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C. Wright Mills' The Sociological Imagination (1959) represents one of the most influential texts of postwar American sociology. The title has become a catchphrase that stands for a style of thought that transcends both theoretical dogma and the constraints of mere methodological rule following. This article sets out to show that Mills' vision of the sociological imagination had more in common with the then dominant lines of scholarship than his broadside against Parsonian grand theory and Lazarsfeldian abstracted empiricism in the main part of the book would suggest. Among the tools that Mills introduced as fostering the sociological imagination were 2 × 2 tables. The article traces the use of such tables over time and across scholarly communities and shows that, contrary to Mills' own estimate, these tables describe a common nexus between his own work and that of Parsons and Lazarsfeld. All three scholars made ample use of this formal tool to construct sociological arguments at central places of their oeuvre. Given its shared use across otherwise divergent schools, the 2 × 2 table is a prime example for what historians of science have called paper tools, i.e. statistical formulas, algorithms, tables, diagrams, graphs, etc., that structure scientific research across different schools of thought and theoretical approaches. Drawing on the notion of paper tools, the article advances a post-Kuhnian perspective on the history of sociology that shifts the research focus from substantive ideas to formal tools and demonstrates elements of commensurability among presumably incommensurable schools of thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The multiple problems that the planet is currently experiencing—climate crisis, conventional and unconventional wars, planetary disenchantment with political systems, growth of inequality, increase in all kinds of intersectional violence, destructuring of the political economy of morality, etc.—are not a favorable scenario for thinking about hope. This paper nevertheless offers a summary presentation of the sociology of hope, presenting some of its central sources and components as well as a proposed study agenda for the future. This article seeks to foster discussion of what could be the central axes of a sociology of hope. To achieve this purpose, the following argumentative strategy was chosen: (a) the "place" of hope is explored in some classics of sociology, (b) the central components of a sociological investigation of hope are synthesized, and (c) an agenda is presented as a summary for a future development of a sociology of hope. The article seeks to draw attention to the urgency of hope as an important element for the future of sociology and social sciences in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article shows, first, how Sociology has approached the concepts of "hope" and "war" and how throughout the history of the discipline these terms have gone from being neglected to arousing considerable interest. Second, the paper analyzes how and why avant-garde artists understood the First World War as a motif of utopian hope to annihilate a civilization in crisis and to transform it through its aesthetic formalization. Third, the essay tries to find out whether that hope was preserved over time or, on the contrary, was soon dissolved as a result of the drama of the events. It is shown here that the savagery of the fighting dissolved all European values of modernity and progress, including artistic ones. In fact, theoretical and stylistic conceptions, aesthetic categories, ethical postulates, and artists' aspirations for conscience to rule the world were blurred. For the artistic avant-garde, utopian promises of a better world broke down. Consequently, this obliges sociologists to pay more attention to both phenomena—that of the war and that of the avant-garde—and to seek a more objective and critical interpretation of modernity, calling for its actualization, and of Sociology itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the idea of sociological film that encourages sociological imagination, which refers to the capability to recognize the intersection of biography and history. The paper identifies six key dimensions of sociological film through a thematic analysis of different classic approaches to sociological imagination: sociological life, structure-actors relationship, critical perspective, academic awareness, fluidity of meaning, and promotion of sociological imagination. This paper provides concrete examples to demonstrate the distinctive features of sociological film and how it relates to, and differs from, other films that address social issues, including documentary films. The paper argues that sociological film is essential in fostering sociological imagination by offering a unique lens for analyzing and understanding social phenomena. Sociological film has the potential to inspire social change by increasing awareness about significant social issues and promoting critical thinking and reflection. The paper concludes by emphasizing the significance of collaboration between sociologists and filmmakers in advancing sociological imagination through the medium of sociological films. It highlights the importance of actively engaging with the public in visual research methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In educational research, there has been much stricture of neoliberalism as a scourge. In the higher education sector, the neoliberal turn has been observed as eroding academic freedom and deprofessionalising academics. Early career academics are often described as victims of neoliberalism. In this paper, we take a positive perspective through a deep dive into resilience that enables self-transformation and, potentially, system change. Our paper is situated in the Chinese higher education context where the "up-or-out" system has been put in place, mirroring the neoliberal university at a global range. We — a mid-career researcher and an early career academic — analyse our collective narratives generated through WeChat text and voice message. Drawing insight from Bourdieu's reflexive sociology, our narratives lead to four themes: capital accumulation and self-transformation, shaping the publication habitus, emancipation from symbolic violence, and resilience to symbolic domination. We conclude the paper with a call for sociology of resilience and recommendations for deneoliberalising higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the Amherst papers in relation to development of Parsons' theory. A careful analysis of the Amherst papers reveals that the basic ideas and philosophical principles that Parsons followed throughout his life were already in place, some more fully developed than others, yet forming an integrally coherent pattern to a surprising degree. The clear existence in Parsons's Amherst papers of a metatheoretical framework predating his later professional writing calls into question some still existing myths about radical breaks in the development of Parsons's theory. In one version of this mythology, Parsons began his theory as a voluntarist, then became a structural-functionalist, later moved on to become a systems-theorist and ended up as a social evolutionist. Despite such claims, Parsons always was a voluntarist, even during his so-called structural-functionalist middle period. The Amherst papers reveal an amazingly complex and logically coherent theoretical system-in the mind of a twenty-year-young man-and testify to an extraordinary scope of philosophical depth, and intellectual maturity.