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The article builds on a recent literature that has sought to underscore the relevance of Bourdieu’s field theory for historical-sociological analysis. It draws attention to symbolic revolutions, a concept that has been given short shrift in this literature and even in Bourdieu’s own expositions of his field-theoretical apparatus. The article argues that symbolic revolutions denote a universal mechanism of field-internal change which extends and complements a conceptual battery of mostly structural universals of fields. In a synoptic reading of Bourdieu’s field-theoretical work, the article fleshes out an ideal type of symbolic revolutions, with special regard to its dialectical features. It adds further analytical purchase to the concept by highlighting continuities and parallels with the work of Thomas Kuhn and Karl Mannheim. Finally, it argues that more recent studies by other authors on transformations in the psychiatric field, the field of social and human sciences, and the political field are in fact discussing instances of symbolic revolutions. It thus shows how the concept can help identify common properties among highly heterogeneous phenomena, opening up new avenues for historical-sociological investigations that can more systematically relate the general and the particular.

This paper proposes and enriches the concept of technical potential energy based on field theory. On this basis, we analyze and verify the driving mechanism of technical potential energy on each stage of industry-university-research institution (IUR) collaborative innovation. Thus, the different effects on the different stages are unambiguous. First, the concept is defined based on three dimensions: the willingness of innovation subjects, the internal and external innovation environment, and participants’ attraction of innovation elements. Second, we analyze the promoting mechanism of technical potential energy in IUR collaborative innovation through conceptual model theory. Finally, system dynamics (SD) simulation analysis is used to verify the driving mechanism. The results show that technical potential energy promotes the establishment of IUR collaborative innovation alliances through the willingness and environment dimensions in the preparation stage. In the operation stage, technical innovation synergy and transfer synergy are driven by technical potential energy through the element dimension. In the extension stage, technical potential difference stimulates the technical spillover effect and facilitates innovation synergy. After entering the operation stage, the promoting effect of technical potential energy decreases somewhat, and the promoting effect of the technical potential energy of enterprises on IUR collaboration is higher than that of universities and research institutes.

Artificial potential fields (APF) and reinforcement learning (RL) are two common methods for the intelligent decision of autonomous vehicles. The process of vehicle driving includes the constraints of vehicle dynamics, traffic rules, road conditions, and other traffic vehicles, which are quite complex. The existing APF methods perform inadequately since they consider only limited factors and their effects. As such, it is difficult to adapt to increasingly complex traffic environments. In this paper, we propose a new concept, compound traffic field (CTF). The concept makes use of field theory to model various traffic environments based on the physical properties and traffic rules, besides, introduces the concept of the force correction field to reveal the interaction between the vehicle and the surrounding environment during driving. Moreover, an intelligent decision method and a co-simulation platform are established based on combining RL and CTF. The method has passed the tests in various scenarios built by PreScan and compared with the Conventional APF and modeless algorithm. For solving intelligent decision problems in the complex environment provides an applicable field model and its application method.

Innovation does not just involve the creation of new products, but also includes the need for new kinds of processes and organizations. Field theory can help us understand why some innovations are more piecemeal and others more revolutionary. It explicitly links innovation to the process of the emergence, adjustment, and transformation of markets (conceived of as fields). To illustrate this perspective, the case of the transition in the U.S. from a mortgage market dominated by savings and loan banks to the emergence of mortgage securitization dominated by the government sponsored enterprises and the largest private banks, is explicated. Field theory helps us understand the logic of this transition and the myriad players and innovations that helped produce a large part of what we consider to be modern finance. The case also shows the limits of economic theories of financial innovation and the sociology of finance. I end with a discussion of how field theory can inform subsequent research on innovation.

If we want to understand Bion’s psychoanalysis and analytic field theory, its most creative development, there is one point we must always bear in mind. Bion conceives individual therapy as group therapy. Consequently, he invites the analyst to put the patient’s past and related causal theories in the background. Rather she should focus on the emotional transformations that occur in the here and now. This is very different from observing the Freudian principles of oneiric and transference distortion, on the one hand, and the (re)construction of the patient’s past history, on the other. It is also different from paying attention to so-called deep unconscious fantasies or enactments. Such a crucial aspect, though, is often misunderstood. Here the concepts of the grid and of the regression or “in search of existence” graph are employed as a way of clarifying it. Trying at any given moment to grasp the direction of the vector that represents the sum of the emotional turbulences affecting the field, whether regressive or progressive (in other words, whether reflecting the growth of the mind or its destruction), implies using a radical technique to achieve receptiveness to the unconscious. The analyst treats all narratives in the session as if they were the recounting of a dream dreamt by the analytic dyad or group of two. A few clinical vignettes are presented by way of illustration.

