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The article presents the author's commentary on the theories of development underlying the Educational Sector Policy paper of the World Bank. The two main aims of education according to the paper are as follows: contribution of education to the achievement of social justice and role of education in economic development. The author criticizes the strategies derived from the new theories of development which link the achievement of economic development and social justice. According to him, it does not follow from the newer theories of development that equality will contribute to economic development. He also claims that the paper makes the methodological mistake of attempting to derive policies directly from descriptive social theory.

Tins paper is intended as an effort at taking-stock of the reference group concept after nearly three decades of use, the latter two of which have been marked by its more than ample employment. Its popularity indeed has so frequently led to its serving as an all-purpose post hoc explanation of behavior that it has led to the wry definition, "Your reference group is a group that you behave like and you behave like them because they're your reference group" (Cohen, 1962: 104). The inconsistencies, lack of clarity, but also areas of agreement which have marked the varied formulations of the concept, will be apparent from the following review and commentary. The Final discussion indicates some of the matters still to be considered in the use of thin important but perhaps overworked concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The aim of this paper is to make further use of and develop the idea of deliberative communication (Englund, [20], [21], [22], [23], [26], [29], [30]) as crucial for creating sustainable democratic societies and educated citizens living educationally (cf. This means that the formation of school subjects and curriculum content rests on a deliberative understanding of education and curriculum (Englund, [18], [19], [29], cf. As I have developed in the earlier text I Towards a deliberative curriculum i from 2015, I mean that it is a bit problematic to, as a curriculum theoretician, look too close at school subjects as, e.g., Zongyi Deng does, namely "that a school subject is a distinctive purpose-built enterprise" (Englund, [29], p. 48) which comes close to a systematic curriculum view which is the dominant one today and that this package of knowledge in one way or another has to be delivered to the students. 9 This paper is based on, slightly revised and enlarged from an 10-pages-outline, The educated, deliberative citizen: A crucial curriculum question presented at NERA Curriculum Research Network, Symposium on "Who is the educated citizen in a knowledge society?". [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Critical African Studies is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The third sector of national innovation systems comprises non-academic, publicly owned R&D organizations that complement universities and private-sector firms and are normally called ‘research institutes’. Scholarly attention to these organizations has been scarce, partly a consequence of the theoretical imbalance in favor of conceptualizations of innovation processes as requiring mainly universities, private-sector firms, and governmental authorities to occur and succeed. Similarly, while this third sector often makes up a significant share of national innovation systems, it receives less attention in national research and innovation policy than do, say, universities. This paper argues that the role(s) and function(s) of third sector research institutes deserve to be mapped and analyzed in greater detail in order to understand how various organizational actors interact to produce innovation. From a comprehensive literature review and basic analysis of three institute groups in three Nordic countries, the paper makes a first preliminary analysis of the topic. While this analysis yields some interesting conclusions, its main function is to point the way for future studies. In these, other actors in the system should be investigated in thorough empirical studies, armed with tools from classic sociological systems theory that enhance the conceptual strength of the innovation systems framework and enable the acknowledgement of the role(s) and function(s) of several important organizational actors, not least research institutes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents several papers related developments in economics as realist social theory. According to the author, social theory expressly committed to work out the nature of social being, and, or how people access social reality is going through something of a revival in economics. The papers presented, provide numerous results, arguments, conjectures, and critiques have been produced in recent years, and aim to take some of these specific developments further. Context of the papers and basic ideas and results are presented.