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the recent body of research exploring strategic positioning, and the processes and factors which influence the development and content of university strategies and plans, with lessons then applied to open questions of institutional diversity and its determinants. Following a sector level analysis of the contents of university positioning documents, an in-depth case study is developed of a large Australian university, where the interaction of intra-institutional 'meso' layers is explored to show a confluence of factors contributing to positioning. The case demonstrates that institutional positioning involves the selective crafting of narratives for multiple purposes, including the seeking and portrayal of internal cohesion, identity enhancement, and resource seeking. Importantly, while cross-institutional comparison of positioning narratives portrays an undifferentiated and somewhat homogenous sector, positioning is found within the case institution to obscure what is significant internal diversity and complexity. The implications of these findings for research exploring institutional diversity, and policies seeking to stimulate it, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contribution is based on Robert Bellah's introduction to Emile Durkheim on Morality and Society (1973) and second on other references to the French sociologist in Bellah's work as well as in Bortolini's insightful remarks on the "homology" between Durkheim and Bellah. The publication of the book took place in a time of Durkheimian effervescence: Steven Lukes' Emile Durkheim.His Life and Work was published on the same year and a new Durkheimology appeared in the English-speaking world: attention shifted from methodology, as expressed in Suicide or in the Rules of Sociological Method, to morality with a focus on the moral basis on a non-pathological society. Bellah's statement is quite strong: Durkheim can "be seen as a theologian of French civil religion". The paper will examine's this point of view with respect to the state of French society at the turn of the century and Durkheim's social project. One side question concerns the choice of texts: the editor did not give enough weight to texts that might have strengthen Bellah's point of view, particularly l'Education morale. Bortolini mentions Bob's long and silent work on Durkheim and his critique of mainstream analysis of The Elementary forms of Religious Life, reducing religion to a mere projection of society (:142). The biographer insists on the ambivalent, if not contradictory, vision of Durkheim in Bellah's work, in which he finds a key to the interpretation of the oeuvre. The article focuses on how to account for its complexity, which is never as clear as in the interpretation of Durkheim's sociology in a post-rationalist direction. Bortolini's concept of role model/hero incarnated by the founding fathers (here Weber and Durkheim) is analyzed in connection with Parsons' reconstitution of a pantheon. The question of civil religion is reexamined in the light of the transatlantic transfers carrying different meanings of civil religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on a paper by David Jenness, which focused on the efforts of the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA) in organizing the social sciences in their own interest. The future of federal support for sociology will depend on the continued mobilization efforts of COSSA and upon public recognition of sociological contributions to the realization of two prime sets of values. Much has been written since 1981, when Reaganism became the guiding hand and official ideology at the federal level, of the need for new academic-industry partnerships. Most often, research training and subject-matter expertise were the initial factors to employment. Marketable skills opened opportunities that would have been shut to someone simply proclaiming sociology as his or her trade or profession. The virtues of a range of sociological skills are recognized much more readily: for information and intelligence, for systems analysis and design, for social trend analysis and forecasting, and in general for systematic scouting of the environment within which organized efforts in the public and private sectors operate, flourish, or decline. Herbert Costner once referred to this aspect of applied work as reconnaissance sociology.

The 1950s saw the emergence of the science-driven model of engineering education. In the following decades, the model has been continuously challenged to incorporate aspects such as liberal arts, information & communication technology, design, entrepreneurship, innovation, sustainability, industry 4.0, and more recently, online-learning. This has triggered several initiatives at institutional and national levels, and manifested in approaches and practices for transforming engineering education. One approach that appears to be gaining attention is design-centric engineering, with its emphasis on learning-by-doing, product design and entrepreneurial orientation. While literature points to several variants of design-centric engineering and challenges in implementation, it also calls for more empirical studies and deeper theoretical inquiry into the contradictions and paradoxes that this approach might present to the students at the micro-level, and guidance on how they might make sense and find pathways of action jointly with internal and external stakeholders. This paper throws light on the contradictions and paradoxes experienced by undergraduate engineering students while implementing a design-centric engineering program at a young public-funded institute in India, involving approximately 1500+ students over a period of six years. The paper also discusses the theoretical and pragmatic aspects of the approach adopted to encourage students to make sense of the contradictions and paradoxes, namely: (a) leveraging the affordance offered by one of the courses in the program—"Sociology of Design—to synthesize engineering, design and sociological perspectives; (b) turning the contradictions and paradoxes into sources of learning and change, informed by the theory of complex responsive processes; and (c) application of multiple methods such as rich pictures, reflective writing, self-organized interactions and data analysis to enable sense-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on 38 in-depth, qualitative interviews, this article explores how people working in the equality sector in England and Wales view and use the current law around sex and gender, and how they imagine law's future, particularly potential decertification, where the state would withdraw from certifying and regulating a person's sex/gender. Whilst situated in the bureaucratic strand of the literature, the paper also contributes to wider legal consciousness studies. This literature has generally focused on people's relationships to law in terms of domination, alienation and game-playing. Drawing on idioms and the language of touch, the paper unpacks the way in which equality actors talked about law not as remote or alienating, but as close and familiar; not as oppressive, but as "precious" and hard-won. Some also regarded law as a place of safety in unsafe times. These proposed 'attached to law' and 'protective of law' strands of consciousness enrich and extend Ewick and Silbey's classic 'before the law' narrative. The findings are also useful for critical legal and feminist scholarship. Combined with the equality sector's pragmatic and tactical use of law to problem-solve, this close and protective orientation towards law reproduces its hegemony. The paper concludes by exploring a recurrent refrain that, in relation to decertification, "we're not there yet" and that gender equality would need to be achieved before decertification would "fly". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guy Oakes, in one of his introductions to his translations of Max Weber, points out that it is surprising that Weber wrote so many epistemological essays, given his principled preference for substantive work. The use of the historical individual and the ideal type specifies the principles of selection of the problem to be investigated, always with reference to the value relevance of a historian and his age. Thus, the historical individual and the ideal type are constructed by the investigator to create a relatively standard criterion for selecting the facts that in total are infinitely richer than the historical individual or the type itself. Their use can only reveal aspects of empirical reality from the standpoint of a value-relevant problem, but they can never reveal the total reality itself.