Research on economization processes is increasingly taking seriously the social and material processes through which various policy domains are transformed into economic problems and solutions. This article engages “Value Added Modeling” (VAM) in teacher evaluation systems as a case study in economization. VAM is a statistical technology for evaluating the effectiveness of schoolteachers using student test scores, which wrests authority for the determination of quality teaching away from education professionals and toward quantitative economic modelers. Mobilizing field theory, we trace a half century of changing relationships among economists, other academics, and various policy audiences (from media to philanthropists to state and federal government) in struggles to define education policy concerning teacher quality. We show that economization is a set of overlapping, sometimes contradictory processes that can take different forms: in this case, the spread of an “economic style of reasoning” or the establishment of “economic policy devices.” The case of VAM shows stages of economization in which processes first proceeded independently of one another, then interacted in contradictory ways, and finally, mutually reinforced one another. What primarily drove these interactions was the struggle for scientific capital within the economics discipline and the changing place of education policy and VAM within it. Ultimately, VAM’s original role as a policy device for evaluating and selecting individual teachers has foundered even as it has become an important tool for economists to accrue scientific capital and expand their style of reasoning to broader audiences.

In recent years, urbanization has accelerated and the gap between urban water supply and demand has become more significant. This phenomenon has led to greater demands on urban water resource management. Thus, analyses of the forces that drive urban water demand growth can help efficient management of urban water resources. “Jing-Jin-Ji” refers to the district composed of Beijing and Tianjin, municipality as well as Hebei Province, which is among the political and economic centers of China. The traditional analysis of driving force for water resources often consider cities as independent individuals and ignores the interaction between them. Such method cannot describe the spatial distribution of regional water demand. In this study, the water demand field theory is used to construct water demand and social development fields for the Jing-Jin-Ji district with relevant indicators. The distribution trends of the two fields, and the correlation of their intensities, are then analyzed. Principal component analysis is used to specifically determine the forces that drive water demand at different stages of development. Results indicate that the water demand field theory can accurately describe spatial variations in water demand intensity in the study area. The main driving force for water demand in the Jing-Jin-Ji district from 2000 to 2014 is the growth of urban population. However, in 2015 and 2016, “GDP of the tertiary industry” overtook it. The results of this study can serve as a basis for regional water demand forecasting, with large potential to be applied to urban water resource management.

Many processes and practices in the field of health professions education have been based more on tradition and assumption than on evidence and theory. As the field matures, researchers are increasingly seeking evidence to support various teaching and assessment methods. However, there is a tendency to focus on a limited set of topics, leaving other areas under-examined and limiting our understanding of the field. By explicitly examining areas that are undescribed, i.e. absences in the literature, researchers and scholars have the potential to enrich our practice and our field's understanding of what counts as legitimate research. Using the theoretical framework of Bourdieu's concept of field, we conducted an instrumental case study of three published research projects that each had a finding of absence. We examined each case individually, and then analyzed across cases. Our dataset included published papers, peer-review feedback, and reflective notes. Each of the cases interrogated a different form of absence: absence of content, absence of research, and absence of evidence. While the typology suggests that each absence was different, there were similarities across cases in terms of challenges in 'proving' the reality of the absence and some disbelief or discomfort with accepting the findings as rigorous and/or legitimate. Absence research has potential to add to our theoretical and methodological approaches to the field. This type of research is potentially an exciting and productive new way for scholars to shed light on aspects of health professions education that have received limited attention to date.

Leadership is inherently social. Being grounded in the Lewinian framework of field theory, I am instancing the diverse understanding of social leadership: Uncertainty reduction, making choices, assuming responsibility, and contributing to an orchestral interplay between followers are important functions of social leadership. But this is not sufficient. Organizations are built by concrete agents with concrete needs and overreaching goals. These needs and goals structure the environment (personal culture) of various employees including the leader. Drawing on an empirical case from a bakery as well as on Lewinian cases from the past, I am showing how group atmosphere alone is not able to cover the full range of the follower’s reactions: Here, we need to rely on basic concepts of culture: Employees live and work in their related life spaces. Complexity arises in organizations if the goal pursuit between followers themselves is contradictory, thus if their life spaces are a barrier for each other. The leader needs to realize here that this is not a disadvantage; his role is neither to solve these contradictions nor to present a potential solution. The leader needs to emphasize the interdependence of his followers; s/he can do so by letting them experience the issues and difficulties of the social other encountered in their respective life spaces. Here, followers are getting a glimpse into the life space (personal culture) of a colleague. Such border experiences play a key role for the following democratic exchange of how two previously contradictory life spaces are turned into conciliatory ones.

Walter Noll (1925–2017) was an American mathematician of German birth who made lasting contributions to the foundations of continuum physics and the classical non-linear field theory. This essay is an attempt to put in a broader perspective Noll’s methods and achievements in the hope that young generations of researchers may find their inspiration in the talent and depth of the old. By no means should this be considered as a historical account on the development of continuum mechanics through the second half of the twentieth century. We are content to illuminate Noll’s precious legacy.