Theorists of friendship in contemporary society have suggested that our relationships with peers are characterised by their emphasis on openness, disclosure and emotional communication. Moreover, Beck and Beck-Gernsheim argue that friendship, as a deliberately sought, trusting partnership between two people, can play an important role in countering some of the negative consequences of a market-driven society, 'acting as a shared lifeline to take the weight of each other's confusions and weaknesses'. However, drawing on a series of in-depth interviews with students from nine different higher education institutions, this paper will argue that such theorists overlook significant complexity in the ways in which young adults choose to 'order' their friendships. Indeed, it will suggest that highly individualised and ruthlessly competitive approaches to academic study can be maintained alongside more socially cooperative relationships with friends and peers, played out in non-academic arenas. The paper will discuss the implications of this for both sociological theorising about friendship, and policy and practice within the higher education sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that a Kantian model of decision-making, one that incorporates moral duties alongside standard preferences and constraints, can account for the complexities of actual ethical choice within a model with a single (constrained) preference ranking. Multiple utilities are required only to explain the failure to make appropriate decisions. Such occasions, often referred to as cases of weakness of will or akrasia , are easily explained with this approach, which is also consistent with the recent work of philosopher John Searle on action theory and rational choice. More generally, this paper highlights the need for discussion of the will in economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper pays particular attention to gender- and age-linked differences in forms of indirect, relational and direct, physical forms of delinquent aggression, as well as to sequential links of these forms of delinquent aggression to depression and drug and alcohol abuse. A power-control theory of the gender-delinquency relationship that draws attention to differences in familial control practices is then linked to these variations in the expression of delinquency and despair. We extend the focus of power-control theory to address how parental agency and support for dominant attitudes or schemas influence involvement in different forms of delinquency and despair. This extension emphasizes that differences in structure, particularly between more and less patriarchal households, result in degrees of difference and of kind in non-normative outcomes. The paper concludes with a call for increased diversity in the measurement of delinquency and despair and for the development of opposite-sex sibling samples to explore gender- and age-linked differences in non-normative phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the question of knowledge needs to be reconceptualised if sociology is to make its potential contribution to current debates about the curriculum. It begins with a review of the dominant assumptions underlying contemporary curriculum policy: neo-conservative traditionalism and technical-instrumentalism. It then examines the relativist position on knowledge that follows from the postmodernist critiques that have recently come to dominate social theory, particularly in the sociology of education. The paper argues that, in different ways, each of these approaches avoids the question of knowledge and hence leaves unresolved epistemological and educational dilemmas. In the final section, the paper draws on recent research in the sociology of science to develop what is referred to as a social realist approach to knowledge and explores its implications both for the curriculum and the claims that we are entering a 'knowledge society'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on case-study data collected from undergraduate students taking courses in social theory. The paper sets out an approach to Sociology as a discipline that promotes an understanding of moral categories. Drawing on the work of Bernstein, Benhabib and Hird, a model of 'generalised' and 'concrete other' provides a framework for understanding the discipline of Sociology and its pedagogy. A case study of student experience reveals the complexity of the 'concrete other' and how a more personalised and social interventionist account can be developed through Hird's concept of 'inner diversity'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the difficulties in conceptualising and presenting research, in particular doctoral work in education, in the current climate of intellectual theorising. It argues that many researches experience a phenomenon described in the paper as 'post-modernist tension' when trying to write in an atmosphere of theoretical and methodological uncertainty. The author elaborates the 'symptoms' of post-modernist tension, and makes a critique of some elements of contemporary social theorising. Nevertheless, the author acknowledges the usefulness of contemporary social theory in challenging traditional research, despite its density and inaccessibility to many researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a discussion of the renewed interest in developing a unified theoretical umbrella under which the various sociological theories can be ordered and contained. It suggests that a "unified or 'unifying" theory will do more harm than good toward advancing sociological knowledge. Using Paul K. Feyerabend's (1968) notions of (1) the relative autonomy of facts, (2) the consistency condition, and (3) the principle, of meaning invariance, the paper illustrates how a movement toward a dominant paradigm will have