In a recently published personal reminiscence of Robert E. Park that also contains a subtle critique of his place among the master-thinkers of the sociological discipline, Edward Shils asserts that Park's work would have had a longer life if he had been able to draw on Max Weber's certain writings. and if he had studied and pondered writings of other such thinkers. Of course, Park was not unaware of Weber's verstehende sociology--he referred to it in one of his writings in the 1930s--nor was he ignorant of the contributions of other social thinkers. In the social sciences in general and sociology in particular, research is all too often associated with the transmogrification of knowledge into numbers and the reification of the latter into the simulacra of theory. Park's career as an academician was confounded by this disciplinary hubris. At the turn of the nineteenth century, as sociology emerged from its immersion in German romantic philosophy, its academicians still clung to its baptism in American Protestant thought, seeking to infuse the latter with the trappings of positive science. In any event, a transvalued and secularizing sociology would have to come to terms with the existence of evil in the world.

The article focuses on the relevance of communication studies for human sciences. Communication studies is often proposed as a synthetic approach to the human sciences outright, an interdisciplinary inquiry capable of linking the researches of specialized human sciences to the philosophical foundations of the project of human scientific inquiry itself. The author says that from the standpoint of the relation between philosophy and the human sciences, the constitution of perception, institutions and thought by media of communication is the thesis proper to communication studies, the thesis from which its larger significance derives. According to the author, by describing the precise point at which a theory of communication diverges from a theory of scientific meaning, it is possible to note a significant convergence between phenomenology and a Marxist critique of a semiotic theory of language.

The article presents responses of the author on his books published in the 1985 issue of the journal "Human Studies." He holds that both scholarly and biographically significant point behind his work A Bergsonian Bridge to Phenomenological Psychology is the following, in 1924, before starting this endeavor, sociologist Alfred Schutz had looked at sociologist Edmund Husserl's early phenomenological writings but found that they had nothing to contribute to what he had planned to do namely, to give Max Weber's sociology of understanding a pheno-psychological underpinning which, in his opinion, they needed in order not only to be made consistent but also in order to provide them with a justification deeper than that which could be provided by sociological reasoning. The author confesses that his book Phenomenology of Consciousness and Sociology of the Life-World is his favorite. He agrees with his critics who have pointed out the book does not cover, or at least does not emphasize evenly all topics which should be treated in an advanced and reasonably sophisticated introduction to the areas of its thematic concerns.

This paper is a quantitative analysis of the data collected globally by the World Value Survey. The data is used to study the trajectories of change in individuals' religious beliefs, values, and behaviors in societies. Utilizing random forest, we aim to identify the key factors of religiosity and classify respondents of the survey as religious and non-religious using country-level data. We use resampling techniques to balance the data and improve imbalanced learning performance metrics. The results of the variable importance analysis suggest that Age and Income are the most important variables in the majority of countries. The results are discussed with fundamental sociological theories regarding religion and human behavior. This study is an application of machine learning in identifying the underlying patterns in the data of 30 countries participating in the World Value Survey. The results from variable importance analysis and classification of imbalanced data provide valuable insights beneficial to theoreticians and researchers of social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study identified the 100 most impactful global contributors to religion journals and mapped their respective disciplinary affiliations. To conduct this investigation, we performed a secondary data analysis of a Scopus-derived database featuring the world's leading scientists. The mean contributor published 51.93 papers, had an h-index of 13.57, and an hm-index 11.50. Most contributors were located in the USA with the most common disciplinary affiliations being religion, non-specialized (n = 22), sociology, non-specialized (n = 21), sociology of religion (n = 20), and theology (n = 11). The results reveal that religion discourse is populated by some of the leading scholars in the world. Leveraging their expertise can help advance the field's knowledge development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sociologies of quantification, university rankings, and infrastructure are a loosely connected set of scholarly endeavors. Research in these areas typically examines production of certain types of quantification, their effects, and institutionalization. Despite these commonalities, scholars have noted a lack of conceptual coherence, debates on how to study quantification, a need to examine their socio-epistemological prerequisites, and research that crosses organization and national boundaries. In this paper, I argue that institutional ethnography—an alternative sociology for people—provides a unifying ontology for the sociology of quantification and studies of rankings and metrics in higher education. Institutional ethnography examines socio-epistemological prerequisites of quantification and facilitates a collaborative transnational project due to its focus on the extra local coordination of action. I also share results of the first transnational institutional ethnography of university rankings and related metrics, demonstrating coordinated action across several junctures of what has been called a global university ranking surveillance assemblage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American sociologist C. Wright Mills is one of the most important and controversial sociologists of the post-war period. Of Mills' works, one book stands out: The Sociological Imagination, published by Oxford University Press in 1959. Little known is that Mills drafted his book during a 12-month Fulbright visit to University of Copenhagen 1956-1957. In the rich biographical literature on Mills this is mentioned only in the passing, or not at all. Based on hitherto unused archival material, this paper offers the first detailed account of his Copenhagen-visit during the Cold War. Bringing together this bulk of new historical traces sheds new light on the year Mills himself referred to as a "pivotal moment." These 12 months in Copenhagen, amid the Cold War, was formative for Mills in two ways: First, Copenhagen was an entrepot to European center-left thinking both east and west of the Iron Curtain. Second, the stay in Copenhagen offered a 'space of selfhood', allowing Mills a necessary respite to develop his critical thinking. He did so in close cooperation with like-minded colleagues in Copenhagen. In the mid-1950s, the discipline was in the making in Denmark, and the visit of a prominent US scholar like Mills offered opportunities for Danish sociologist to further the discipline – and their standing within the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central thesis of this paper is that human unconscious processes influence the behavior and design of artificial intelligence (AI). This thesis is discussed through the case study of a chatbot called Replika, which intends to provide psychological assistance and friendship but has been accused of inciting murder and suicide. Replika originated from a trauma and a work of mourning lived by its creator. The traces of these unconscious dynamics can be detected in the design of the app and the narratives about it. Therefore, a process of