This article introduces a new theory, the Affective–Reflective Theory (ART) of physical inactivity and exercise. ART aims to explain and predict behavior in situations in which people either remain in a state of physical inactivity or initiate action (exercise). It is a dual-process model and assumes that exercise-related stimuli trigger automatic associations and a resulting automatic affective valuation of exercise (type-1 process). The automatic affective valuation forms the basis for the reflective evaluation (type-2 process), which can follow if self-control resources are available. The automatic affective valuation is connected with an action impulse, whereas the reflective evaluation can result in action plans. The two processes, in constant interaction, direct the individual towards or away from changing behavior. The ART of physical inactivity and exercise predicts that, when there is an affective–reflective discrepancy and self-control resources are low, behavior is more likely to be governed by the affective type-1 process. This introductory article explains the underlying concepts and main theoretical roots from which the ART of physical inactivity and exercise was developed (field theory, affective responses to exercise, automatic evaluation, evaluation-behavior link, dual-process theorizing). We also summarize the empirical tests that have been conducted to refine the theory in its present form.

This article argues that fan studies has typically neglected theatre as an object of fandom, whilst theatre studies has, in turn, marginalised audience and fan studies. Challenging these structuring invisibilities, I will consider how fandom has been discursively constructed in the theatre »field« (Bourdieu 1993). Media fandom has often been positioned as external to the world of theatre, or discursively limited to commercial productions such as West End/Broadway shows, especially musicals. Contra such assumptions, I will analyze discourses of fandom within the theatrical field, considering how generational and media-technological developments have supported a fan-like »participatory culture« with regard to both highly commercial and ›legitimate‹ forms of popular theatre.

This article extends Bourdieu’s field theory to explain how learning spaces in the Toronto folk and metal scenes create gendered access to a field-specific form of cultural capital: performance capital, or the instrumental and interpersonal skills required to perform music. Folk musicians develop performance capital in open-access spaces, such as workshops and open stages at local folk clubs, while metal musicians learn in private spaces such as garages, basements, and rented rehearsal rooms. Folk’s learning spaces are open to all aspiring musicians, while access to heavy metal’s learning spaces relies on social networks from which women are often excluded. These different processes of capital development can lead to greater or lesser opportunities for women to become cultural producers: In Toronto, women make up approximately five percent of heavy metal musicians, but almost half of practicing folk musicians.

This article analyzes the reception of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the twenty-first century” from September 2013 to June 2015 in France, where it was first released, and in the United States, by academics who come from a variety of disciplines. We discuss the “spontaneous sociology” offered by some of the actors of this reception and analyze, using their remarks as a starting point, the major predictors of the content of an academic review of Piketty. Our results highlight the strong effect of passing time on the content of the reviews – three clear phases can be identified in the reception of the book showing a “proteus effect” pattern. They also emphasize the importance of understanding how academic disciplines structure the debate – much more so than the country of residence. In fact, most of the opinions academics express on Piketty’s book are tied to their departmental affiliations. We look at how this link articulates the intellectual structures of the disciplines with field theory. Our results suggest a strong autonomy of the social scientific field from more general public concerns.

The present paper outlines a novel approach to predict popularity of topics for social network Twitter; the method is designed to identify precociously the topics able to demonstrate “explosive” growth in popularity. First of all, the predictive clustering method ascertains real (not written in hash-tags!) topics of tweets and then predicts popularity rates for the topics. The same clustering algorithm is employed both to ascertain the real topic of a message and to cluster segments of time series (in order to predict topics popularity), namely, maximum likelihood adaptive neural system based upon modelling field theory. In the course of wide-ranging simulation, typical variants of “pre-explosive” dynamics were revealed; some of them were turned out to be equal to heuristic techniques to predict topics popularity well known for PR community collaborating with the network (“crab,” “Pesavento’s butterfly,” etc.).

Steven Weinberg occupies a remarkable place in contemporary physics as well as being one of its most prominent public voices. He cofounded and named the Standard Model of particle physics, which synthesized the strong, weak, and electromagnetic interactions into a powerful theory amply confirmed by experiment. He is also a skillful and prolific writer not only of magisterial (and innovative) texts on general relativity and field theory but also of a number of very successful popular books. A regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, he is one of the most visible and widely respected physicists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, both among his peers and the general public; in these respects, one might compare him to Freeman Dyson. An eminent professor at the University of Texas (and many other places before that), Weinberg has in recent years given a course on the history of physics and astronomy, from which grew his new book, To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science. Normally, this journal does not review essentially popular accounts, but Weinberg’s seems a special case because of its author’s eminence and influence and because his book raises important questions about the history of physics, how it is told by physicists and historians, how it is understood by the general public. Weinberg considers that, as a physicist, he can address history with the same vividness that he would bring to a physical problem, starting from first principles to give an account of some complex phenomenon. Indeed, this spirit served him well as he put together the theory that won him fame; he applied the same intellectual independence and freshness to his books on field theory and gravitation, which offered clear and sometimes new syntheses that have taught many physicists a great deal. He applied the same independent judgment to various conceptual issues that emerge from physics. For instance, in a number of writings for the general public he famously championed reductionism over the seductive charms of holism. Blunt and frank, he revels in polemic where he can bring to bear his formidable knowledge of physics, a certain love of contrarian positions, and his skill with words. Thus, his presentation of the history of physics is an event that merits close attention because it presumably will be taken by his peers and the general public as the considered judgment of this eminent physicist about the history of science. Indeed, his interest in history is long-standing; readers of his earlier books will notice how often and how keenly he devotes close attention to the history of the point in question, at times delving into the primary sources and wishing to go beyond often-recounted stories or summary accounts. In that sense, there is much to admire in To Explain the World. Weinberg sets out to explain in some detail the salient history and controversies that formed physics as we now know it, indeed the whole of science. By comparison with many works that stint or even

