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This article contributes to the ERS symposium on Ali Meghji's 2023 book, A Critical Synergy: Race, Decoloniality, and World Crises (Temple University Press). While offering a selective review of the book's contents, author Vilna Bashi focuses on the promise that synergy might contribute to new insights in sociological theory. Here, she agrees with Meghi, that sociologists approach theory in our work by tending toward synthesis, where synergy will do. Bashi further suggests that critical theoretical synergy could be used to revitalize the sociology of immigration in the United States should theoretical approaches beyond assimilation theory be critically applied. Bashi also explains how critical synergy illuminated insights in her own work in the sociology of international migration, critical race theory, and global inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ali Meghji's A Critical Synergy provides a thought-provoking framework for putting two bodies of thought in conversation with one another. Doing so advances the project of imagining alternative, anti-racist futures. I reflect on the central argument of the book within the context of contemporary sociology. I then engage with three themes of the book: ways of knowing and being, methodological nationalism, and postcolonial melancholia. I approach each theme from my vantage point as a scholar of decolonial (and postcolonial) thought, taking up Meghji's invitation to engage with critical race theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research on language dynamics in the context of migration and integration has been dominated by applied linguists and educators, who described and measured native language attrition and emerging bilingualism among immigrants and their children. In parallel, sociolinguists discussed the role of language ideology/policy of the host society and family language milieu. Adopting a macro sociolinguistic view, the current article explores the social mechanisms of native language attrition across immigrant generations, thus becoming a heritage language. Our empirical data embrace national surveys and qualitative studies among adult immigrants to Israel from the USSR/FSU (Generation 1.0) and their children born before and after migration (Generations 1.5 and 2.0) collected over 20 + years. We show how the Hebrew-only language policy and stigmatising public discourse around Russian/Soviet legacies compelled immigrant adolescents to take distance from their origins. Russian's absence from the school curriculum caused L1 literacy attrition and its relegation to the status of secret/home language, increasingly passive over time. Generations 1.5 and 2.0 manifest shrinking interest in all things Russian and weak ties with Russia/FSU. Drawing upon the critical sociological perspective, this article illuminates social forces that may facilitate or thwart effective transmission of native languages across immigrant generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we develop a working theory examining how the organizational apparatuses of colleges and universities, as well as larger trends in higher education, contribute to unequal outcomes for faculty from working-class backgrounds and their upper- and middle-class counterparts. Based on 30 interviews with a nationwide sample of academic faculty and graduate students in sociology, we adapt an analytical approach introduced by Victor Ray, a theory of racialized organizations, to identify several common mechanisms in higher education that hinder working-class faculty members' ability to form professional relationships and gain prestige at post-secondary institutions, disrupt efforts to diversify faculty bodies socioeconomically, and preserve class-based inequalities by masking the saliency of social class in faculty settings. Adapting Ray's analysis, we divide these organizational features of higher education into three categories—superstructure (collective ideologies), structure (policies and norms), and substructure (individual schemas)—illustrating how these features uphold and reinforce one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2024 NCSA Presidential Address discusses the past and potential future impacts of natural disasters, including COVID-19, on the American people. This NCSA conference talk is based on two edited volumes previously published by Lexington Books in 2021 and 2023. Relevant theories, such as critical demography and historical categorical inequality, are introduced as starting points in the narrative. Next, descriptions of contributions to the volumes are provided, which covered topics such as criminal justice, demographics, economics, history, political science, and sociology to show how effects of natural disasters vary by economic and social class in the United States. Contributors also discussed specific dynamics related to COVID-19, including media responses to COVID-19, differential impacts on the poor, specific impacts on college students through technology, and how the intersection of race, class, and gender matter for natural disaster research. This talk examines social and political mechanisms in disaster response and relief, and then offers potential solutions to the accelerating inequality in America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As nations worldwide diversify, societal institutions are increasingly faced with the challenging task to resolve issues regarding ethnic, cultural, and linguistic matters. In the present contribution, we review evidence for a theoretical model that highlights the relevance of procedural fairness for dealing with such ethnic-cultural issues. Our collective model of procedural fairness (CPF) explains the reactions to fairness enactment of different stakeholders: Minority groups that receive fair treatment, third-party minority groups, and the majority. For minority groups, ethnic-cultural procedural fairness effects emerge through self-categorisation processes, leading to positive leader evaluations and decision acceptance, as well as increased feelings of societal inclusion, well-being, and social trust. For the majority group, CPF holds that responses to ethnic-cultural procedural fairness are driven by higher-order moral standards of rightful conduct towards disadvantaged group members. Taken together, the present contribution accentuates the usefulness of ethnic-cultural procedural fairness as a social engineering tool in diverse societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper explores the processes of individual and collective subjectivation experienced by non-binary individuals living in contemporary Italy. Using qualitative methods, the study, which was conducted between July and September 2021, involved a sample of twenty-six young adults aged between eighteen and thirty years. Starting from participants’ narratives, the thematic analysis revealed the significance of both physical and virtual support environments in the subjectivation process, taking into account the diverse micro-contexts in which people live. The study’s findings underscore the continued need to challenge societal norms and structures that perpetuate discrimination against people who reject exclusive identification with the male or female gender and opt for more fluid and non-traditional definitions of gender identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mobilisation of assets from one national field to another is a topic that has attracted significant sociological attention. In this paper, we investigate migrant physicians who obtained their medical degrees outside the EU/EEA and trace the process of validating their degrees in Sweden. The study is inscribed in Bourdieu's sociological tradition and is based on a questionnaire and interviews with physicians. Analysing the mobilisation of cultural capital across national borders, we emphasise the importance of distinguishing its different states in the context of migration. Based on our case, we argue that the time physicians spend in the 'waiting room' challenges their ability to maintain and perform their medical craft. We show that the time it takes to institutionalise assets and accumulate capital in another national context can lead to the risk of losing its embodied state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This interview with Douglas Davies was conducted in December 2023. It takes a chronological view of his remarkable fifty year career in academia, spanning his interests in Sikhism, religion in contemporary Britain, Mormonism, as well as death studies. Along the way, it becomes a reflection on the importance of collegiality, serendipity, creativity and both classic and contemporary scholarship in sociology, anthropology, and the study of death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple sociologists use the term, “positive deviance,” to refer to a sociologically meaningful category of behavior. Earlier, the author questioned the concept’s utility on the basis of its grab-bag, miscellaneous character – and hence, the inability of any known sociological theory to explain or account for it – as well as the fact that its components, “positive” and “deviance” are based on qualities lodged in distinctly separate dimensions. Still, curious about how sociologists of deviance regard the concept, the author contacted more than 200 instructors of the course and asked them how they feel about its coherence and utility; out of the 50 replies, only a quarter (N = 12) of the respondents rejected the meaningfulness of the concept out of hand, while two-thirds (N = 33) accepted it; the remaining one out of ten (N = 5) weren’t sure or reacted non-judgmentally. Though not rigorous or consistent, the concept seems to have achieved a secure place in the sociology of deviance literature; perhaps, on that basis, the nay-sayers should re-think their opposition to the concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

E-learning is the direct result of the integration between technology and education. The lifelong learning process for older people should consider employing e-learning activities. The objective of this work was to identify the pedagogical processes involved in e-learning activities in learning environments used by elderly people. The literature search resulted in 826 papers. Ten studies were selected for the qualitative synthesis. The research method used was PRISMA. The results point out that: the need to adapt e-learning content to different cognitive skills; the interface of virtual learning environments must be adaptive; the level of knowledge of older people must be considered; communication features such as forums, chats and message exchange must be considered; face-to-face meetings should be offered to remedy possible difficulties in the use of technological resources; the use of explanatory tutorials on communication tools and teacher assistance in mediations should be observed; there is a need to use interactive materials; activities that foster collaborative dynamics must be encouraged; and themes suggested by the elderly that enable self-knowledge should also be adopted. Although an article investigated indicates the opposite, it was found that e-learning is well accepted by the elderly, adding many advantages for the development of digital skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reduction in local control and oversight of schooling represented by the growth of Multi Academy Trusts (MATs) in England raises critical issues for public policy. These include the articulation and exercise of power in the governance of MATs, the future of democratic governance of local services and accountability. Applying Foucault's genealogical framework, the paper analyses the antecedents of current governance arrangements and highlights and reinvigorates suppressed, delegitimised and belittled knowledges. The authors argue that the threads of representation, community engagement and local control in school governance are important components of democratic renewal. The paper examines the play of historical and contemporary factors which have fostered a discourse that enables the subjugation of agency, self-governance and autonomy of MAT constituent schools and their communities. This discourse has wider significance for the centralisation of decision making and control away from communities, and the erosion of the polity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on research conducted in four state schools with sixth forms to problematise two flagship 'disadvantage' policy agendas in the English context: the Pupil Premium (focusing on the narrowing of attainment gaps) and widening participation (focusing on fairer university access). While such 'priority' policies necessarily incorporate the promise of change, it argues that multiple forms of incoherence militate against this, including: their relative agenda-setting power in a highly marketised system; the contested, constitutive power of different proxy indicators; competing policy preferences that under-attend to the intersections between educational opportunities and material disadvantage. In contrast, interviews with school staff highlighted the transformative potential of lived experiences of disadvantage and reinforced the importance of adopting a wider lens than that of the school. The paper concludes that the absence of an over-arching theory of change is part of 'the problem' and it suggests where the mapping of one might begin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do international large-scale assessments influence education policy? How? Through scripts, lessons, or incentives? For some, they all produce similar outcomes. For others, different assessment data, shaped by different designs, and mediated by international organizations' (IOs) policy directives, prompt different policy decisions. For some, participation in these assessments may be linked to lower repetition rates, as per the policy scripts hypothesis inspired by world society theory. For others, assessments' comparison strategies (age vs. grade) influence repetition in participating countries, according to policy lessons or incentives hypotheses, respectively inspired by educational effectiveness research and the sociology of quantification, and particularly the notion of retroaction. Fixed-effects panel regression models of eighteen Latin American countries (1992–2017) show that participation in assessments is associated with changing repetition rates in primary and secondary, while controlling for other factors. The findings show statistically significant differences between some assessment types. The conclusions spur new questions, delineating