de-psychologization and de-humanization of the unconscious takes place through AI. This psychosocial approach helps criticize and overcome the so-called "standard model of intelligence" shared by most AI researchers. It facilitates a new interpretation of some classic problems in AI, such as control and responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue gathers empirical papers that develop and employ digital ethnographic methods to answer core sociological questions related to community, culture, urban life, violence, activism, professional identity, health, and sociality. Each paper, in its own right, offers key sociological insights, and as a collection, this special issue demonstrates the need to bring ethnographic methods to digital communities, interactions, practices, and tools. Both as a topic and a methodological approach, "the digital" points us to the need to update, rethink, and grow qualitative sociology. The exemplary papers comprising this special issue exhibit this curiosity and expansiveness, with lessons and implications for an interdisciplinary set of fields and research problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the interrelations between academic disciplines and society beyond academia by the case of sociology in Norway. For that purpose, this paper introduces the concept of disciplines' societal territories, which refer to bounded societal spaces that are shaped by the knowledge of a discipline, premised on the linkages between the discipline and its audience. By mapping sociologists' reported contributions to societal changes beyond academia, the paper firstly shows how societal territories are established by sociologists' recurring engagement with certain topics and research users. Secondly, it traces the interactions between researchers and their users, and identifies four ideal typical pathways by which the cognitive territory of Norwegian sociology is transformed into societal territories. A key observation is that the establishment of societal territories is co-determined by the structures of research use among its audience. As for the case of sociology in Norway, questions therefore arise over the interdependency between sociologists as knowledge 'suppliers' and the 'demand side' for research, and the autonomy of the sociological discipline in selecting its focus of attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the ways in which men protect a masculine ideal as they discuss Military Sexual Assault. Rape is an under-reported crime, but significantly less likely reported by men who have been sexually assaulted. The Department of Defense released a report indicating a higher-than-expected number of reports of male-on-male sexual assault. Sexual assault in the military, referred to as Military Sexual Trauma (MST), is complicated by a rigid hierarchical system. I use Critical Discourse Analysis to analyze Reddit extracts made by military men discussing military sexual trauma, some of whom are victims. Forms of gender capital, represented through features of masculine discourse, are present in these extracts. Victimized men are less likely to use the word "rape" to define the experience and focus on other terminology that identify the violence of the experience or the structural dominance that demanded their compliance. In cases of military sexual assault, men reinforce hegemonic elements of gender capital by discursively evading sexual aspects of the violence and affirming homosexism, to distance themselves from the femininity they associate with being sexually violated. Militarized masculinities and their expectations demonstrate an unique relationship between men and their own victimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that the French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) decided to constitute sociology, a novel field, as 'scientific' early in his career. He adopted evolutionized biology as then practiced as his principal model of science, but at first wavered between alternative repertoires of concepts, models, metaphors and analogies, in particular Spencerian Lamarckism and French neo-Lamarckism. I show how Durkheim came to fashion a particular deployment of the French neo-Lamarckian repertoire. The paper describes and analyzes this repertoire and explicates how it might have been available to a non-biologist. I analyze Durkheim's very early writings between 1882 and 1892 in this context to substantiate my argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented on sociologists conceptualizing and studying hope along with several other papers on diverse topics. Topics include refection on the state of historical consciousness in U.S. sociology, and a discussion of the recent trend toward the pre-registration and registration of research designs; and study of "social pathology" such as poverty, illness, racial/ethnic discrimination.

In 2000, a controversial article about hormones and gender roles was published to stimulate debate about whether and how biological knowledge should be integrated in sociological research. Two decades later, this so-called biosociology debate is more relevant than ever, as biological knowledge has become widespread across societies and scientific disciplines. Hence, we as sociologists are regularly confronted with biological explanations that challenge our own explanations. Whether this happens in the scientific arena, the classroom, media, or even at social events, these situations often force us, individually, to take a stance on whether to meet such explanations with dialogue or opposition. One could therefore expect that sociologists have an interest in discussing these issues with their peers, but their lack of participation in the biosociology debate suggests otherwise. This paper explores possible reasons for this absence and how sociologists' views on biosociology are influenced by key agents – sociological associations and journals. Smith's "A Sacred project of American Sociology", and Scott's "A Sociology of Nothing" served as theoretical tools in the paper. A qualitative content analysis of presidential addresses of four sociological associations was conducted. The analyses suggest that sociologist avoid biosociology for widely different reasons, including fear that biosociology legitimizes oppression. This avoidance is probably reinforced by the leftish politization of the sociological discipline and the rightish politization of society. Overcoming obstacles to engagement in biosociology is required to safeguard the scientific integrity of sociology and enable sociologists to provide relevant contributions to research on the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this paper is to provide a biographical sketch of the late Hans L. Zetterberg and a historical background to a translation of an essay based on a lecture given by Zetterberg in Stockholm in 1995. In it, he recounts his time at the Department of Sociology at Columbia University in the years 1953–1964. This essay is full of insights into an inspiring and formative period for Zetterberg in the United States, particularly in the stimulating milieu that was Columbia, at this time the center of American sociology led by Robert K. Merton and Paul Lazarsfeld. In the introduction to this translated essay, I give a brief overview of the establishment of sociology as a discipline in Sweden, and the transfer of knowledge between the United States and Sweden (and Europe, more broadly), embodied in Hans Zetterberg. In the post-WWII years, American sociology, which had a strong positivistic imprint, played an important role in shaping the beginnings of Swedish sociology. However, the transfer of knowledge went both ways, with Zetterberg, a semi-central and often neglected figure, being both a significant contributor to sociology at Columbia in its period of greatest prominence, and in his native Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides insights on the contemporary relevance of Talcott Parsons's writings by analyzing 20 textbooks from Austria, Germany, Great Britain and the United States, published in 1999–2019. Whether having knowledge of Parsons is helpful to today's students and other interested readers, and what knowledge, deserves consideration. Therefore , the paper asks: Which future