work and the title must therefore be made subject to modifications in both the interpretation of the work and the interpretive resources of the title. For this purpose, it is not surprising that a semiotic theory is used. With Rudi Keller's "pragmatic sign theory", a construct was chosen through which both sign systems, the visual and the textual language, become explicable and which ties the emergence of a sign to the (type of) interpretation (see chapter 2). Individual considerations of both areas of analysis reveal that interpretations of the work and the title proceed semioticaloay on different levels. They interact and merge to form a unit called "impression". This article is about the formation of such art impressions, more precisely: about the interplay between the interpretations of artworks and their titles. The basic hypothesis is that viewers of artworks use the titles as a resource for interpretation, and furthermore that artists (can) also use this experience to achieve or prevent possible impressions. In the form of selected case studies (see chapters 3 and 4 below), different interrelationships between works and their titles are illustrated to arrive at a synthesis of their manifold interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relating to a research project in the trans-Himalayan region of Ladakh, Northwest-India, the paper examines indications that the shamanic vocation and practice grew significantly in this region. The author tries to link this increase to severe psychological pressures imposed by the heavy presence of the Indian Army, political and administrative ties to the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir (with a predominantly Muslim population), and the region's status as a popular tourist destination. The paper argues that shamanic rituals performed by so-called oracles that embody deities of the Buddhist pantheon in trance (lhamo, lhapa) not only provide important services of healing and divination, they contribute significantly to medical prevention in times of growing competition and the deterioration of value systems. Turning from a local (Ladakh, the Tibetan Plateau) to a global perspective, it is further argued that the preventive function of shamanism has often been overlooked in previous ethnographic research and might be neglected by increasing efforts (also fostered by indigenous ritualists themselves) to establish and legitimize traditional ritual practices as part of modern health care systems which might eventually lead to the medicalization of traditional ceremonies--in short: "shamans do a lot more than just heal people".

Within the field of interdisciplinary sustainability science, the popular concept of change agents has been only vaguely theorised. In the current debate, neither sociological theories of practice nor the level of participation required for a transformation towards sustainability are considered. On the basis of a qualitative analysis of change agents in two districts of the city of Cologne, as well as Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice, this paper aspires to provide a sociological substantiation of the concept of change agents. The availability of social and/or economic capital, time, and a mental disposition for change are identified as prerequisites for actors to evoke social change. More than half of the analysed change agents were directly or indirectly open to sustainability issues. Here, for urban sustainable development, lies a potential to integrate actors beyond the traditional sustainability community and build on local social networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until today, it is still unexplored, how modern (scientific) medicine in Western Germany could negotiate its social position in the public sphere and how it was represented in the media. This paper will contribute to the analysis of this problem by investigating all entries on "medicine" in the journal "Der Spiegel" during the period 1947 to 1955, when Western Germany was built up. It is possible to show that the journal was a market place where specific public spheres as e.g. physicians, patients or journalists could discuss medical topics. This way, on the one hand, "Der Spiegel" grasped contemporary notions on medicine and the medical market, which made itself felt in later years of Western Germany. On the other hand, the journal itself molded the discussions about a scientific medicine, which was to be not only innovative but also democratic.

This explorative paper analyses the Allgemeine Homiopathische Zeitung (AHZ) in the 1950ies and 1960ies, paying particular attention to how the homoeopathic physicians who published there commented on modernity in medicine and society. Toxicology, endocrinology, cybernetics and neural therapy were discussed by them as possible links with biomedicine. Modern civilization was mainly portrayed as pathogenic, but sometimes that very fact was seen as a chance for homoeopathy. Also, many authors of the AHZ had a positive view on some aspects of modern medicine and technology. The paper ends by discussing possibilities for further research in contemporary history based on journal publications by homoeopathic doctors.

From the development of architecture over more than a century we can infer the development of society. Especially in the construction of hospitals reflects social history that is determined by the progress of medical knowledge and techniques. This progress calls for reconsidering and changing conceptions of the construction of hospitals. This paper gives a representative overview of impacts on hospital construction and presents significant, path-breaking projects of the respective time. First it describes the basic principles of hospital construction dating from the 19th century, and then it discusses the influences on modern ways between 1900 and 1945.The next chapters are dedicated to the buildings dating from 1970s and 1980s, and to some examples of the years after 2000. Finally an outlook into the future is given.