a future agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the narratives of young people in the Gambia and of Afghan migrants in Turkey on the themes of migration and Europe as a place of destination. Based on extensive focus group and interview data, we show that these narratives (1) have a high degree of similarities across different contexts and (2) appear incongruent with, and largely unaffected by, the EU's messages of deterrence in information campaigns. We explain this misalignment by referring to a classic sociological distinction between impressions 'given' and those 'given off'. When the EU seeks to give an 'impression' in third countries (such as to be an unattractive place for irregular migrants), their messages compete with positive images of Europe provided through a myriad of other channels and information sources. To a large extent, perceptions of Europe among migrant communities are defined by positive impressions 'given off' through Europe's history as a destination area and social media accounts of individual 'success stories' of diaspora members. The social and material rewards associated with migration further inform migrants' narratives, as do the circumstances of both groups, which often push them towards leaving regardless of the risks this step involves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While true interdisciplinarity is needed to understand morality and its development, a realistic step in that direction for the current special issue is to enhance and promote a neglected disciplinary contribution to the field, namely sociology. This special issue brings together six articles applying sociological analysis to moral development and education together with one article overviewing sociological contributions to morality in general. The work is intended to invigorate sociological treatments of moral development and education as a step toward a genuinely interdisciplinary domain of research on morality and its education. The contributions to this special issue bring alive the moral background by combining contextual and individual levels of analysis in the exploration of difficult topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates alcohol consumption within cultures of football fandom through the innovative combination of theories of the carnivalesque and Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, field, and capital. Focus groups (n = 79) were conducted with football supporters in England and Scotland. Semi-structured interviews (n = 15) were also conducted with key organizational stakeholders. Research explored the importance and role of alcohol consumption for supporters when watching or attending matches.. Participants confirmed the cultural significance, perceived normalcy and historical links between football and alcohol consumption. Supporters highlighted the importance of the sociability, friendship, and social capital aspects of alcohol consumption. Participants believed football supporters are perceived differently in comparison with supporters of other sports, arguing that legislation surrounding alcohol consumption at other sports allowed supporters to enhance the carnivalesque by drinking alcohol, whereas football fans were more restricted. Participants agreed the habitus of excessive drinking and violence associated with football supporters led to a bad reputation, however, this view was outdated. Participants also recognized a growing drug culture in football. The findings draw attention to the alcohol-sport relationship and the contested relations, and diverging interests and influences, within the social field of football. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This theoretical paper describes a classification with accompanying analysis of the main forms of social conduct at the end of life that goes beyond our usual understanding of sociological characterisations of dying. A taxonomy of end-of-life conduct is presented that illustrates and categorises past and contemporary sociological studies of end-of-life conduct and experiences. The categories include embodiment-led dying, systems-led dying, criticism-led dying, endangerment, and anti-dying. Discussion of this spectrum of behaviour is compared with current research and theory in the sociology of dying resulting in critical observations about limitations and omissions in the current work of this field. The paper ends with identification of theoretical limitations before discussing implications for future theory, research, and policy development for the sociology of dying and for end-of-life studies more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on Michel Serres's unconventional approach to society, which diverges from traditional social sciences terminology and boundaries. Topics include Serres's critique of social contract theory, his concept of unbounded sociality, and his exploration of how global phenomena challenge traditional social frameworks.

Research on why women, especially racialized women, stay in undesirable relationships is scarce and often misses how intersecting inequalities affect their decisions and the wider range of consent and coercion. Syrian refugee women in Egypt, grappling with not just unwanted marriages but also displacement and uprooting are a case in point. Their limited cultural, social, and legal mobility complicates their decision-making and limits their options. I describe this compounded precarity as ‘double immobility’: immobility within the marriage and immobility within the country. A secondary displacement where this time they become ‘displaced in place’ (Lubkemann, S. C. 2008. “Involuntary Immobility: On a Theoretical Invisibility in Forced Migration Studies.” Journal of Refugee Studies 21 (4): 454–475). Drawing on qualitative interviews with Syrian refugee women in Egypt in 2017, I employ an intersectional lens to highlight the social, legal, and migratory locations of displaced women that exacerbate their predicament, prompting a re-evaluation of the binary views of force/voluntary and coercion/consent in discussions about entering, remaining, and exiting marriage. The paper offers a novel framework for understanding the intersection of gendered displacement and marital dynamics and contributes to the broader discussion within the sociology of gender, displacement, and marriage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes the concept of ‘imperism’ as an analytical tool apt to describe political processes in Putin’s Russia and beyond. Imperism denotes an ontological orientation, or nomos (the term derives from theories of religion and politics by Berger and Schmitt), that undergirds a plurality of civic positions, informs policy, and fundamentally casts imperialness as a political entity’s normal, desirable state. Russia’s imperist nomos shall be explored in its key dimensions, including cosmology, authority, sociology, and aesthetics. However, imperism’s analytical purchase is not limited to the Russian case. In particular, this paper considers the merits of this category vis-à-vis an array of related but distinct concepts: imperialism, authoritarianism, fascism, nationalism, and irredentism. On those grounds, it will be argued that Putinist Russia’s military adventurism manifests a peculiar, imperist form of imperialism; that the Putin regime, albeit hard to categorise, appears