deleterious effects on sociological knowledge. A plea is made for maintaining theoretical diversity as an acceptable, means for advancing sociological knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an autoethnographical account of the events associated with the author’s redundancy from a tenured academic position at Murdoch Business School, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia. It is argued that managerialism, a social philosophy that sees the management of a university to be little different from the management of a for-profit business, provided university management with a rationale for a course of action that imposed heavy costs on individuals and undermined core academic values. The apparent weakness of the protection provided by tenure is highlighted by the mechanisms through which university management exerted control over the academic employment relationship. The cost of imposing management’s will to win at all costs corrodes valuable aspects of academic work, such as collegiality, trust and the sharing of information. The paper shows that the various mechanisms of control imposed by a university management that adheres to managerialist principles can destroy much of what is worthwhile in the university. What is left is something with little spirit and nothing worthwhile to manage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: The literature shows how gender mandates contribute to differences in exposure and vulnerability to certain health risk factors. This paper presents the results of a study developed in the south of Spain, where research aimed at understanding men from a gender perspective is still limited. Objective: The aim of this paper is to explore the lay perceptions and meanings ascribed to the idea of masculinity, identifying ways in which gender displays are related to health. Design: The study is based on a mixed-methods data collection strategy typical of qualitative research. We performed a qualitative content analysis focused on manifest and latent content. Results: Our analysis showed that the relationship between masculinity and health was mainly defined with regard to behavioural explanations with an evident performative meaning. With regard to issues such as driving, the use of recreational drugs, aggressive behaviour, sexuality, and body image, important connections were established between manhood acts and health outcomes. Different ways of understanding and performing the male identity also emerged from the results. The findings revealed the implications of these aspects in the processes of change in the identity codes of men and women. Conclusions: The study provides insights into how the category 'man' is highly dependent on collective practices and performative acts. Consideration of how males perform manhood acts might be required in guidance on the development of programmes and policies aimed at addressing gender inequalities in health in a particular local context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The supporters of general systems theory see it as a major revolution in scientific methodology. Its critics tend to view it as a harmless albeit pointless exercise in philosophy of science. The purpose of this paper will be to argue that, when taken seriously, general systems theory is far from harmless. There is little chance that this view of science will have any noticeable effect on physics or biology. But just as strict operationism found its only fertile ground in psychology, a literal interpretation of general systems theory might well have similarly pernicious effects in one of the social sciences. In fact, one sociologist, Hugo Engelmann, has already developed a highly articulated social theory which he says "incorporates the basic approach of general systems theory" (1966:231). Of course, since no one has yet set out the principles which hold for all systems as such, Engelmann's Systemic Dynamic Social Theory cannot be an application of these principles to social phenomena. Rather the source of his orientation is quantum theory. Systemic dynamic social theory is "essentially a statistical theory of psychology and social organization akin to field and particle theoretical approaches in physical theory" (1965a:156). In the succeeding sections of this paper, systemic dynamic social theory will be investigated, both for its own sake and as an example of the general systems approach to science. Since Professor Engelmann counters some fairly obvious criticisms of his theory by recourse to his views on proper scientific methodology, this paper will also be concerned in large measure with the problems surrounding the verification and falsification of hypotheses embedded in a highly articulated theory. Similar though less ambitious attempts at axiomatizing social theory can be found in the works of Homans (1950) and Simon (1957). For a sympathetic discussion of these formalisms, which nevertheless sets out many of the same criticisms presented in this paper, see Kyburg (1968). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ordinarily an anniversary occasions the reification of an artificial period. In this case however, there is a certain juncture in the history of the point of view which makes of the past quarter-century something worthy of consideration for symbolic interactionism as well as for our celebration of the founding of the Midwest Sociological Society. The year 1937 lies virtually in the middle of a four-year period which saw the publication of Mind, Self, and Society, Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century, and The Philosophy of the Act. It would represent the greatest naiveté to suggest that thus the year 1937 represented the introduction of symbolic interactionism. We are all aware of the long development: from James, Baldwin, and Cooley to Thomas, Faris, Dewey, Blumer, and Young. Even the Tardean imitation and suggestion which underlay Ross's Social Psychology contributed a good deal ordinarily not credited to him in the development of interaction theory. Nor is it the fact that Mead represents the fullest development of the orientation that makes so significant the posthumous publication of his works (for which we may conveniently take 1937 as an anchoring point). Mead's ideas had been known for a very long time. He had taught University of Chicago students from 1893 to 1931. His notions were bruited about in classes and seminars wherever there were professors conducting them who had studied at the University of Chicago—not least in the great heartland included in the Mid-west of our Society. Some of Mead's students had published their versions of his ideas or quotations from some of his philosophical papers—Kimbali Young's Source Book in Social Psychology of a decade earlier contained a paper by Mead, and his Social Psychology bore the strong imprint of Meadian interactionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The literature shows how gender mandates contribute to differences in exposure and vulnerability to certain health risk factors. This paper presents the results of a study developed in the south of Spain, where research aimed at understanding men from a gender perspective is still limited. Objective: The aim of this paper is to explore the lay perceptions and meanings ascribed to the idea of masculinity, identifying ways in which gender displays are related to health. Design: The study is based on a mixed-methods data collection strategy typical of qualitative research. We performed a qualitative content analysis focused on manifest and latent content. Results: Our analysis showed that the relationship between masculinity and health was mainly defined with regard to behavioural explanations with an evident performative meaning. With regard to issues such as driving, the use of recreational drugs, aggressive behaviour, sexuality, and body image, important connections were established between manhood acts and health outcomes. Different ways of understanding and performing the male identity also emerged from the results. The findings revealed the implications of these aspects in the processes of change in the identity codes of men and women. Conclusions: The study provides insights into how the category 'man' is highly dependent on collective practices and performative acts. Consideration of how males perform manhood acts might be required in guidance on the development of programmes and policies aimed at addressing gender inequalities in health in a particular local context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers three-way taxonomy of theories of beliefs. For rational theories, beliefs are determined by given information and updated via Bayes's rule. For normative theory, best represented by Hayek and sociological theory, beliefs are categories that precede information and, in fact, formulate the otherwise impenetrable information. For procedural theory, best represented by Herbert Simon and pragmatic philosophy, while beliefs formulate the information, they can be replaced in response to shocks. While each theory manages to capture one kind of belief, all three largely fail to explain internal motivations that characterize entrepreneurship, innovation, and creativity. The failure arises from the fact that the three theories are about cognitive beliefs (i.e., beliefs about the world), while internal motivations are beliefs concerning self-ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An experimental approach to cut-mark investigation has proved particularly successful and should arguably be a prerequisite for individuals interested in developing standard methods to study butchery data. This paper offers a brief review of the criteria used to investigate cut marks and subsequently outlines recent research that has integrated results from replication studies of archaeological tools and cut marks with written resources to study historic butchery practices. The case is made for a degree of standardization to be incorporated into the recording of butchery data and for the integration of evidence from the analysis of cut marks and tool signatures. While the call for standardization is not without precedent the process would benefit from a suitable model: one is proposed herein based in large part on experimental replication and personal vocational experience gained in the modern butchery trade. Furthermore, the paper identifies issues that need to be kept at the forefront of an experimental approach to butchery investigation and places emphasis on the use of modern analogy and cultural theory as a means of improving our interpretation of cut-mark data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to outline and evaluate Pierre Bourdieu's work as it has appeared most recently in feminist studies and the field of gender and education. In particular, it suggests ways in which Bourdieu's theoretical insights could be seen to more effectively contribute to cutting edge debates in both social theory and feminist thought regarding concepts such as agency, identity and domination. It also argues that a more creative and empirical engagement with the recent work of Bourdieu, alongside an interdisciplinary reading of more recent cultural and social theories of power, would be a fruitful way forward in advancing a feminist sociology of education. In the present historical moment and against the tide of postmodern and post-structuralist feminist accounts, Bourdieu is often read as a determinist who has little to offer contemporary feminist debates or who argues that masculine domination is too tightly woven to social practices of a given field. In short, this paper argues that such a view is