gains of readers did textbook authors envision when they chose, in their own present, to discuss (or not) sociological writings from long ago? In order to understand what future opportunities authors wanted to create for readers, as well as how they chose to discuss Parsons to this end, the paper draws on Niklas Luhmann's notion of memory. The analysis reveals several key competencies that student and other interested readers might acquire through having knowledge of Parsons' writings and its critiques. These potentials would have gone unnoticed if authors had assessed Parsons's relevance only according to whether he adequately considered conflict or not, as has been done in many debates about his work until today. Moreover, through analyzing how authors remembered Parsons, I distilled two key selective criteria: First, what must be remembered in order to enable readers to acquire those competencies? Second, which memories would be impeding for readers and thus be better left out? These criteria are relevant for research, as well. Looking at the future, it would be desirable that sociologists let Parsons assist them in their research in many different ways, if possible. As a result, we might see a revival of Parsons that enables genuine advancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Profit-oriented service sectors such as tourism, hospitality, and entertainment are increasingly looking at how professional service robots can be integrated into the workplace to perform socio-cognitive tasks that were previously reserved for humans. This is a work in which social and labor sciences recognize the principle role of emotions. However, the models and narratives of emotions that drive research, design, and deployment of service robots in human–robot interaction differ considerably from how emotions are framed in the sociology of labor and feminist studies of service work. In this paper, we explore these tensions through the concepts of affective and emotional labor, and outline key insights these concepts offer for the design and evaluation of professional service robots. Taken together, an emphasis on interactionist approaches to emotions and on the demands of affective labor, leads us to argue that service employees are under-represented in existing studies in human–robot interaction. To address this, we outline how participatory design and value-sensitive design approaches can be applied as complimentary methodological frameworks that include service employees as vital stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In plotting the course for the discipline of sociology, sociologists over the past two decades have called for the practice of "public sociology" (Burawoy in American Sociological Review, 70(1), 4–28, 2005), for disciplinary convergence around a critical methodology (Carroll in Canadian Review of Sociology, 50(1), 1–26, 2013) and the devotion of our scholarly efforts to issues of social justice (Romero in American Sociological Review,85(1), 1–30, 2020). While public, critical, and social justice-oriented work is important, these disciplinary mandates can serve to marginalize other types of sociological work that are valuable as well. In this climate, work coming from perspectives that are not as left leaning politically, or that does not seek to advance any political agenda may be seen as less valued or legitimate, and scholars who choose to separate their political agendas from their research may experience marginalization (McLaughlin in Canadian Journal of Sociology, 30(1), 1–40, 2005; Pawluch in The American Sociologist,50, 204–219, 2019). Inspired by the work and doctoral mentorship of Dorothy Pawluch, this paper seeks to both understand the historical development of the field of Canadian sociology and consider the value and place of the interpretive tradition within it. Through reflecting on the research of others and my own experiences as a graduate student, I argue that the "chilly" climate Dorothy (Pawluch in The American Sociologist,50, 204–219, 2019) alludes to for scholars who operate outside of a politically informed "social-justice agenda" does exist, but that mentorship can help mediate this chill for interpretive leaning students. Finally, I suggest that the branch of the interpretive tradition which asks researchers to suspend their own perspectives and privilege the position of others still has value for Canadian sociology. It can both produce deep, meaningful research contributions and provide students with tools for engaging in productive intellectual debate and transformative encounters with difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the history of sociology in India to colonial anthropology and Indology. I argue that the compulsions of post-colonial society have also made specific demands on the discursive terrain of sociology. Fundamental to the pursuit of sociological knowledge in India, I believe, was a core debate about its mode of discursive practice – specifically, a debate between particularistic and universalistic orientations. From this point of view, I re-read the history of sociology in India. In doing so, I argue that close attention to the history of sociology helps us see the extent to which foundational western approaches to historical and comparative sociology have affected the historical development of sociology in India. Ironically, this has meant that the degree of historical self-awareness in Indian sociology has been limited. Hence, I discuss the grounds for the weak historical self-awareness in terms of historical sociology in India. I conclude by discussing how a strengthened tradition of historical sociology can be a tool to revitalize the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, millions of people use Online Social Networks (OSNs) like Twitter, Facebook and Sina Microblog, to express opinions on current events. The widespread use of these OSNs has also led to the emergence of social bots. What is more, the existence of social bots is so powerful that some of them can turn into influential users. In this paper, we studied the automated construction technology and infiltration strategies of social bots in Sina Microblog, aiming at building friendly and influential social bots to resist malicious interpretations. Firstly, we studied the critical technology of Sina Microblog data collection, which indicates that the defense mechanism of that is vulnerable. Then, we constructed 96 social bots in Sina Microblog and researched the influence of different infiltration strategies, like different attribute settings and various types of interactions. Finally, our social bots gained 5546 followers in the 42-day infiltration period with a 100% survival rate. The results show that the infiltration strategies we proposed are effective and can help social bots escape detection of Sina Microblog defense mechanism as well. The study in this paper sounds an alarm for Sina Microblog defense mechanism and provides a valuable reference for social bots detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The revolutionary potential of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technique has created a resurgence in enthusiasm and concern in genetic research perhaps not seen since the mapping of the human genome at the turn of the century. Some such concerns and anxieties revolve around crossing lines between somatic and germline interventions as well as treatment and enhancement applications. Underpinning these concerns, there are familiar concepts of safety, unintended consequences and damage to genetic identity and the creation of designer children through pursuing human enhancement and eugenics. In the policy realm, these morally laden distinctions and anxieties are emerging as the basis for making important and applied measures to respond to the fast-evolving scientific developments. This paper argues that the dominant normative framing for such responses is insufficient for this task. This paper illustrates this insufficiency as arising from a continued reliance on misleading genetic essentialist assumptions that generate groundless speculation and over-reactionary normative responses. This phenomenon is explicit with regard to prospective human (germ line) genetic enhancements. While many normative theorists