to share an imperist nomos with historical fascisms; and that imperism’s ultimate scope exceeds that of nationalist irredentism. The paper ends with a reflection on the advantageous epistemological potentialities of imperism as a category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article tackles issues central to most academic disciplines, including scientific boundary demarcation, the battle of the faculties, the theory of science, and the conflict between nomothetic and idiographic methodologies, that is, between the two main approaches to science. It does so through discovering and rethinking a Methodenstreit in Swedish political science, an academic dispute involving Professor Rudolf Kjellén, the father of geopolitics, and his greatest rival, Professor S. J. Boëthius. Shortly after retiring from the Johan Skytte Professorship at Uppsala University, S. J. Boëthius published a great but inaccessible work on state theory and its history entitled Om statslivet (On the life of the state, 1916). The book critiques the positivistic and nomothetic (law-searching) approaches of the burgeoning social sciences, which were emancipating themselves from their father, history, and becoming independent disciplines. Boëthius critiqued the nomothetic studies of history, economics, statistics, sociology, and geopolitics for overemphasizing the significance of historical, economic, statistical, sociological, and geographical environments and structures. Thus, the exponents of these new or changing disciplines were criticized for neglecting the most important driving force of human affairs in Boëthius’s mind, namely, the power of personality and individual free will. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The foundation of the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) in 1965 is seen as a pivotal moment in the history of British welfare policy heralding a new wave of pressure group activism. Many histories of the organisation focus on the expertise of two of their founder members, Brian Abel-Smith and Peter Towsend. But in foregrounding the role of these academic experts in the early history of CPAG the wider ecosystem of professionals, academics, politicians and activists involved has been overshadowed. This insight this article will argue that contributions to welfare policy and practice can be subsumed in organisational histories, particularly work that is local, smaller scale and practical. Often though not exclusively, women have undertaken such grassroots research and activism. Such work can, and does, contribute to the success of voluntary groups as well as feed into wider intellectual and policy currents. This paper will explore one such case study of this: the crucial but under-documented work of three women campaigners Harriett Wilson, Audrey Harvey and Margaret Wynn. It will illustrate how by combining both intellectually rigorous social research and practical social action they were important both in the formation of CPAG and sociological thinking and practice more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent debates in anthropology and sociology have focused on non-events, with the difference between everyday violence and abrupt life-changing events disappearing, though abundant studies on disaster memories demonstrate the significance of collective shattering events even in lives characterized by immense ordinary suffering. This article uses the historical example of the large-scale breakdown of public utilities in an industrial community in Kolyma, Russia, in 1993–94 to bridge the gap between these two poles by describing the sensory mechanics of shattering. Based on insights from the cultural theory of modern senses, I argue that, in Kolyma, shattering involved the restructuring of the inhabitants’ sensorium shaped by the ecology of effortless modern amenities, particularly centralized heating. It occurred through redressing of attention and transformation in the shared materiality, with new substances, such as wastewater or bodily heat, coming into sensory exchanges in defiance of previous social conventions. I conclude by demonstrating the importance of collective shattering for local history, even in the absence of a discernible political turning point. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by Aristotle and Goffman this article considers how the study of virtue acquisition may be pursued through an observational theorising about social interactions in institutions. Adapting Goffman’s and Harré’s notions of moral order and moral career, it proposes character education to be a dialogic process requiring negotiation between social actors over time. Taking part in educational institutions, learners learn to perform various roles in a manner by which virtues are to be attributed. But this is not all. Goffman’s and perhaps Aristotle’s accounts are arguably too ‘thin’ to allow for moral change, unless these processes themselves are mastered by learners and may be transcended by them. It is thus by applying the sociological imagination to the institutions we are in, the criticality necessary for true character is developed. The role of sociology in character education is therefore twofold: to inform educators in the creation of institutions and practices that transmit and manifest virtues; and, as an essential part of a virtue-ethics curriculum—giving moral agents the sensitising concepts necessary to understand, negotiate and mould the social frame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dating apps are spaces where masculinities are communicated digitally, affecting inequalities around gender expressions. This study aims to identify the masculinities communicated within Grindr tourism interactions in Tel Aviv and analyze how masculinities shape relations among international tourists and locals. Methods consist of interviews and audio diaries with nineteen tourist, local, and immigrant Grindr users in Tel Aviv. Theories of affordances, hegemonic masculinities, and relational sociology are used to analyze the data. In discussion of the results, the concept of mutual exoticization is put forth to interpret the social dynamics valued within Grindr tourism interactions, thereby revealing oppositional fantasies tied to nationalities and masculinities. The study also explores ethnicity’s association with social and erotic capital in digital circulations of a localized Mizrahi masculinity. Findings reveal that while hegemonic masculinities are circulated on Grindr, resistance is also a part of Grindr tourism relations around masculinities. This research concludes by shedding light on masculinity inequalities within digital spaces where different nationalities co-congregate, revealing everyday negotiations of gender regimes. Grindr is the site of both reproduction of and resistance to social inequalities around masculinities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scriptural and cultural sources of moral authority within Islam beginning with the Koran are described and their regulations about homosexual behavior summarized. The body of works of literature and media in the social sciences and humanities dealing with issues related to being both an observant Muslim and identifying as LGBT created between the late nineteenth and the early twenty-first centuries is then reviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article