This essay provides an analytical review of David Swartz’s book on Bourdieu’s political sociology. I argue that among its many virtues, the book presents Bourdieu’s ideas in an accessible and synthetic manner, adding clarity to what is a complex and often contradictory theoretical system. In addition to assessing the book’s contributions, I draw inspiration from Swartz’s work to point out some of the limitations of the Bourdieusian perspective and identify promising avenues for the further elaboration of this approach through empirical research.

In this article we respond to the discussion by Alexandra Schindel Dimick regarding how the taste analysis presented in our feature article can be expanded within a Bourdieuan framework. Here we acknowledge the significance of field theory to introduce wider reflexivity on the kind of taste that is constituted in the science classroom, while we at the same time emphasize the importance of differentiating between how taste is reproduced versus how it is changed through teaching. The contribution of our methodology is mainly to offer the possibility to empirically analyze changes in this taste, and how teaching can make a difference in regard to students’ home backgrounds. However, our last two steps of our taste analysis include asking questions about how the taste developing in the classroom relates more widely in society. Schindel Dimick shows how these two steps can be productively expanded by a wider societal field analysis.

I argue that the quantum revolution should be seen as an Ian Hacking type of scientific revolution: a profound, longue duree, multidisciplinary process of transforming our understanding of physical nature, with deep-rooted social components from the start. The “revolution” exhibits a characteristic style of reasoning – the hierarchization of physical nature — and developed and uses a specific language – quantum field theory (QFT). It is by virtue of that language that the quantum theory has achieved some of its deepest insights into the description of the dynamics of the physical world. However, the meaning of what a quantum field theory is and what it describes has deeply altered, and one now speaks of “effective” quantum field theories. Interpreting all present day quantum field theories as but “effective” field theories sheds additional light on Phillip Anderson’s assertion that “More is different”. This important element is addressed in the last part of the paper.

This article proposes to redefine celebrity as a kind of capital, thereby extending Bourdieu’s field theory. This redefinition is necessary, it is argued, because one of the main limitations shared by current definitions of celebrity is their lack of explanatory power of the convertibility of celebrity into other resources, such as economic or political capital. Celebrity capital, or broadly recognizability, is conceptualized as accumulated media visibility that results from recurrent media representations. In that sense, it is a substantial kind of capital and not a subset or special category of social or symbolic capital, the latter being defined as legitimate recognition by other agents in a social field. Rather than adding another definition of celebrity next to many others, the notion of celebrity capital proposed here should be seen as an attempt to integrate the existing approaches of celebrity into a single comprehensive conceptualization that can enable us to grasp this societal and cultural phenomenon better.

This paper examines and portrays the production side of the custom publishing field with a primary focus on the UK, especially Greater London. Despite its prevalence, custom publishing has not received the same attention from media scholars, which is mirrored by the sometimes inappropriate, and even confusing terminologies attached to it. Hence, this paper aims to offer definitions characterizing the custom publishing branch whilst assessing the weaknesses and ambiguities in current definitions used in marketing and communications literature. Whereas a number of themes emerge from the study, the main focus is to locate the industry within the broader field of cultural production. Based on sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, the study looks at the heteronomous—and hence externally determined—principle inherent in the relationship between the contracting companies and the contracted writers. Furthermore, the research details the resources or capital, which form the basis of the publishers’ work, and how the struggle between the economic and symbolic capitals is manifested in the three pillars (the account managers, the editorial, and the design teams). Finally, it is argued that despite displaying many of the traits Bourdieu’s associates with a heteronomous field, custom publishers rely on an important degree of autonomy, which is institutionalized within the field itself.

