Search

The article presents a comment on a previous article that appeared in a previous issue of the Canadian Journal of Sociology. According to the author, the central points of his article were: (a) that an extensive body of ignored research had shown that the methodologies adopted by the original Vertical Mosaic school of thought on elites probably exaggerated the exclusivity of Canadian elites to a considerable degree; (b) that the finding of elite membership that was unrepresentative of the social composition of the population did not indicate a shocking anomaly that demanded immediate remedy. This pattern is referred to in the international literature as the law of increasing disproportion; (c) that, in any case, research conducted using other methodologies, and research conducted since the original publication of The Vertical Mosaic, indicates that the Canadian pattern is in transition. Sociologist Harvey Rich argues that the measures of middle class used in the Vertical Mosaic tradition, and uncritically adopted in author's paper, are far too narrow and would apply to what most would designate as the upper middle class. Consequently, Rich argues that author's guesstimate about the possible proportion of those of working-class origins in the elites was too high. Rich is correct. It is also correct to suggest that author's paper sometimes confused sociologist Wallace Clement's position with sociologist John Porter's position and that its discussion suffered accordingly.

The paper examines the review process currently in vogue in process currently in vogue in the social sciences and contends that the process is in need of reform. The authors propose multiple submissions of extended abstracts as a possibility. The paper tests this alternative and presents an analysis of the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the presence and consideration of economics in sociology, specifically its classical version. It identifies certain original and independent economic theories, concepts and approaches in classical sociological theory as central and its derivations, implications and extensions of economics as peripheral. The paper argues and demonstrates that classical sociology is far from being the science of noneconomic or irrational phenomena, as often sociologists conceive it and economists perceive it in counter-distinction from economics defined as the science of rational behavior, and indeed encompasses virtually all economic activities and processes, and thus prefigures New Economic Sociology adopting the same approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an invitation to feminist and queer sociology to engage more frequently, enthusiastically, and deeply with animals. Feminist and queer sociology that attend to animals and animality stand to develop better knowledge for animals and animal studies and for women, queers, and feminist and queer sociology. Sociologists working from feminist and queer perspectives are also particularly well‐positioned within the discipline of sociology to contribute to and take advantage of the insights of the field of feminist animal studies. After a brief review of what feminist animal studies is, I proceed through three steps to elaborate the imperative for feminist and queer sociology to consider animals. First, I show how feminist animal studies as a theoretical perspective engages with issues that are core to feminist and queer sociology. Second, I center intersectional feminism and lay out how incorporating species can and does enhance our understanding of intersectional processes. Third, I present an ethical call, grounded in the traditions of feminist ethics and ecofeminism, to attend to species in feminist and queer sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists tend to see G. H. Mead's conceptualization of self as fundamentally correct. In this paper, we develop a critique of Mead's notion of the self as constituted through social interactions. Our focus will be on Mead's categorial distinction between the socially constructed self and subjective experience, as well as on the tendency of post‐Meadian sociologists to push Mead's position in ever more radical directions. Drawing inspiration from a multifaceted understanding of selfhood that can be found in Husserlian phenomenology, we then propose that the most basic level of selfhood is anchored in irreducible subjective experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes why child film star series produced by major French production companies (Pathé, Gaumont, Eclectic, and Éclair) in the early 1900s (Bébé, Bout‐de‐Zan, Willy, and the Maria Fromet series) were received with such interest by global audiences. This period, prior to World War I, was a brief era when French cinema held significant hegemony worldwide, before Hollywood's dominance began. There are ideas suggesting that child film stars emerged with American cinema. Contrary to this, however, French producers competed fiercely in the 10 years following 1906, producing series featuring child film stars. Substantial budgets were allocated for the marketing of these series, ultimately gaining a considerable fan base not only in Europe but also in America. When examining these film stars from the early 20th century within their historical context, they emerge as the first international child stars with international fame and financial success, unlike child musicians, vaudeville artists, and theater actors from the 18th and 19th centuries. Inspired by the field analysis of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, this article aims to establish a connection between the struggles within the field and the symbolic needs of the audience as reflected in the content of child star films. The films were viewed at the Eye Film Museum archive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Opuntia Brava is the property of Universidad de Ciencias Pedagogicas de Las Tunas, Centro de Documentacion e Informacion Pedagogica 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.)