engages with the question of coordinating action during transitional and politically volatile times, in high-stakes situations. More specifically, I look at a local assembly that was established to campaign for the 'no' vote against regime change in the 2017 constitutional referendum in Turkey, and how it disintegrated at a time when coordinated action was perceived as the only viable strategy by the participants. Based on participant-observation and ethnographic interviews, I argue that instead of framing or strategy, differences in temporal frameworks eroded the basis on which activists usually coordinated their next steps, leading to an unresolvable mismatch in their anticipation of future events, and therefore, in action. I characterize the temporal dynamics of political contestation in such contexts as a 'politics of anticipation,' where futurity and temporality themselves become subjects of political contention. As such, this article contributes to the study of anti-authoritarian social movements, studies of time and temporality, and to the sociology of time and the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study applies resource dependence theory to address the question of how the critical resource dependence relationship emerges in the context of a university's performance agreement. This study focuses on two Nordic universities that have adopted performance agreements while simultaneously using strong performance-based state funding. Resource dependence involves an asymmetry and power imbalance that leads an organisation to believe that it is dependent on a more powerful organisation that has resources under its control. The theory reveals the central role of performance agreements and their associated instruments in the universities' relationship with the ministry and within universities. We found minor differences in Nordic university examples indicating the influence of the performance regimes within the management arena and within the material dimensions of university autonomy. Performance agreements and their related instruments are isolated from the other key realities of universities. Understanding the loose coupling between the agreements and the characteristics of universities are needed to enhance universities' ability to pursue their unique mission in society. Resource dependence theory provides a valuable framework for analysing the dynamics and dependencies that exist between organisations and within loosely coupled organisations, shedding light on the interactions and influences that shape these relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers unique insights into the relationship between education policy and teachers' work. It considers how globally pervasive responsibilising regimes make teachers' work more burdensome. Drawing on interviews with 15 school teachers, this article shows how China's 2021 Double Burden Reduction Policy has reconfigured educators' (class)work practices and pedagogical approaches. Specifically, it unpacks the policy mechanisms that: 1) condense school time and make teachers' work more methodical and 2) prolong teachers' working hours that are dedicated to offering students after-school educational support, thus reducing the demand for shadow education. This article argues that this policy shifts the education burden away from tutorial enterprises and parents and onto the teachers, which illustrates a case of the impact of policy regimes on teachers' work within the broader context of neoliberal globalisation. Moreover, this article produces a novel typological spectrum – submission, substantiation, and scepticism – to capture and understand the diverse ways in which teachers may respond to policy-led changes to their professional work globally. Overall, it generates new knowledge on the impact of homogenising education policies on teachers' work and the heterogeneity of teachers' responses to these policies, thus contributing conceptually to the wider field of policy sociology in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The call for internationally comparable data on disability has been omnipresent in recent disability politics. Several attempts have been made to develop and implement a standardized approach toward disability statistics, with the Washington Group Short Census Questions (WGSQ) being the most prominent. How does this questionnaire 'measure' disability? How do disability statistics translate the diversity of lived experiences into 'objective' numbers? Combining a sociology of quantification and disability studies, this article focuses on the social practices of disability statistics that contribute to the generation of 'disability' as a social category. After contextualizing 'disability' in international organizations' discourses, it uses document analysis to empirically reconstruct statistical experts' recommendations regarding definition, operationalization, data collection, and processing. The analysis shows how binary categorical boundaries are (re)introduced and successively objectified during this process. It also unfolds a risk-based approach that underlies the WGSQ and deviates from a social model of disability. International Organizations like the United Nations use statistics to illustrate that disabled persons do not have the same opportunities as others. For most people, statistics simply mirror reality. However, the article shows that making statistics requires many activities, discussions, and decisions. The research looks in detail at a questionnaire developed by international experts. It shows how people are categorized as a 'person with disabilities' or a 'person without disabilities.' Today, many people and international organizations agree that the way society is built disables persons with impairments. However, this questionnaire does not cover this social dimension. This research is important because it shows that statistics are not politically neutral and have an impact on the lives of disabled persons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assess the empirical development of scientific homogenization and differentiation processes in terms of group development comparing U.S. and German sociology from 2004 to 2019. We introduce hierarchical multi-layered Bayesian stochastic block models to the issue of scientific group development. Based on publication data from Scopus, we analyze group formation simultaneously as collaboration networks, reference networks, and topical networks. Employing this method allows us to trace back the temporal dynamics of multidimensional group development and formation for each national scientific field. Overall, the findings indicate clear path dependencies in both fields that have been shaping processes of differentiation and homogenization in U.S. and German sociology and that continue to impact on the formation, stabilization, and dissolution of scientific groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the work of Erving Goffman can be profitably re-read with the aid of Juliane Vogel's work on the cultural logic of "the entrance" [der Auftritt]. Although Goffman's "dramaturgical sociology" makes use of several theatrical concepts for the analysis of face-to-face interaction in everyday life, "entrance" itself is not among them. The essay begins by demonstrating the significance of entrance for