not only a misreading of Bourdieu's work on fundamental theoretical grounds, but fails to acknowledge the ways in which his more recent work on masculinity addresses both the cultural and social conditions underlying contemporary forms of symbolic domination. In short, the paper argues that Bourdieu's theory offers an analytical breadth and range beyond the scope of anything that a normative, liberal account of masculine domination could provide. Yet, in drawing from such diversity, Bourdieu's oeuvre is able to resist incomprehensibility. It stands as a highly focused, realistic and generative attempt ( McNay, 1999 ; McLeod, 2004 ) to chart the problems of subordination, differentiation and hierarchy, and to expose the possibilities, as well as the limits, of gendered self-hood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper distinguishes between epistemological naturalism, which it supports, and ontological naturalism, which it opposes. It sketches the emergence of anti-naturalist social theory among nineteenth-century African-American intellectuals and its refinement by twentieth-century feminists. These movements challenged ontological naturalism in the social sciences by substituting social constructionist concepts of race and gender for naturalist ones. Economics awaits a similar liberation. The paper identifies four naturalist concepts-atomism, determinism and biologically determined race and gender differences--as structuring mainstream economic theory. It concludes that ontological naturalism is inconsistent with the application of the epistemology of the natural sciences to the social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks back at the cares of the sociologist Karl Mannherm, who died 50 years ago. It considers how far Mannheim's work remains relevant and discusses what lessons it may still have to offer Quoting Sir Fred Clarke as saying that educational theory and education policy that took no account of changes in the wider social order would be not only blind but positively harmful, the paper suggests that a similar case applies today. It therefore remains essential that Mannheim's legacy is preserved and that the sociological imagination is exercised in relation to contemporary education policy and education research . In the light of Mannheim's own shift from diagnosing the crisis to prescribing the remedies, the paper also reflects on how far it is legitimate for sociologist of education to make such a more. Finally, the paper consider how Mannheim's notion of planning for democracy might be superseded by more genuinely democratic forms of education policy-making in the aftermath of current neo-liberal policies of deregulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the current vision of the profession of social work embodied in its great and little traditions. It advocates incorporating the great and little traditions of our profession in the conceptualization of the educational continuum. It advocates use of a competence-oriented model to define outcomes for each level of the continuum and to design educational programs to meet those outcomes. Finally, it advocates blending the great and little traditions of the profession in the educational designs developed at each level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an outcome of a project that started with exploring theories of development in advanced societies, especially those of functionalism and Marxism, and then moved on to consider the role of knowledge development in the process of societal change. This shift is connected with the presumption of critical humanism. Critical humanism maintains that social inquiry and social theories should also reflect on the social-structural context and context of application-praxis, should relate to the self-reflection and social consciousness of people, and should be oriented towards problems of social transcendence and social emancipation. History is seen as a dialectic process where social conditions create man and man creates history from given conditions. The development of social knowledge and social consciousness plays an important role in this process. The explication of social emancipation should take its point of departure in human conditions in human needs and the exploration of emancipatory means, goals and transcendence should be part of an increasing self-consciousness of society and people. The functionalistic theories of evolution and modernization appear as naturalistic and deterministic notions from the point of view of critical humanism.

A theory is formulated with which to analyze transactions in social relationships. Economic types of exchange characterized by calculation and self-interest on the part of the actors are contrasted with more "social" forms of transaction such as occur in the cases of role relationships with interlocking rights and obligations and persons strongly attached to one another. The social factors and conditions determining the types of transaction likely to occur between actors are examined in the paper. The key idea in this respect is that the structural and temporal context of interaction, including the past and anticipated character of their relationship, affects actors' orientations toward one another, their preferences, decisions and interaction patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes Theodor W. Adorno's negative dialectics and/or immanent method of criticism. Particular attention is focused on the assumptions Ado mo makes about the nature of reality, and the role of theory in making sense of and potentially transforming that reality, Although there are some interesting points of convergence, crucial differences are apparent between Adorno's sociology and the thought of George Herbert Mead. This paper raises some probative questions and argues with Adorno's