This paper is a contribution to the study of the relationship between literature and sociology at the end of the 19th century in partitioned Poland. In particular, it explores the theoretical potential of Ludwik Krzywicki's concept of "migration of ideas" for comparative literature studies. It explains the context of the interplay of literary criticism and sociology among the Warsaw intelligentsia and examines how the work of foreign anthropologists and sociologists of literature (Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett, Charles Letourneau) was received in these circles. Even in the earliest sociologically based studies in the field of comparative literature, one can discern a postulate of functional connection between literature and what sociologists call "the social bond" (and what in the debate of the time often figures as "social sympathy"). The article reconstructs this line of reasoning and discusses the factors that led to it, disappearance in the subsequent history of the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nothing puzzles sociologists of religion more than the reasons and the patterns behind religious change. In the literature on secularization processes, it is broadly accepted that ongoing modernization has undermined many of the pillars of institutional religions, leading to widespread religious decline. While a considerable body of research investigates the "why(s)" of this decline, the main focus of this paper is on the "how." Drawing on CARPE, a harmonized dataset concerning church attendance with almost 2 million observations spanning over 40 years in 39 European countries, this article disentangles the contributions of period change and cohort replacement to the general religious decline. It shows that this decline reflects a real population dynamic based on generational replacement. It is not historical events or developments affecting everyone that undermine religion: new and less religious cohorts are replacing old and more religious ones. Like many other population dynamics, this process is described by an S-shaped curve and applies—with different speeds and levels—to almost all the European countries considered herein. These findings suggest that the effects of the processes of modernization on the mechanisms of religious socialization should be scrutinized more carefully when studying the reasons behind religious decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Papeles del CEIC is the property of Centro de Estudios sobra la Identidad Colectiva, Facultas de Ciencias Sociales 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.)

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

Copyright of Stratum Plus Journal is the property of P.P. Stratum plus 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.)

This paper gives a history of the Oxford Ethnography Conference. Over more than three decades, a regular conference of sociologists of education and ethnographers has met and produced a series of academic writings. The paper describes some of the interrelationships between developments that occurred within the conference and external changes to the academic environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Colección is the property of Pontificia Universidad Catolica Argentina 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 trajectory of the academic discipline of sociology is an attestation to the quest for civility and sociability. We believe that the promise of public sociology will rejuvenate scholars to commit to better engagement with one another and with the public. We situate and draw from the scholarly contributions of Michael Burawoy to reflect on sociology's longstanding critical imagination, hoping that the world could be different. We place ourselves on the continuum of what is and what ought to be for better lived experiences and a sustainable planet. We draw from the work of sociologists in India, which continues to guide us to amplify the voices of the unheard and the issues of public concern. To be inclusive, sustainable, democratic, and humane, we need to move beyond structurally ingrained processes within academia and make bridges that are open to all. The deliberation furthered in this paper will encourage young scholars to be more concerned for engaging multiple publics and, thereby, help the discipline of sociology itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a comment on a previous article that appeared in a previous issue of the journal Review of Religious Research. According to the author the article by sociologists R.W. Bibby and M.B. Brinkerhoff contains some interesting ideas, especially when taken together with their closely related paper, which, as well, is a major contribution to the literature on church organization and of why people join churches. However, the article has some problems that call to question some of its conclusions. First, the paper seems to set up a questionable "straw man" to justify its own existence. The authors say "It has been a popular pastime in armchair and social scientific reflections upon religion to assert that the religious are drawn from the ranks of society's deprived." According to the author of this article his understanding of the deprivation literature is that it usually seeks to explain why people join new and somewhat deviant religious groups, and how such groups and movements are started and grow.

Copyright of Misan Journal of Academic Studies is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) 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.)

Copyright of Socioloski Pregled is the property of Srpsko Sociolosko Drustvo 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.)

Social scientists, in particular sociologists, claim that the distinction between universalistic and particularistic values is relevant to explaining the social behaviour of individuals (and societies). This paper provides preliminary empirical evidence that supports the claim. It first defines a number of proxies for the degree of particularism embedded into long-celebrated dimensions of social behaviour (trust, political awareness, and associational activities). Then, it shows that the particularistic measures are positively correlated to each other and negatively correlated to some established generalist measures for all dimensions of social behaviour considered, both across and within countries and regions. Moreover, the paper relates that the various proxies for particularism share the same set of covariates (such as low education and income), which are neatly distinguishable from the determinants of the generalist measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Seminare Learned Investigations / Seminare. Poszukiwania naukowe is the property of Francis de Sales Scientific Society / Towarzystwo Naukowe Franciszka Salezego 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.)