and state-of-the-art reports continue to gesture toward the influence of environmental and social influences on a person and their traits and capacities, this recognition does not extend to the substance of the arguments themselves which tend to revert to the debunked genetic determinist framework. Given the above, this paper argues that there is a pressing need for a more central role for sociological input into particular aspects of this "enhancement myth" in order to give added weight, detail and substance to these environmental influences and influence from social structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper builds on Joel Isaac's analysis of "interstitial" arrangements that generate scientific knowledge, and also draws upon the networking model of theory groups articulated by Nicholas and Caroline Mullins. I consider how the "interstitial academy" at Harvard, as well as Talcott Parsons's navigation of it, facilitated his professional rise from a vulnerable young instructor in economics in 1927 to one of the most prominent social scientists in the United States in 1951. I examine Parsons's engagement with curriculum-building committees in sociology and social ethics, in "the area of social science" and in social relations, as well as with undergraduate courses on institutions and on sociological theory, including a graduate student discussion circle, and with seminars on Pareto, on rationality and on "basic social science." In some instances, Parsons's involvement as a newcomer or junior participant led to important peer alliances, or to the support of higher-ranking faculty and administrators who sponsored his advancement. In other instances, especially as his ascent progressed, Parsons played the more powerful role of "indispensable hub" who gained stature by organizing cross-disciplinary interaction. Parsons's interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration also placed him an initial administrative role that would prepare him to serve as chair of two academic departments. The final and most important outcome of the process of upward mobility was the creation of a "theory school" that elevated Parsons to a unique status as the most boundary-spanning theorist of the social sciences. The paper thus supplements existing accounts of the rise of Parsons while also offering a mode of analysis that might be widely applied to the careers of other social scientists, both contemporary and historical (e.g., to figures such as Jane Addams and W. E. B. DuBois), in diverse academic settings and national contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Portugal, research productivity is nowadays essential for the positive assessment of academics, research units and study programmes. Academic inbreeding has been highlighted in the literature as one of the factors influencing research productivity. This paper tests the hypothesis that inbreeding is detrimental for research productivity, measured through the number of publications listed in Scopus. The study resorts to a database provided by the national Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education (A3ES), which comprises all academics teaching in all Portuguese institutions in the academic year 2015/2016. The sample selected for the analysis contains all academics with a PhD in Sociology (N=289). The study uses a special regression model for the analysis: the negative binomial logit hurdle. This was necessary given the large amount of academics with no publications or citations in Scopus, which were the dependent variables to assess research performance. The analysis provides separate results for the probability of inbred academics of having no papers/citations, and for the probability of producing more papers/citations than the non-inbred. Findings suggest that academic inbreeding, defined at the institutional level, has no negative effect on research productivity, contrary to what was expected. However, when defined at the national level, academic inbreeding is detrimental for the recognition and the impact of research: academics with a foreign PhD are more likely to have citations compared to academics who obtained their PhD in Portugal. A tendency was also noted that inbreeding might be more detrimental to research productivity in faculties of Economics than in Social Sciences and Humanities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I describe the gradual monetization of the university and its implications for the discipline of sociology. I suggest that not only is money a guiding force for the decisions that university administrators, faculty and students make but that it is also a metaphor for the changes and challenges faced by sociologists today. The second part of the paper identifies strategies for grant success based on approaches that are common in the natural sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the continuous enrichment of material life and the increasing improvement of spiritual life, the quality of life of people in the new era has improved comprehensively. After achieving technological advancements, further improving people's living standards will become the first priority, and indicators concerning quality of life will become more important, including spiritual needs, environmental conditions and social order. In particular, the degree of spiritual and cultural satisfaction is a prominent indicator for consideration. The current research investigates how new-age art is changing and how it may affect society dynamics in the future. It explores how new-age art, as a phenomenon in culture, adjusts to shifting environments, emphasizing the social roles, realization of values, and influencing elements of the art. With a focus on spiritual and cultural fulfillment, the study highlights the value of art in improving people's quality of life while taking into account elements such as social order, environmental influences, and spiritual demands. The primary goal is to comprehend the ways in which new age art raises living standards and general well-being. The results demonstrate the lasting contributions that new-age art makes to enjoyment, cultural transmission, and education, thereby reaffirming its important position in society. The paper emphasizes how crucial the socialist culture sector with Chinese characteristics will become to the future economic framework. This study found that new-age art continuously produces excellent literary and artistic works in addition to preserving traditional Chinese culture and fostering cultural self-confidence through its support for the improvement of living standards and industrial growth. This illustrates its practical importance in upholding economic supremacy and promoting cultural advancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a study of the International Space Station (ISS), this paper argues that – as a set of orientations for sociological inquiry – pragmatism and hermeneutics are confluent frameworks to examine valuation as a social process. This confluence is grounded on their common attunement to valuing as a problematic and relational process, their equally common updates with theories of institutions, and a further conceptual development regarding the temporalities of valuation. I advance the argument in four steps. First, looking at how the question about the "scientific value" of the ISS is far from settled, I show how valuation is always about something considered problematic and indeterminate. Second, characterizing the ISS at the intersection of different criteria of assessment, I stress the nature of valuation as a fundamentally perspectival and interpretive process, and show how a hermeneutic approach can complement some of the limitations of pragmatism in this regard. Third, I look at the question of institutions considering how some modes of assessment sediment more successfully than others. Fourth, I argue that, while providing insights towards it, pragmatist and hermeneutic approaches to valuation have not fully grasped its temporal nature as a process, and outline ways to open this line of inquiry. I conclude with some ideas for studies in sociology of science to re-entangle detailed case studies of scientific practice with the study of how institutions make claims of worth about