Goffman's thought. For Goffman, as for Vogel, answering the question, "Who's there?" is a necessary and pivotal moment in any face-to-face encounter. Then, it turns to the link between entrance and embarrassment, which has long been recognized as a critical concern for Goffman. Embarrassment proves to be the consequence of a "failed entrance" in Goffman's writing; its status as looming threat to any encounter, and the need for precautions to prevent it, suggest something about the fragility of social intercourse and a certain structural interminability of entrance. The final sections attempt to historicize Goffman's understanding of the human being as a performer compelled to enter into and out of conflicting and even contradictory roles, then explores theatrical antecedents of Goffman's social actor in two works from Shakespeare and Kleist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mindfulness is increasingly offered in schools around the UK, as well as internationally. Previous research has focused on the efficacy, the implementation, and the wider meaning of mindfulness in education, rather than sociological interests, such as matters of equality and social justice. This article draws on qualitative data from the 'Mapping Mindfulness in the UK' study, to investigate how mindfulness practitioners discuss and address issues of equality and diversity in relation to school-based mindfulness. Lynch and Baker's key dimensions of equality are used to analyse participants' accounts, including on adjustments to curriculum and pedagogy to accommodate diversity, practitioners' responses to socio-emotional vulnerability, and the dynamics of choice and compulsion in the classroom. By highlighting several issues of concern in these areas, the research makes original contributions to sociological understandings of mindfulness and other similar initiatives in schools, whilst offering new insights on theories of equality in education more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses a structured peer mentoring scheme for Early Career Academics (ECAs) in Sociology during COVID-19 and post-Brexit, the pedagogical framework adopted and programme challenges, benefits and learning. Internationally, structured peer mentoring schemes for ECAs are sparse and discussions of ‘what works’ in the context of dedicated peer mentoring programmes for ECAs are limited. This programme, designed and executed by the Sociological Association of Ireland (SAI) and a professional mentoring trainer in 2022, involved 8 peer mentors, all of whom were senior and mid-career academics and 10 mentees comprising PhD students and postdoctoral researchers. It encompassed formative sessions for peer mentors and mentees and a final joint session, which took place online. Subsequently, peer mentors facilitated online peer mentoring sessions, with mentees supporting them to explore, plan and achieve their professional goals. The authors discuss the pedagogical content and active methodologies adopted in relation to reflective practice and knowledge-exchange, whilst illuminating that more investment in and research on structured peer mentoring programmes in Higher Education can lead to better outcomes for ECAs. We underline the potential of similar inter-professional mentoring schemes for ECAs and key learning, which could benefit future programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutional ethnography (IE), a term coined by sociologist Dorothy Smith, explores the nuances of institutions and their complex relationships in sociology. IE is an approach to studying and analysing social organization, and it provides a more holistic understanding of 'invisible' relationships that govern institutions and how those relationships interact with each other. Health sciences researchers in patient care, patient experience, and allied health professionals have recently become more interested in the use of this methodology and how to incorporate it into their research. However, in health professions education (HPE) there is little use of IE. We hypothesize this may be because of limited practical knowledge of this methodology. This paper serves as an introduction to the use of IE in HPE, describing the differences between IE and traditional ethnographies, recognizing the common pitfalls when utilising IE, and incorporating texts into IE. While ethnographies may be daunting to researchers less familiar with these approaches, the tips in this paper will provide an introduction and help educators and researchers successfully navigate the use of IE in health profession scholarship and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The document "Emotions and leisure: new insights and perspectives" examines the social nature of emotions in leisure and emphasizes the need for critical research on emotions in contemporary leisure contexts. The authors argue that previous studies on emotions in leisure have been limited by a focus on psychology and quantitative methods, and they advocate for a sociological understanding of emotions as embodied, relational, and culturally specific. The document discusses the work of various scholars who have theorized emotions from a sociological perspective and highlights the importance of broader perspectives and theories in leisure research. The document also presents a collection of 12 original contributions that explore the intersection of emotions and leisure from different disciplinary and methodological perspectives, covering topics such as identity, nature, disability, migration, representations, and the politics of emotions. The collection underscores the significance of emotions in understanding leisure experiences and their impact on individuals and society, while also calling for further interdisciplinary research on the psychological, cultural, anthropological, and educational aspects of emotions in leisure. The authors encourage deeper investigations into topics such as digital technologies, online hate, right-wing nationalist movements, and LGBTQ+ inclusion in physical activities. [Extracted from the article]

Although religion once played a central role in sociological inquiry, today it has fallen from prominence and now occupies a marginal space in the field. Sociologists of religion suggest that this neglect can be explained by the unusual irreligiosity of academia. However, some are hopeful that changes to graduate training and other institutional interventions can overcome this propensity and encourage more sociological engagement with religion, one of the most influential forces in contemporary society. Drawing on a new dataset of 473 sociology graduate students in the top 25 departments in the United States, we assess how personal secularity and departmental support for religious inquiry predict sociological engagement with religion. Personal secularity is a strong predictor of the decision to study religion and of the overall perception of the relevance of religion in contemporary society. Coming from a department where religion is discussed and faculty pursue research on religion predicts the perception of religion's relevance for the secular majority. Our findings contribute to the understanding of sociological knowledge creation and how individual and institutional proclivities – together – shape what we deem important enough to study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When