Postcolonial theory has enjoyed wide influence in the humanities but it has left sociology comparatively unscathed. Does this mean that postcolonial theory is not relevant to sociology? Focusing upon social theory and historical sociology in particular, this article considers if and how postcolonial theory in the humanities might be imported into North American sociology. It argues that postcolonial theory offers a substantial critique of sociology because it alerts us to sociology’s tendency to analytically bifurcate social relations. The article also suggests that a postcolonial sociology can overcome these problems by incorporating relational social theories to give new accounts of modernity. Rather than simply studying non-Western postcolonial societies or only examining colonialism, this approach insists upon the interactional constitution of social units, processes, and practices across space. To illustrate, the article draws upon relational theories (actor-network theory and field theory) to offer postcolonial accounts of two conventional research areas in historical sociology: the industrial revolution in England and the French Revolution.

Mathematics teacher educators are confronted with numerous challenges and complexities as they work to inspire prospective teachers to embrace inquiry-based pedagogies. The research study described in this paper asks what a teacher educator and faculty advisor can learn from prospective secondary mathematics teachers as they construct (and are constructed by) official pedagogical discourses embedded in mathematics classrooms. Drawing on the theoretical constructs of Bourdieu, I present several pervasive discourses, or dispositions, as storied by prospective mathematics teachers. These discourses highlight prospective teachers’ negotiations of conflicting habitus-field fits during their teacher education field experience. The reflections put forth in this paper offer insights into the roles of mathematics teacher educators and teacher education programs in general.

While a few researchers have started to chip away at the notion that retail density is always negative, extant studies do not empirically address the question of why some shoppers respond negatively to a specific level of density while others respond positively. We examine this issue by drawing upon field theory (Lewin 1939) to shed light on how shoppers vary in terms of deeper motives (McClelland 1953) to seek control or intimacy with others in retail mall settings, and whether these motives influence shopping orientations. Shopping orientation is then hypothesized to affect perceptions of crowding, and, in turn, subsequent affective responses to the mall shopping experience. Moreover, we examine whether individual differences (gender and age) can help retailers segment those with different shopping orientations and the motives that influence these orientations. We found that task and social shopping orientations were influenced by deeper motives for control and intimacy. The causal relationships between shopping motive, shopping orientation, and consumers’ affective responses of stress and excitement were also discovered. Finally, we address theoretical and managerial implications of our results.

This paper uses Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory to develop tools for analyzing interdisciplinary scientific fields. Interdisciplinary fields are scientific spaces where no single form of scientific capital has a monopoly and therefore multiple forms of scientific capital constitute the structures and stakes of scientific competition. Scientists compete to accumulate and define forms of scientific capital and also to set the rates of exchange between them. The paper illustrates this framework by applying it to the interdisciplinary field of behavior genetics. Most behavior geneticists envision their participation in the field as a means to compete for scientific capital in other fields. However, the scientific capital of behavior genetics has different values for scientists attempting to deploy it in different neighboring fields. These values depend on situations in each field and the ways behavior genetics mediates relationships among them. The pattern of relationships of exchange helps explain the social hierarchy and several features of knowledge production within behavior genetics.

Since 2000, the number of Israeli high school students participating in early entrance programmes has increased dramatically from just a few to thousands, and they have become noteworthy agents in the Israel higher education field. By employing Bourdieu's field theory, several processes have been found to support the emergence of this new agent. At the inter-field level, it was found that forces from external fields adjust to the higher educational field's logic and set the stage for the new agent; at the intra-field level the involved actors were found to influence the indecisive ones; and at the habitus level, those with the right habitus and suitable capitals were found to establish the new agent, even against the will of more dominant ones. Further theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

When something serves a function, it is easy to overlook its origins. The tendency is to proceed directly to function and retroactively construct a story about origin based on the function it fills. In this article, I address this problem of origins as it appears in the sociology of knowledge, using a case study of the publication of the 3rd edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) in 1980. The manual revolutionized American psychiatry and the treatment of mental illness, because it served the function of classification that had become critical to the field of mental health by this time. But this function must be bracketed in order to reveal the “extra-functional” origins of the DSM-III. Using field theory, I argue that the manual was necessary for reasons other than the function it filled as a classification. Specifically, its origin lies in a series of conflicts among psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and clinical psychologists within the field of mental health, which followed in the wake of the collapse of psychoanalysis as the dominant treatment type for mental illness. I reveal the generative formula behind the production of the DSM-III, capturing a variety of social processes that influenced the format of the manual and made it a useful classification, but which are not reducible to function. In this way, I reproduce its raison d’etre in a manner similar to how the DSM-III appeared for the people who produced it. This focus on generative formulas offers the sociology of knowledge a way to capture the epistemic importance of a range of different social processes. Most importantly, it avoids the functional fallacy of reducing origin to function, and ignoring the idea that innovations might appear necessary even without clear recognition of their functional consequences.

We provide a sketch of J. R. Kantor’s (1959, 1971) psychological interbehavioral field (IBF) theory by identifying 9 essential points and briefly discussing each. The main emphasis of this sketch is on the foundation of Kantor’s thinking, the IBF. Suggestions for further study are provided.