the nature of science, I propose ways to extend these arguments to other studies of what I call iridescent institutions, and I make some considerations about our stance as sociologists in these valuation disputes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article undertakes a critical analysis of the work of Gisèle Sapiro, with reference to sociology of literature. From 1999 (Sapiro, 2014a), Sapiro has developed the Bourdieusian research tradition, amplifying especially Bourdieu's theory of crisis. Focusing on the antagonisms between literary "prophets" and "priests", she has drawn on a rich sample of 184 writers to elucidate the struggles inherent in World War II between writers from different field positions and literary habitus. Further, her historical analyses of the ethical commitments of nineteenth century writers via a fresh microsociology of literary trials (Sapiro, 2011) has reminded us of the importance of popular poets in articulating the suffering of the subordinate classes. Her most recent book (Sapiro, 2018) has expanded on her earlier themes, whilst identifying the recuperation of certain 1930s' fascist worldviews within contemporary literature. This article notes that there is a telling divergence between Bourdieu and Sapiro on the issue of interests behind disinterestedness, exemplified in the case of Zola. On this issue, Sapiro's reading (Sapiro, 2011) is found convincing. Finally, the dialectic of avant-garde consecration and routinisation is questioned as a universal structure. It is suggested that certain avant-garde – the Harlem Renaissance, for example – did not undergo swift consecration or routinisation, although this contention deserves greater research. The paper concludes by showing that Sapiro's conception of writers' responsibility owes its origins less to Sartre than to the Durkheimian/ Bourdieusian notion of the expertise of the "specific intellectual". It welcomes Sapiro's concern for literature as a potential force for social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to calls for greater interdisciplinary involvement from the social sciences and humanities in the development, governance, and study of artificial intelligence systems, this paper presents one sociologist's view on the problem of algorithmic bias and the reproduction of societal bias. Discussions of bias in AI cover much of the same conceptual terrain that sociologists studying inequality have long understood using more specific terms and theories. Concerns over reproducing societal bias should be informed by an understanding of the ways that inequality is continually reproduced in society—processes that AI systems are either complicit in, or can be designed to disrupt and counter. The contrast presented here is between conservative and radical approaches to AI, with conservatism referring to dominant tendencies that reproduce and strengthen the status quo, while radical approaches work to disrupt systemic forms of inequality. The limitations of a conservative approach to racial bias are discussed through the specific example of biased criminal risk assessments and Indigenous overrepresentation in Canada's criminal justice system. This illustrates the dangers of treating racial bias as a generalizable problem and equality as a generalizable solution, emphasizing the importance of considering inequality in context. Societal issues can no longer be out of scope for AI and machine learning, given the impact of these systems on human lives. This requires engagement with a growing body of critical AI scholarship that goes beyond biased data to analyze structured ways of perpetuating inequality, opening up the possibility for interdisciplinary engagement and radical alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically looks at the ways in which 'global sociology' has been debated and conceived in the past decades. It provides an historical overview of various proposals and ideas and the institutional contexts within which they are put forward and criticized. Two different periods are distinguished. Until the early twenty-first century, on the one hand, criticism of the 'ethnocentrism of the West' was often supported by ideas and pleas for an 'indigenization' of sociological knowledge. A commitment to the unity of science and to its universalist aspirations remained strong, however. In the course of the twenty-first century, on the other hand, criticism of the 'northern dominance' in sociology has become much stronger. Instead of a 'multicultural' understanding of global sociology, a 'critical' sociology that contributes to 'global justice' is now often advocated. Based on this historical overview, it is suggested that global sociology might contribute to more self-reflexivity within the discipline. It helps us to see how different contexts reverberate into the ways in which sociology itself is imagined in this world and provides an analysis of the debates for a better understanding of the challenges which sociology currently faces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the fruitful evidence to support the emergence of cooperation, irrational decisions are still an essential part of promoting cooperation. Among the many factors that affect human rational decision-making, peer pressure is unique to social organisms and directly affects individual cooperative behaviors in the process of social interaction. This kind of pressure psychologically forces individuals to behave consistently with their partners, and partners with inconsistent behaviors may suffer psychological blows. As feedback, this psychological harm may in turn affect individual cooperative decisions. There is evidence that when peer pressure exists, partnerships can reduce free-riding in enterprise. Based on interdependent networks, this paper studies the impact of peer pressure on cooperation dynamics when the strategies of corresponding partners from different layers of the networks are inconsistent. We assume that when individuals are under peer pressure, their payoffs will be compromised. The simulation results show that the punishment effect will force the expulsion of partners with different strategies, which will further reduce the proportion of partners with inconsistent strategies in the system. However, in most cases, only moderate fines are most conductive to the evolution of cooperation, and the punishment mechanisms can effectively promote the interdependent network reciprocity. The results on the small world and random network prove the robustness of the result. In addition, under this mechanism, the greater the payoff dependence between partners, the better the effect of interdependent network reciprocity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present paper, I intend to systematically revisit Thomas Luckmann's account of the relation between phenomenology and sociology and to assess its strengths and weaknesses in terms of constructive criticism. In order to achieve this aim, I will proceed in three steps. First (1), I will reconstruct the Luckmannian approach by means of an exhaustive analysis of his programmatic texts. Second (2), I will identify its strengths and merits. And finally (3), I will discuss its shortcomings and try to correct them in two ways, namely, by bringing Luckmann into a dialogue with other sociological-theoretical and phenomenological accounts, and by counteracting some of his problematic claims with alternative insights contained in his own work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'participatory turn' in science and technology governance has resulted in the growth of initiatives designed to engage lay people in consultation and decision-making on controversial matters. Almost from the start there has been both enthusiasm and serious critique of these exercises, from scholars and activists. The gaps and challenges are well known. In this paper we indicate the limitations of deliberative mechanisms as regards how they cope with familiar forms of people's engagement with a given matter. We examine how this phenomenon unfolded at the Barcelona Citizen Conference on the Digitalization of Society; a participatory exercise inspired by the model of consensus conferences that took place in 2014 in Barcelona. Our perspective on the topic is inspired