version of critical theory from the perspective of symbolic interactionism. Adorno failed to develop a sociological theory of meaning and to successfully insert the reflective self into his account of the historical process. Adorno failed to develop a methodological position true to the nature of the human subject George Mead's thought fills the gaps introduced by Adorno's negative dialectics, and leads to a scientific research program consistent with a distinctively human phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Asians are the largest and fastest-growing racialized group in Canada, yet there are limited data on various aspects of health and well-being within this population. This includes the South Asian older adults' ethnoculturally informed perceptions of ageing. The study aimed to understand how social and cultural forces impact the meaning assigned to healthy ageing amongst older South Asians in Canada. We recruited with purposeful and snowball sampling strategies in Southern Ontario. We conducted in-depth focus group and individual interviews (n = 19) in five South Asian languages, employing a multilingual and cross-cultural qualitative approach. In our analysis, we identified three central themes: (a) taking care of body (b) taking care of mind and heart and (c) healthy ageing through the integration of mind and body. Our study demonstrates that older immigrants are a diverse and heterogeneous population and that their conception of healthy ageing is strongly influenced by their country of origin. This study also demonstrates how racialized foreign-born older adults might provide distinctive perspectives on the ageing process and on social theories of ageing due to their simultaneous immersion in and belonging to global majority and global minority cultures. This research also adds to the limited body of literature on the theories of ageing, despite migration trends, still has a white-centric lens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper began with an attempt to formalize the Davis-Moore functional theory of social stratification. It was found that the theory could be represented by a static model consisting of two algebraic equations with appropriate constraints on the functions. Then the tools of path analysis were used to evaluate the empirical adequacy of the Davis-Moore and Parsonian functional theories of social stratification as representations of cultural beliefs about stratification. Because of the likely presence of measurement and sampling errors, it was impossible to reject definitely either of the models. However, the estimated path coefficients were more consistent with the Parsonian theory than the Davis-Moore theory. This led to an inquiry into the conditions under which one model would be a better representation than the other. It was argued that the Davis-Moore scheme would provide a more accurate representation of cultural beliefs under conditions of high organizational interdependence whereas the Parsonian framework would give a better representation under conditions of low interdependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the book "Sociology Today, Problems and Prospects," edited by Robert K. Merton, Leonard Broom, Leonard S. Cottrell. Twenty-six different authors wrote the book. Each contributor's chapter is assessed independently. These twenty-six papers discussed in the book will serve many generations of graduate students as sources of topics for theses and dissertations. No matter from what vantage point a problem has been sighted first and no matter what philosophy has suggested the hypotheses first that tentatively answer them, if they are going to be investigated along the lines of an empirical methodology, they will necessarily contribute to the store of scientific knowledge. One can, however, hardly help wondering whether the structural-functional theory, which many of the authors try to embrace, does really lead them to a deeper penetration of the various fields. The reading of the book leaves one with a feeling of the woeful inadequacy of our factual information. That the papers were intended to clarify problems rather than to summarize factual knowledge can only in part account for this impression. The book is a must in the sociologist's library.

The tensions and challenges facing business education frame this paper, which takes a critical look at the historical evolution of business school education in the context of the present conjecture, with a particular emphasis on the role social theory can play in the analysis of strategy and ethics. Flyvbjerg's phronesis and Selznick's sociology are deployed to address the challenges facing business schools and their place in higher education. Kant's moral anthropology opens common grounds to both approaches. Our aim is to provide a platform from which business and university leaders can debate and discuss the current and future role and impact of business school education, particularly focusing on linking and cultivating ethical and strategic capabilities in management and organizational practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article replies to David L. Hull's article entitled "Systemic Dynamic Social Theory". It was observed that Hull deplores the assertion that underlying processes cannot be inferred from single overt performances. Overt performance is a small part of total behavior, thus, process-performance relations are not invariant. Contentiously, Hull transfers complexity-intensity relations, posited for psychological phenomena, to societal phenomena. Wave length is related to color - for light waves, but not for radio waves. Similarly, complexity applies to societal and psychological, intensity only to psychological phenomena. Constancy of societal complexity, given invariance of biological base, is a theoretical conclusion.