The market for Japanese comics, called manga, in the United States grew rapidly at the beginning of the twenty first century at a rate unprecedented in the publishing industry. Sales grew a remarkable 350% from $60 million in 2002 to $210 million in 2007 and did not begin to decline until the beginning of the recent economic downturn beginning in late 2008. No published research is yet able to account for this phenomenon in a manner that is both socially-situated and medium-specific. In this paper, I provide such a sociological account of the rise of manga in the United States and its implications for the globalization of culture. Adapting Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical formulation of the cultural field, I argue that manga migrated from the comics field to the book field and that the ways in which industry practices, distribution networks, and target demographics differ between the two fields are directly responsible for the medium’s newfound visibility. Furthermore, I argue that, despite the now-common transparency of the Japanese origin of Japanese titles, the American publishing industry’s creation of manga as a category of books distinct from other comics is an ineluctable naturalizing process that ultimately erases from American consciousness the Japanese, the foreign, the other.

This paper reveals how the provision of teacher professional development is conceptualised within the Australian Government Quality Teacher Programme (AGQTP) policy text and its predecessors, and uses these texts to infer the nature of the production practices associated with the development of these policies. The paper argues that multiple tensions within these texts gesture towards support for complex and contested approaches to professional development during the policy production process. To make sense of this contestation, the paper draws suggestively upon Bourdieu’s field theory, which conceptualises the social world as consisting of social spaces or “fields”, and extensions of his theory, which reveal fields as exerting considerable influence upon one another. The paper argues that “Quality Teacher Programme” texts infer support for more progressive, social democratic approaches to the provision of teacher professional development within the educational policy field, as well as more economistic and neoliberal approaches.

The results of research of the utilitarian type on the culture of the family firm is reported here. A model is built and defined on the basis of the main arguments supporting the following theories: general systems theory, neoinstitutional theory, transformational leadership theory, field theory, learning theory, and group dynamics theory. The resulting model is an instrument that can be used to deepen our understanding of the organizational culture of this type of firm. It should prove to be a powerful tool to exploit the competitive potential of this culture, which has often been noted in the literature.

Twenty-five years ago, field theory was among the most contested issues in argumentation studies. Today, the situation is very different. In fact, field theory has almost disappeared from disciplinary debates, a development which might suggest that the concept is not a useful aspect of argumentation theory. In contrast, I argue that while field studies are rarely useful, field theory provides an essential underpinning to any close analysis of an argumentative controversy. I then argue that the conflicting approaches to argument fields were in fact not inconsistent, but instead reflected different aspects of field practices. A coherent approach to field theory can be developed by considering the way that all aspects of argumentative practice develop based on the purposes of arguers in an argumentative context. I then extend that position to argue that a justifiable theory of argumentation, which makes claims beyond the descriptive, must have at its core an analysis of the way that purpose constrains argumentation practice. In this view, the ultimate justification of principles found in a prescriptive or evaluative theory of argument must be in the way those principles fulfill practical problem-solving purposes related to the epistemic function of argument.

This relatively short and extremely well written book is what I would recommend to every graduate student in condensed matter physics as compulsory reading. I really would. Considering its modest size if compared to other ponderous treatises on the same topic(s), its very clear and well chiseled out explanations and derivations, as well as the care prof. Herbut took in order not to overpower the reader with too extravagant excursions into the mathematical arcana of the field theory, it simply deserves to be noted and read. I am sure the students will appreciate its manageable size and conciseness, its crisp argumentation as well as its elegant and not overwhelming mathematical proofs. There are of course many books on critical phenomena but this one nevertheless stands out. While reading it I wished this would be my first encounter with the methods of field theory applied to condensed matter physics. The book grew out from the lectures on the theory of phase transitions and the renormalization group that prof. Herbut taught to the grad students at Simon Fraser University. It was conceived primarily not only for the student that wants to get familiar with the notions of phase transitions and critical phenomena, but above all, for the students that actually want to learn how to use and implement the basic concepts of modern theory of critical phenomena, in order to explain and compute the problems s/he is working on. The book thus inevitably contains enough calculational details either explained in the main text or interspersed throughout carefully chosen problems, in order to convey the usefulness and elegance of the field-theoretical techniques. The book is organized around the principal theme, which was chosen as the superfluid phase transition: it allows a straightforward introduction of the Ginzburg-Landau-Wilson functional, leads naturally to the notion of topological defects and is well supported by the available experimental evidence. Formally the momentum-shell renormalization group approach is given total priority over the real-space renormalization since it flows most naturally from the Ginzburg-Landau-Wilson functional. Besides the introductory chapters, the book

In this paper Kurt Lewin's notions of conflict in social systems are applied to interprofessional social service and education collaboratives. Interprofessional collaboration and service integration are parts of a larger reform effort addressed at reconfiguring and rethinking the ways that social service and educational systems are designed, services are delivered, and professionals are prepared. Constructs including privacy, cultural variance, group potency, need divergence, needs saturation, and tension are related and discussed in terms of generic group-life and the interprofessional collaborative. The discussion points to potential sources of tension and conflict in social systems and factors that may be influenced to reduce tension.