by Sociology of Engagements. Focusing on how participants and organizers deal with individual anecdotes, worries and testimonies reported during the conference, the analysis shows how these formats are ignored, externalized, banned and re-formed during deliberations. This phenomenon is seen as supporting a civic-liberal regime of engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pragmatism, especially the works of Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead, is in the midst of a revival in American sociology. American sociologists have drawn on these authors in their addressment of contemporary debates in the wider disciplinary field. Placing these contemporary applications of pragmatist thought alongside the broader intellectual tradition of pragmatic philosophy, however, demonstrates tensions associated with this revival. This paper draws on the work of John Dewey as a particularly stark case of the conflict between the philosophy of social science espoused by the original pragmatist philosophers and the use of their ideas in American sociology today. This treatment affords the opportunity to recover a vision for social science which has been overlooked in the contemporary pragmatist revival with deep implications for the practice of social science today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of caste played a prominent role in the early American sociology of race and race relations. The concept was developed largely through case studies of racially segregated communities in the American Deep South during the 1930s. While the concept of caste was largely abandoned by the middle of the 1950s, elements of a caste theory remain useful for both understanding contemporary work on race relations and the development of the sociology of race. This paper proposes a revised and expanded conception of caste grounded in the Black-White dynamic of American race relations. This approach builds on the performance circuit framework of economic sociology, arguing that "caste" refers to the roles, rules, and etiquette that govern economic interaction and give them meaning. The expanded approach develops three premises that highlight the consequences of caste. First, the entanglement of occupational and social roles is a key component of a racialized caste system. Second, deeply rooted racial animus prevents the social cohesion necessary to transition out of an economy defined by caste. Finally, the precarity of nominal class advancement within the dominated caste inhibits organizing that might challenge the overall system. This reevaluation of the caste concept resolves many of the limitations of the original caste school and bridges the divide between cultural and economic-based analyses of race relations in the early days of the American social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Erving Goffman's written legacy bears on sociology as a whole, or so he argued in his Presidential Address to the American Sociological Association (Goffman, 1983). However, while being celebrated as important to the discipline, his work is also interpreted in inconsistent ways, often downplayed or marginalized, and even neglected. This paper claims that Goffman's "well known aversion to self-disclosure" (Shalin, 2013) does not justify overlooking his trajectory, from the unknown "margins" of a Canadian small town to the elusive "center" of American sociology—and much less does it justify still circulating assessments of his personality, crafted while overlooking his life experiences—and, especially, his writings. Anecdotal evidence of his "enigmatic" personality (Lemert, 2003), or "bad-boy outrageousness" (Berger, 1986), works as a derailing tactic, leading to unwarranted appraisals of Goffman's personality—and, more importantly, to the neglect of crucial aspects of his work. From a theoretical standpoint, Simmel's treatment of "the stranger" as a social relationship, and Merton's concept of "moral alchemy", are used here to try to make some sense of the mixture of celebration and neglect still surrounding "Goffman". Historical data was gathered in part from the "Erving Goffman Archives'' (Shalin, 2013). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper's thesis is that the constructionist approach to social problems unintentionally directs its practitioners' analytic attention toward "top-dog" claimsmakers while neglecting the claimsmaking of the marginalized. This neglect is the result of several common-sense assumptions about what social problems claims will look like and who they will be directed to. These assumptions include: 1) that institutional authorities are benign and trusted entities, 2) that claimsmakers have a right to freedom of expression and 3) that claims will be forwarded using words. Further, the need for constructionist analysts to be able to recognize the symbolic markers of a claim and to have access to those claims drives their attention toward claimsmakers who speak and act in ways that are familiar to them. Lastly, the paper examines how the inductive approach favored by constructionists exacerbates these issues by channeling its practitioners' attention toward activities that resemble the already existing model rather than ones that challenge it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to describe the topical structure across national sociologies and detect the topic clusters contributing to the intellectual divide of the discipline. I employed a hybrid methodological style consisting of latent semantic analysis, topic polarization index and simple correspondence analysis to extract and map the topical divides across American and British sociological journals. The textual data were drawn from 11,793 abstracts published in 4 American, and 4 British journals in a 40-year period. My analysis revealed divisive publication preferences across the American and British journals. Topics associated with theory, methods, race, health, social class, crime, income inequality, aging, suicide, social networks, social movements and social status, appeared to contribute the most to the intellectual divides across American and British sociologies. The polarizing publication preferences on the core topics of theory and methods support former findings claiming that there is a fundamental epistemological divide across the two national sociological traditions. American journals tend to publish papers with an emphasis of methodology, while British journals show preference on papers with a theoretical focus. Finally, my findings revealed that core sociological topics relevant to social institutions such as marriage and family, labor, education, and stratification such as gender, immigration and occupational mobility contribute to the intellectual fusion of American and British sociologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents some details and some examples of the influence of ethnomethodological work in the fieldwork tradition associated with European CSCW; in particular what has been termed 'ethnomethodologically informed ethnography'. In so doing, we do not wish to downplay other perspectival and methodological contributions but to simply suggest that much of the ethnomethodological work that was done in the UK during the early development of CSCW had a distinctive character and made significant contributions to the study of complex organizational environments for design-related purposes that arguably reinvigorated the European fieldwork tradition. The distinctiveness we speak of in 'ethnomethodologically informed ethnography' had to do with what it owed to Wittgenstein and Winch as much as Garfinkel and Sacks, was rooted in a contempt for methodological fetishism, and emphasized the centrality of reasoning or rationale in the conduct of working and, more generally, social life. This focus and approach drew heavily on the ethnographic work of the likes of John Hughes in Lancaster, Wes Sharrock in Manchester, Bob Anderson at Xerox in Cambridge, and Christian Heath in King's, London, where attention was focused on the actual 'doing' of work as opposed to work in some idealised form – and it is this that we suggest has become important to design and designers of various kinds and in various domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]