This paper argues that time-geography can make a contribution to contemporary ‘rematerialized’ geographies, because the interconnections among social processes, human corporeality and inanimate material artefacts within the landscape were among Hägerstrand's central concerns. Time-geography needs none the less to be extended in several ways to make it more reconcilable with current thinking about materiality in geography. The possibility of combining Hägerstrand's framework with notions from (post) actor-network approaches is therefore explored. It is suggested that concepts and notions from the latter may contribute to the advancement of the conceptualization of action at a distance and agency in general in time-geography, as well as the incorporation of the immaterial realm into space—time diagrams. The resulting materially heterogeneous time-geography is a framework for studying the spacing and timing of different material entities that is sensitive to the role of artefacts and their local connectedness with other material forms. Some of its elements are illustrated briefly through an empirical study of the roles played by a few mundane artefacts in working parents ‘coping with child-care responsibilities on working days. The case study suggest that these artefacts not only enable goal fulfilment and routinization but also result in further spacing and timing practices, and can introduce uncertainty and novelty to existing orders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interrelation between John Stuart Mill's political economy and his social philosophy is often neglected by economists, even though social and moral progress is the aim and focus of Mill's work as scholarship on Mill has made clear in past decades. This paper aims to show how Mill's political economy fits his framework of progress. It is argued that Mill characterized his economics in accordance with his theory of (individual) development, which explained how people could be induced to change patterns of behavior that prevented progress, enabling “a tendency towards a better and happier state.” Mapping out how to overcome the Malthusian trap of poverty, the most serious stumbling block to man's material and moral improvement, Mill brought economics into action as an instrument for progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education cannot mean that the young are the product of the activities of their teachers. At the same time, we do not speak of education if students would simply learn something irrespective of the ac­tivities of their teachers. In this paper we focus on the question: How is education possible? Our aim is to contribute to a social theory of education, a theory that does not reduce our understanding of educational processes and practices to underlying ‘constituting elements’ but rather tries to understand the social nature of education as a reality sui generis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender has become a major conceptual tool for understanding the evolving HIV pandemic globally. As such, it has provided a powerful way to see the structure of relations between men and women as central to various epidemics, and added weight to our understanding of HIV infection as not simply an individual experience of disease. Yet, as a concept, gender has its blind spots. This paper argues that there are four issues central to our understanding of how the HIV pandemic moves and develops that are not necessarily best understood through an analysis that uses gender alone, namely: women''s vulnerability, men''s culpability, young people''s sexual interests and marginalised sexual cultures. The paper proposes using sexuality as a framework for analysing these issues and seeks to utilise developments in critical sexuality research to add to gender as a way to increase the capacity to respond to the HIV/AIDS crisis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Theorizing in economics is often associated with some form of individualism. This paper considers the nature of this association in the work of Carl Menger. I adopt this focus not only because of continuing interest in Menger's work, but because recent developments in social theory facilitate a fruitful reevaluation of his general position. I argue that a convincing link between theory and individualism is absent in Menger's work. Moreover, I argue that the various criticisms often made of his work actually relate to the ideas which underlie his individualism rather than, as is usually supposed, those arising from an adherence to a form of Aristotelianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current discourse on the transition from school to work, career decision-making has a pivotal but paradoxical position. Sociological literature emphasises the dominance of socially-structured pathways, whilst policy-making operates on assumptions of individual freedom to choose. In this paper we draw on the work of Pierre Bourdieu to present a new model of career decision-making, given the shorthand title of 'careership'. There are three completely integrated dimensions to the model . These are (i) pragmatically rational decision-making, located in the habitus of the person making the decision, (ii) the interactions with others in the (youth training) field, related to the unequal resources different 'players' possess, and (iii) the location of decisions within the partly unpredictable pattern of turning-points and routines that make up the life course. This model avoids the twin pitfalls of implicit social determinism or of seeing (young) people as completely free agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a response to articles by Shilling and Abraham, which were concerned with the relationship between Giddens' structuration meta-theory, differentiation-polarization theory, and positivism. Despite their conflicting conclusions, both authors criticize my reconstruction of differentiation-polarization theory, and I try to clarify the nature of that reconstruction and the theory it represents. It seems to me that these articles display misunderstandings of, and unwarranted prejudice against, positivism; though they are of course by no means alone in this. I suggest that while the sort of debate in which these authors engage is welcome, there needs to be a more open-minded approach towards the theoretical and methodological resources available to sociologists of education, including those frequently dismissed as positivist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1970s there has been considerable debate among sociologists of education about the macro--micro gap in educational analyses. However, educational research remains divided largely into the study of large-scale phenomena such as social systems and national policies on the one hand, and case-studies of individual schools and social interaction on the other This split has had a number of unfortunate consequences for the