Demographic change, limited financial resources and increasing social exclusion of individuals suffering chronic illness are major challenges for health and social systems in general and for psychiatry in particular. The paper analyses to what extent social psychiatric research currently addresses this challenges. Future perspectives are discussed, exploring the relationship of clinical neuroscience and social psychiatry.

The question investigated in the presented paper is whether crime is discussed differently in the media of former East and West Germany, how it is weighted and whether the real crime situation provides an explanation for any differences in press coverage. The study showed that there are no significant differences in the press coverage and that violent crime is not overrepresented. Coverage of offences like robbery, damage to property, sexual assaults or bodily injury, which are also categorized as violent crime, was of average frequency, so that again there was no overrepresentation in the newspapers of the two cities compared in this study (Stuttgart and Dresden). Surprisingly, sexual offences such as rape or sexual abuse played a minor role in the daily newspapers. Further interesting results of the analysis were that offences in the field of "intelligent crime" (e. g. white-collar crime) were of no importance in the print media, whereas the number of reports on crimes for which the general public assumes a higher probability to become a victim itself (e. g. burglary and robbery) was disproportionately high in relation to the recorded number of cases. Reports on drug offences played a more important role in the newspapers analyzed by us than violent crime.

The conditions for becoming adult have changed perceptibly for young people in the course of social modernization processes. Adolescents find themselves in increasingly complex and contradictory areas of life which offer them more choices of action, but also require of them more self-organisation and more decision-making processes in uncertain conditions. The adolescents primarily at risk of failing due to the changes in learning- and development-related tasks are those denied access to necessary coping resources. Owing to the profound effects of social change (for example, changed forms of family life, increased educational pressure) it can generally be assumed that young people have an intensified counselling need. Against this background, the present paper examines which new requirements for action arise in the institutionalized counselling of adolescents. In regard to this, hints are provided in the results of an evaluation study by the present author, within the scope of which adolescents were interviewed about their counselling experiences. Finally, counselling approaches are described which can contribute to facilitating access for young clients, and to structuring counselling in a more suitable way for adolescents (peer counselling).

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As opposed to scientific psychiatry, social psychiatry draws its resources from sociological sources and must continuously adapt its self-image and concept of action to changes in society. Sociological analysis of the present describes dramatic changes in society, which also have consequences for the subject's mastering of everyday routines and formation of identity. As opposed to neo-liberal promises of sheer limitless new opportunities, respectable interpretations of current times describe an ambivalent process that by far does not positively effect all groups in society, and in fact increases the danger of social exclusion. Exclusionary processes particularly affect persons, who do not fulfill the new requirements of hyper flexibility, mobility and allround fitness. Justifiably the question arises whether these requirements themselves induce the destruction of personality. This brings up the question if there is an alternative to the neoliberal view of humankind. This paper picks up the idea of a civil society centered on an individual and recalcitrant subject.

Compared to the well-established concept "vulnerability", there has been less research on "social vulnerability", particularly with respect to highly developed welfare states. Conducting an in-depth study on the consequences of the 2002 Elbe flood in three German communities, the paper tests the applicability of the concept of social vulnerability in a European context. The research was based on the assumption that it is an expression of social inequality. Yet, socially vulnerable groups were not clearly distinguishable. This does not suggest, however, that social vulnerability is not relevant in the European context. Rather, it is the outcome of a complex web of drivers that are of both social and contextual origin. Three implications are outlined for future studies: the need to integrate top-down and bottom-up oriented approaches to assess social vulnerability, to embed our understanding of social vulnerability better in overall societal transformation processes, and to consider existing governance and management systems and their inter-relations as well as their consequences for social vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the fact that there are not only large inequalities in health between but also within countries. The question is raised as to whether these two types of health inequalities are caused by similar processes, and whether understanding these processes could lead to new strategies for reducing such differences. Many studies in Germany have demonstrated that mortality and morbidity are much higher for low-status as compared to high-status population groups. These health inequalities are usually explained by differences in working and living conditions, in health behaviour and in health services utilisation. For some years there has been an extensive discussion in the international Public Health community on health inequalities between countries and on how they can be explained by income inequalities, with the term "social capital" becoming a central issue. This debate has been largely neglected in Germany, but such groundwork now offers an important opportunity for a more comprehensive discussion in this country as well.

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