Purpose: This study aims to assess the validity of citation metrics based on the disciplinary representative survey. Design/methodology/approach: The present project compared citation rankings for individual scientists with expert judgments collected through a survey of 818 Russian sociologists. The Russian Index of Science Citation was used to construct the general population of 3,689 Russian sociologists, to whom the survey was sent by email. The regression analyses of bibliometric indicators and peer review scores for 723 names of scholars mentioned in the survey have been undertaken. Findings: Findings suggest that scientometric indicators predict with significant accuracy the names of the most influential sociologists and those scholars who are not mentioned while they are less relevant for prediction names which received moderate attention in the survey. Originality/value: This study contributes to the research on the validity of citation metrics by focusing on scientometric indicators, not limited to traditional metrics but including non-standard publication metrics and indicators of potential metric abuse. Besides, the study presents the national bibliometric data source that is especially important for non-Western higher education systems, less presented in the Web of Science or Scopus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to investigate Mohsin Hamid's novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist by utilizing the theory of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. The study, a theoretical construct founded on two key concepts from Bourdieu's theory, namely habitus and field, aims at offering a new perspective to understand the dilemma of the protagonist Changez from a sociological cultural perspective. It shows how Changez cultivates his habitus to pursue a specific taste in America through multiple forms of cultural capital and manifests how these forms shape his attitudes and relations. It also offers a metaphorical portrayal of Changez as a footballer who struggles within various positions to retain power and eventually fulfill his American dream through both the macrocosmic and microcosmic social fields that he finds himself in. The assumption that this paper is seeking to validate is that there is a common ground between the novel and Bourdieu's theory of practice in some key concepts and that understanding the habitus and the doxa of Changez' social fields can help understand his practices, dispositions, and most importantly the reasons behind him leaving America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to offer an overview of the problem of suicide in Augustine of Hippo, from the anti-Manichean texts of the late 380s CE to De ciuitate dei and the rejoinder to Gaudentium (Contra Gaudentium). A transversal analysis of the evolution of the concept of voluntary death throughout the work of Augustine allows us to identify up to four different conceptions of suicide, each of them corresponding to a rather well-defined chronological period: a philosophical conception, that we find in De libero arbitrio; a moral one, that we can excerpt from De mendacio; a polemical approach in the context of controversy against Donatism, which we can retrace in a set of writings from 400 to 412 CE, and especially in Contra epistulam Parmeniani; and, finally, the conception of suicide as homicide, that appears in De ciuitate dei and that will define the decisive and most widespread doctrine of Augustine in this matter. In this way, this paper aims to enrich, from a transversal and chronological perspective, the studies that have been carried out over the last decades on suicide in Augustine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ilene Philipson, the Californian born sociologist and licensed psychologist, asserts that Erich Fromm is the second widely read psychoanalyst in the world standing after Freud. Fromm discusses "necrophilia", love of death, and "biophilia", love of life. He also studies "being mode" and "having mode", one's general orientation toward being a better person or toward having more, respectively. This paper is the case study of Tolstoy's novella The death of Ivan Ilyich (1886/2009) in light of Fromm's insights as reflected in his later works. There are two opposing views arguing if Ivan Ilyich, the protagonist, eventually changes for better or worse. Invoking Fromm's theories, we argue that Ivan Ilyich undergoes positive changes toward the end of his life which are actualized through the protagonist's departure from necrophilia and conversion to biophilia. In this sense, it is also argued that Ivan casts "having mode" to embrace that of "being". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When Chicago was founded in 1833, it was an abstract grid that operated as an instrument of procession and dispossession. Almost a century later, sociologists Robert E. Park and Eugene Burgess mapped another process of possession and dispossession as they studied the city's social organisation. Their students St. Clare Drake and Howard Cayton adapted that map in their 1945 book, Black Metropolis. Both Park and Burgess, who were white, and Drake and Cayton, who were Black, marked the area of the city where Black people lived, situating it as an anomaly cutting through an otherwise well-determined model of urban growth. Park and Burgess labelled this territory the 'Black Belt' while Drake and Cayton named it the 'Black Metropolis', representing a radically different understanding of the city as a particular form of optimism. Using the notion of 'Black optimism' that emerges out of Fred Moten's understanding of the Black Radical tradition as a framework, this paper argues that Blacks in Green, a Chicago community organisation, has advanced a form of radical sustainability that asks us to learn how to think and be 'otherwise'. It pursues a form of environmental justice that depends on African American heritage, particularly abolition and reconstruction, to create new possibilities for Drake and Cayton's 'Black Metropolis'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, many sociologists and urban scholars have focused