development of the field Most importantly, the dominant conceptions of structure and agency employed in the sociology of education are characterised by a dualism which makes it difficult to conceptualise adequately the processes revolved in social change. In this paper, I briefly describe this structure-agency dualism before critically examining three attempts which have been made to address this problem The ability of structuration theory to overcome this dualism is then examined, and I conclude by arguing that this approach offers an important new direction for the sociology of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health has become a symbolic category of considerable importance, expressing a range of notions relating to well-being, consumption and normality A particular view of health as corporeal and individualistic has become pervasive within the new health consciousness, and school physical education represents one site among many where the ideology of healthism is produced This paper draws on a study of an innovative programme in primary schools in Queensland, Australia It explores how on the one hand the instructional discourse of `daily physical education' varied across a number of sites of meaning production and how on the other hand this instructional discourse was embedded in the regulative discourse of healthism which set limits on the extent to which the people operating at these sites could make their own sense of daily physical education We argue that a corporeal and individualistic concept of health, in which body shape and fatness play a central role is being produced through health-based physical education programmes like daily physical education These programmes in turn represent an important site of the production of an individualistic and internalised mode of corporeal control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the dominant themes which underlie many of the health education materials used in schools, and explores whether these are the most appropriate if health education is to make a significant contribution to either children`s health or their education The overall approach to health education is identified as highly individualistic in its emphasis on individual responsibilities, attributes and skills necessary for achieving health Contradictions, distortions and gaps inherent in this model are revealed These contribute to identifying this kind of health education as an ideology, which serves least the needs and interests of those children who are likely to experience the greatest ill-health. The ways in which this approach is inappropriate for schoolchildren are illustrated by a case study, which compares the drinking experiences of a group of children with the alcohol education materials designed for them. To conclude, improvements to both health education for slow learners and more generally to health education in schools are discussed These include the development of an approach which is both child-centred, and critical in locating individual choices about health within the social, economic and political contexts of local communities and wider society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for the theoretical and practical possibilities of applying a `critical theory' of education to British primary schools It traces the series of misconceptions and misinterpretations of progressive education which, coupled with the neglect of its own emancipatory potential, has allowed it to be discredited by right-wing and left-wing politics Re-establishing a fairer reading of its central tenets and coupling this with the developing concept of a `socially critical primary school' provides for an emancipatory primary education which embraces critical theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a response to Professor K. Swanwick's critique of our sociological perspective on music education. A detailed presentation of the sociology of music thesis demonstrates that accusations of 'social determinism' and 'referentialism' are both misconceived Moreover, Swanwick's position leads to difficulties in his approach to music aesthetics, where at times he makes assumptions concerning the work of theorists such as Meyer and Keil which these authors have themselves explicitly repudiated We then relate certain observations which Swanwick's makes concerning the processes of schooling to wider sociological theories of schooling that help make sense of the kinds of constraints Swanwick's correctly identifies Finally, we accept Swanwick's challenge to be more explicit concerning both our response to his charge of relativism and our practical recommendations for the reform of music teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the nature of critical theory, its historical development, its connections to sociology and Marxism, and the central debates over its core ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the growing number of analysts who employ the world system perspective on national development, theoretical disagreements have evolved which may only be settled by examination of available data. Using an adaptation of the network metaphor, this paper blockmodels the world trade system in order (1) to demonstrate a single mode of international exchange in the world system instead of the competing capitalist and communist modes proposed by some, and (2) to illustrate the unique position of the middle level of nations in a three tier world system—a position sometimes denied. Implications for the competing world system theories and world development itself are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Karl Marx's sociology has been interpreted incorrectly as the consequence of the application of a "dialectical" method to social phenomenon. In this paper, I discuss his actual method of theory construction (a rather more complicated phenomenon than the simple reversal of the Hegelian dialectic), the Ricardian method of successive approximations. This method involves three steps or stages—observation, model formation, and model testing and revision. Marx's Capital is reviewed in the light of his use of this method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests possible implications of a study of clothing fashion leadership for current sociological theory in regard to the process of fashion diffusion. Theory of the diffusion of innovations was chosen as the framework for the investigation. Fashion innovativeness and fashion opinion leadership were studied in relation to selected social, psychological, and economic variables. Since the test of collective selection occurs in the local social system it would seem appropriate that theories regarding the operation of the fashion process account more fully for the rate and degree of acceptance and rejection of innovations in the local social system, and for the functions of local participants in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]