students enter higher education, they not only start learning and studying but begin a journey of becoming someone new in relation to themselves and to society. Scholarly research has increasingly emphasised this transformative element of higher education yet, to date, the role of assessment has received little attention in the processes of being and becoming. This is a crucial limitation given how profoundly assessment – exams, self- and peer-assessment, grades, rankings, metrics – characterises contemporary higher education. In this conceptual study, we propose a novel way of rethinking assessment as a matter of being and becoming. We bring together the separate fields of research on assessment and the philosophy of higher education by theorising other-formation and self-formation in and through assessment encounters. First, we discuss how assessment shapes students in 'the measured university' (other-formation). We then reconceptualise assessment from the viewpoint of how it promotes student agency and self-reflexivity (self-formation). Finally, we discuss some frequently used assessment practices in light of student self/other-formation. Our study sets the agenda of understanding student formation in and through assessment by laying the philosophical foundation for future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to synthesize the extant literature that brings sociological analysis to the context, production and perpetuation of the antiracist identity. Our aim is to distinguish this analysis from the huge body of literature written from inside antiracism. Antiracism began in the latter half of the twentieth century. This examination reveals antiracism as an identity and a project of organizational production maintained through discursive and symbolic formations and institutionalized forms of governance. Its members espouse easily digestible 'common sense' ideologies of racism and anti-racism premised on a belief in the 'absolute nature' of categories of ethnicity and race. It then builds on this discursive framing with commensurate solutions at these levels. It does this through discursive projects and codification of institutional self governance. However, this racializing identity work may perpetuate racism through its classifications and its obfuscation of class privilege and economic inequalities. Its ever-expanding codified extension into organizations, businesses and global grassroots movements calls for a critical lens to direct historical, economic and political analysis onto the obfuscating work of this identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How has the Europeanisation of football at the level of governance (due to for example the effects of the Bosman ruling and the formation of the UEFA Champions League) – influenced the identities of football fans? This paper explores how such structural Europeanisation in football is influencing identifications among fans. Based on an analysis of articulations in selected online message boards, we distil the positioning of fans towards 'Europe' in football, and the factors which shape it. We control for three main avenues of impact: the club level, the league level, and the societal context. Our inquiry is based on a set of paired comparisons of fan scenes for football clubs in four different European countries. Results show that the factor carrying the most explanatory power is the club's participation in European-level competition. Although this broadly confirms a 'contact hypothesis' – according to which the more fans are exposed to cross-border contacts, the less relevance they attribute to aspects of national belonging – significant variations of how frequent exposure to European-level competition translates into more Europeanised perceptions do exist. For European identity studies, the work corroborates that a lifeworld arena such as football can foster Europeanised identifications, albeit not in a uniform manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Narratives of wartime suffering, communist evils, and maltreatment by the 'West' have started featuring prominently in the political discourse across eastern Europe in the past decade and half. Permeating the public sphere, such narratives imply complex victimhood and often gain a hegemonic status. Why have such victimhood narratives become so pervasive? And what has been their purpose across eastern Europe? This interdisciplinary article provides a conceptual and empirical explanation of how hegemonic narratives of victimhood have been used to enhance ontological security and as an instrument of power-seeking political leaders, especially (but not exclusively) right-wing populists. It shows that although the local attachment to memory and history is often portrayed as irrational, victimhood as a narrative has clear benefits regarding national ontological security as the self-understanding of a state and a tool to justify policies. Using concrete examples, the articles identify three main sub-narratives of direct, historical and structural victimhood linked to World War II, communism and the precarious relationship with the 'West', arguing that the combination of historical traumas and the post-1989 transformations explain the pan-regional proliferation of victimhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I discuss Lithuanian LGBQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer) people's views on belonging to the West/EUrope. I will argue that the research participants' age group, location of residence, their (not)involvement with LGBTQ+ leisure culture and/or their migrant status made a significant impact towards forming their subjective sense of (not) belonging to the West, when they discussed their personal experiences of spending time abroad. When belonging to the West/EUrope was discussed against the backdrop of national belonging, the research participants syncretised the elements of the dominant nationalistic narrative, and the Rainbow Europe narrative in order to homosexualise the national canon and to construct an accommodating version of Lithuania as the Rainbow Nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-border regions are often deemed laboratories for initiatives to increase Europeanization. Our paper examines the German-speaking Community of Belgium in the Euregio Maas-Rhine to assess the relevance of everyday cross-border activities to the perception that living in a border region presents a unique opportunity to feel and think as a European. Departing from the assumptions of both Deutsch's transaction theory and Allport's contact hypothesis, we analyze Eurobarometer data (population-level surveys) and use data from focus groups with regional MPs. Results from quantitative data analysis suggest that perceptions of life in cross-border regions are positively influenced by frequent cross-border movement (functional dimension) as well as general trust in other people (emotional dimension). Our qualitative data from focus groups support the findings from the quantitative analysis and demonstrate further that it is not merely the quantity but the quality of contacts that contribute to a gradual 'growing together'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, scholarship on postfunctionalism in European integration has drawn attention to how processes of Europeanisation