Whereas physics has evolved through three conceptual stages, the third being that of field theory, psychology has remained largely at the second stage, that of mechanistic or statistical correlation, and it has retained even some elements of the first stage, that of substance-property. However, some accomplishments in psychology utilize a field conception. Two of these, the interbehavioral field and the subjectivity field, are closely interconnected and show parallels with modern physics. They replace single causation and self-causation, analogical explanation, biological reductionism, and psychophysical dualism with the field as a necessary and sufficient condition for a psychological event. Q methodology for subjectivity adds an objective method of studying self-reference that the interbehavioral field lacks.

Classical ethology, with its emphasis on separability of parts, has largely failed to do justice to the wholeness of the individual animal, to the integrity of group behaviour and to the continuity between observable behaviour and consciousness. Field theory has potentialities to do better, as illustrated in this paper with reference to morphogenetic and behavioural fields. A behavioural domain is delineated — playlike behaviour — where field theory is particularly relevant. It is shown that the concept of symmetry can suggest new questions as well as explain some generally known phenomena of group behaviour. New interpretations of displacement activities and of etho-ecological adaptations are offered, both of which involve the whole individual animal.

The typical model of electric current which we present to students is one of electron movement between points at different potentials. The problems associated with this model of electricity have been the subject of much educational research, particularly with respect to the use of analogies. The water-circuit analogy, especially, has received considerable attention. Despite this, students continue to hold remarkably persistent alternative conceptions about the nature of simple circuits. Historically, the electromagnetic field theories of Faraday and Maxwell constitute important steps towards modern understanding of transmission of electric current along a wire. Textbooks from 1891 to 1991, however, reflect remarkably little change in their presentation of direct-current circuitry, most texts by implication portraying, in various ways, a fluid model which predates Faraday. Against this background, this paper describes the ways in which textbooks interpret historical developments for teaching texts and the time which may elapse before such developments have an impact in the classroom. It also highlights important issues relating to the intrinsic merit of contemporary textbook treatments of electricity and examines their importance with respect to classroom teaching.

The sociobiological fashion has for a long time discouraged the development of theories of the immediate causation of behaviour. It is only recently that new approaches are being developed to improve on the classical ethological theory originated by Lorenz and Tinbergen. One new departure is behavioural field theory (BFT) which brings back the concept of energy in behaviour, without being susceptible to the drawbacks of the ‘energy’ or fuel concept of classical theory. In this paper the new theory is explained in some detail and it is shown to be illuminating, predictive and testable in examples of play-like and territorial behaviour.

At the heart of this article are dialogues with three distinguished large group leaders: Patrick de Mare, Earl Hopper and Lionel Kreeger. They address, with Yvonne Agazarian, some of the major issues in leading large groups: terror and chaos, projective identification, annihilation anxiety, and the impact of size, structure, and boundary management on the potential for change and transformation in the large group. Also discussed are the twin heritage of both psychodynamic and sociological theory and the influence of psychoanalysis, basic assumption theory, information theory, general systems theory, and field theory on the current understanding of large group as the context for therapeutic change. The authors also introduce a theory of living human systems, which views the large group as one system in a hierarchy of isomorphic systems and identifies the subgroup as the fulcrum for change. From this systems-centered perspective, changing the structure and function of communication within subgroups simultaneously changes both the large group and the individual subgroup members.

Realist philosophies of science posit a dialectical relation between theoretical, explanatory knowledge and practical, including taxonomic knowledge. This paper examines the dialectic between the theory of descent and empirical, Linnaean taxonomy which is based on a logic of traditional classes. It considers the arguments of David Hull to the effect that many of the practical problems of empirical classification can be resolved by means of an ontology based upon the theory of descent in which species taxa are regarded as individuals rather than as classes or natural kinds.Contra Hull, it is argued that this view is, at best, only partially consistent with taxonomic practice and that it cannot sustain experimental practice which presupposes that species taxa be regarded as natural kinds. An outline is given of a possible alternative dialectic between a field theory of morphogenesis and a rational systematics involving a logic of relations.