are not restricted to policymakers, but exist equally (if not more significantly) in the quotidian. The 2016–2020 Brexit process and debates on the relationship between national identity and 'Europeanness' urge a new consideration of how Europeanisation is narrated in everyday discourses. This paper analyses British fictional portrayals of the EEC and EU and posits a new theoretical framework of 'Imperial Gothic 2.0'. Pre-2016 representations of the EU were entirely dystopian. But post-2016, Brex-Lit fiction has reversed this trend and the EU now appears as a flawless utopia. Early twentieth-century 'Imperial Gothic' saw popular fiction defined by themes of British decline and oppression by foreign powers; a century later, Brex-Lit has resurrected these themes by narrating Britain in terminal decline, reflecting cultural anxieties, a reversal of Self and Other, and a loss of identities. This 'Imperial Gothic 2.0' reveals anxieties which reflect and influence political action, and reveals the extent to which imaginations and narratives of the EU have transformed from depictions of a distant, technocratic entity used for comedy or conspiracy, into a site of intense emotional affiliation, nostalgia, anticipation, and regret. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of growing nationalisms and Euroscepticism, this paper develops the original concept of 'Everyday Europeanhood' on a theoretical level, building on related concepts, such as Skey and Antonsich's 'Everyday Nationhood', Billig's 'Banal Nationalism', Anderson's 'Imagined Communities' and Beck's 'Cosmopolitan Vision'. It applies the concept to the European Universities Initiative (EUI), seen as a tool to promote European identity, based on a common sense of belonging conveyed through everyday practice, among students and staff in European University Alliances. It is argued that, in the light of previous top-down European initiatives designed to symbolically reinforce a sense of shared European identity, the EUI seems more in phase with bottom-up 'everyday' processes of identity development. Taking the European University Alliance 'FORTHEM' as an example, core features, aspects, actions and outputs achieved so far within this alliance are categorised in the light of four dimensions of 'Everyday Europeanhood': 'Talking Europe', 'Choosing Europe', 'Performing Europe' and 'Consuming Europe'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies of international historical sociology have focused more on the interaction between the political and economic aspects of the world system compared to its cultural dimensions. In this article we want to address this lacuna with particular reference to the theory of Uneven and Combined Development (UCD here after). UCD is an attempt to develop a non-Eurocentric, non-linear, and historical understanding of international relations. It aims to provide a non-Eurocentric historiography and historical sociology that goes beyond binary oppositions of East and West, tradition and modernity, and emphasises non-Western agency in shaping historical developments. The cultural implications of UCD has recently been revived in world literature and cultural studies. We seek to contribute to this research by illustrating how UCD can help us understand the cultural implications of societal interaction through the use of Turkish literature, notably Peyami Safa's work. We want to focus on the theme of the interaction between the West and the East in his work within the context of the theory of UCD as an example of how it manifests itself in the cultural field. Accordingly, the article is structured as follows. The first section discusses the key features of UCD as they relate to our topic, and the second section goes on to examine processes of Westernisation as they have occurred in Turkey and attempts to demonstrate how UCD is reflected in the literature of the period. The third section aims to show how the concept of UCD can help us better understand the implications of societal interaction in Peyami Safa's work by addressing the various issues that are raised in Justin Rosenberg's approach to analysing world literature. The final section concludes with general observations concerning the potential utility of UCD-based methodologies in constituting the foundation of non-Western IR theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines vulgarity's cultural significance among the Zeliangrong Naga of Nagaland, Assam and Manipur. It is a sociological analysis of the ritual and social statuses maintained by senexes through ritualised vulgarities. The paper contends that vulgarities are not inherently vile. Vulgarities are believed to have divine power to protect humans by repelling evil spirits and causing them to despise humans who revel in utterly filthy vulgarism. Understanding the mythology of creation by divine intervention and propagation through sexual reproduction necessitates understanding ritualistic vulgarities. Men give something bad, like vulgarity, a divine meaning by giving it a good purpose and controlling how it is used in culture to keep their highest social and ritual statuses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical realism provides an alternative to positivism and interpretivism. It foregrounds ontology and an evaluative approach to knowledge, while promoting eclectic reasoning, transdisciplinarity, and ethical research across the quantitative/qualitative, macro/micro and other divides. Health researchers have usefully employed critical realism, though it has also been dismissed as strange, a source of self-deception and hubris. Furthermore, it has been accused of dehumanizing many people. Responding to these charges, this article makes the case for carefully employing critical realism within and beyond social studies of health. It first outlines some basic critical realist tenets before summarizing two exemplars within the sociology of health, illness and medical work. The discussion section, observing the principle of hermeticism, engages with some criticisms before offering a prolegomenon to research on the COVID-19 pandemic response. In conclusion, a 'radical' proposal is ventured for possible transformative action so that society is less hierarchical, more equal and salutogenic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Embarking upon my PhD journey as the Other at the age of 37, I soon became emotionally involved in dealing with the process of not knowing my becoming. Reading and writing, then, create the possibilities of both re-immersing and reinventing the self in the plane of self-referential immanence. Using embodied writing as a method of discovery, this autoethnographic poem exemplifies 'how to document becoming', creating new ways of thinking, feeling, and knowing. Through the embodiment of contemporary thinkers and scholars, I (re-)immerse myself in their works, uttering each poetry line through my untold desire of becoming. This creative writing process, in turn, allows for the novelty of knowing and becoming identities, bringing meaning and power into play. By applying Deleuzian philosophy, I realise that the imagination itself can be meaningfully rehabilitated as a productive capacity, of giving me desire and agency, to construct the aspirational self for an imagined terrain of academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]