The Wilsonian field theoretic approach has made its important and lasting mark on the theory of critical phenomena. Many heavy tomes have been dedicated to its mastery and explanation of its baroque details. This book comes on the wake of the Wilsonian revolution and deals with the intricacies of applying the field theoretic methods to the analysis of disordered systems, most notably the Random Field Ising Model and the Ising Spin Glass. It is written in masterly and elegant fashion by two remarkable researchers who have themselves, in particular prof. De Dominicis, fundamentally contributed to the subject. It is definitely not an introductory book, assumes a detailed knowledge of the field theory, and as such I can only recommend it either to researchers already working on disordered systems or advanced graduate students and postdocs. The authors masterly wield the various methods of field theory in order to “clarify and unify” via its mathematical language some of, in their opinion, more cryptic and pointed details of the theory of disordered systems. As already stated, this is not an introductory book but it is an interesting treatise on the intricacies of the various advanced and little known methods and techniques of the field theory, that can be applied to the various aspects of the theory of disordered systems. The book grew out of a set of lectures delivered by Prof. De Dominicis at Saclay and Porto Alegre that later grew into a book with the participation of his postdoc, Irene Giardina. The focus of this book are the unifying features of the disordered systems that can be adequately represented within the field theoretic language. The book is not exhaustive but represents rather a set of beautiful formal vignettes on some aspects of the field theoretic approach to disordered systems that do not require too much space and do not completely exhaust the reader with arcane details, but are never really very far from this. It is written in lapidary style and tells just enough to provide a meaningful framework for the formal developments. A typical example of its style being the first chapter, “A brief introduction”, that sets down the basics of the disordered systems in seven pages starting with quenched

A case study of the development of quantum field theory and of S-matrix theory, from their inceptions to the present, is presented. The descriptions of science given by Kuhn and by Lakatos are compared and contrasted as they apply to this case study. The episodes of the developments of these theories are then considered as candidates for competing research programs in Lakatos' methodology of scientific research programs. Lakatos' scheme provides a reasonable overall description and a plausible assessment of the relative value of these two programs in terms of progressive and degenerating problem shifts. Also discussed are the roles of various types of models as they have been used in these areas of theoretical high-energy physics.

An analogy between the flow of technology and the flow of electricity is used as a method to analyze technology transfer. This effort is expanded by an analogy to the Lewin's field theory in Social Science. An effort is then made to understand better the types of barriers to technology transfer. Several classes of barriers are identified and are then discussed in detail.

Professor Cushing's essay, 'Models and Methodologies in Current Theoretical High-Energy Physics' ([3]), is an important addition to the growing literature on the history and philosophy of physics, especially because very little has been written regarding the philosophical prob lems encountered in this area of science. Cushing's account consists primarily of a summary of the history of the development of quantum field theory and S-matrix theory; at the end of the summary is a brief discussion of Lakatos' and Kuhn's schemes for assessing the relative value of these two scientific research programs. The chief merits of the Cushing study are its comprehensiveness and its succinct and insightful presentation of many key assumptions historically underlying the two research programs. (In Section 2 of his study, for example, Cushing discusses the presuppositions in Bohr's solution (1913) to, and Haas' work (1910) on, the quantification problem for the hydrogen atom.) The most interesting part of the essay is the last section (7); here Cushing considers a number of important methodological and epistemological issues as they apply to high-energy physics. Although there are numerous points worth discussing in this excellent article, I will confine my remarks to comments on three claims made by Cushing which bear on philosophical, as opposed to historical, issues. What I will call claim (1) is probably one of the essay's most important conclusions. It appears in Section 7, near the end of the discussion. Here Cushing says that "QFT [quantum field theory] must also be judged more progressive than SMT [S-matrix theory" (p. 75). Another important assertion, what I will call claim (2), is found in Section 3, and repeated later, where Cushing says: "Competing research programs are required only when one program must be abandoned for another (crisis) since scientists must have an alternative if they are to switch" (p. 43). What I will call claim (3) is found in Note 62, where Cushing states: "Shrader Frechette has not established a Kuhnian case for the iminent break down of the 'normal' field theory paradigm in which the basic fields

This article has emphasized the ways in which theological education and pastoral psychologycan be optimally related in the future. It has been suggested that this future calls for a shift from purely medical models to field theory models of learning pastoral psychology. A shift from individualistic to social psychological data will be required. A new emphasis upon definitelypastoral types of research is urgently needed. An assimilation of technology in the media of teaching and learning pastoral psychology must be developed. And, finally, a shift from a passive to an aggressive mode of pastoral action is the unexplored region for the future adventures of pastoral psychologists.

A general field theory, made operational through multivariate analysis, very obviously provides a powerful way of analyzing spatial structure, spatial behavior, and their interdependencies. The essential link is provided by dyadic representation of interaction potentials in structural space, thus drawing into the theory the social physicists' preoccupation with potentials and providing a multivariate generalization of it.

THE new ‘Unified Field-Theory’ of Einstein is contained in two papers amounting altogether to eleven pages in the Berlin Sitzungsberichte, 17, 1928, and 1, 1929. There is an intermediate paper which does not concern us, since it follows a line of development now abandoned. For the present, at any rate, a non-mathematical explanation is out of the question, and in any case would miss the main purpose of the theory, which is to weld a number of laws into a mathematical expression of formal simplicity. We are chiefly interested in how it compares, both as to methods and results, with the existing field-theories which have had some measure of success.