on the development of nightlife and placed it at the center of their agenda. However, nightlife, like a double-edged sword, has both positive and negative impacts on cities, and there is a gap in the literature on the relationship between nightlife and urban sustainability. Accordingly, this paper aimed to analysis the perceived impacts of nightlife on Tehran sustainability. Based on snowball sampling, a web-based survey was carried out among 10 experts. To investigate perceived impact and evaluate statistically significant differences skewness and kurtosis test and one samples t-test were used. Our findings revealed that although nightlife leads to urban sustainability in Tehran, these results are not same in other cities and is place-specific and vary over time and space. It largely depends on the type of governance, planning, design and legislation of cities. Accordingly, legislative measures and regulations, collaborative efforts across different sectors, developing sustainable infrastructure and facilities, promoting inclusivity, diversity, and accessibility, and good governance, transmitting heritage values to young people and minimizing ecological impacts in nightlife environments plays a crucial role in cultivating a sustainable city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The characteristics of the creative process in musical arts depends on the form in which the aesthetic situation concerning musical arts takes place (traditional in-person or virtual with digital solutions) dangling on the nationality of the musical art creator: Polish versus non-Polish. The following research questions were asked: 1) How do the forced virtualisation and digitisation affect the quality of the creative process within the aesthetic situation between Polish and non-Polish musical art creators? 2) Which qualitative parameters of the aesthetic situation are lost and which are gained in connection with the creative process virtualisation in the eyes of Polish and non-Polish musical art creators? Methodology: Qualitative, in the forms of literature review and interviews. Findings: The study reveals differences in the traditional and virtual creative process between Polish and non-Polish musical art creators. The general differences are insignificant; however, particular components are concerned with essential discrepancies. Value Added: A new approach to the creative process in musical arts depending on the traditional and virtualised forms of the aesthetic situation. This study can have practical implications for: 1) musical art creators to form their perception of the creative process; 2) musical art managers to form their perception of the complex nature of the creative process of musical art groups they manage; 3) musical art institution managers to form their perception of the multifaceted nature of the creative process of musical art creators involved in the institutions they manage; 4) sociologists looking for deeper understanding of the creative process in musical arts. Recommendations: Perspectives of the research can be large-scale research based on the methodology invented for this paper and more focused research investigating art creators from different countries, regions, and cultures, divided by age, gender or the extent of artistic experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rich tradition of stigma theoretics in marketing and consumer research develops understanding of consumer stigma management, mitigated via marketing-mediated solutions, broadly within a Goffmanian liberal frame. However, building on classic liberal formulations of stigma, sociologists of stigma further examine the impact of the neoliberal political economy in terms of where stigma is produced, by whom and for what purposes. Using the empirical illustration of the emergence of HIV PreExposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), this paper seeks to develop these stigma theoretics towards the concept of stigma diffraction exploring the multiple stigma effects that can be identified and conceptualised through a diffractive lens. This encompasses and theorises beyond traditionally stigmatised contexts, groups and individuals to conceptualise a dynamic and diverse field of 'stigmas that matter'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some texts appear more than once across the corpus of Zygmunt Bauman's work. This has led to accusations of self-plagiarism and a lack of scholarly rigour. This paper is an explanation of why texts reappear. It pays attention to a number of frequently overlooked texts from the 1970s which are of fundamental importance for any understanding of Bauman's work. It is contended that if: (a) there is an understanding of the stakes and purpose of sociology as it is framed in Bauman's work; and (b) attention is paid to the argument of Hermeneutics and Social Science; then (c) the repetition of texts across the work becomes explicable and unproblematic. The paper argues that dealings with Bauman's work need to be more aware of the less well-known texts. They also need to be alert to different – and incommensurable – ways of practising sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author was delighted that sociologists Alan G. Ingham and Peter Donnelly found his article, worthy of their efforts. The topic is clearly a significant one for sociology of sport and it is time when everyone came to grips with those more pressing issues that have heretofore hindered the development of the field. Ingham and Donnelly's research paper does not contribute substantively to the development of applied sociology of sport. However, it does address a number of significant issues regarding the political and philosophical implications of such an enterprise. While the author is sensitive to their concerns, he says that he must point out that many of the issues they raise were originally addressed by many sociologists in stage I of this process in the 1960s and 1970s define Stage I as the exploratory phase, in which goals are identified, assumptions are examined, and implications are critically evaluated. Unfortunately, Ingham and Donnelly's contribution misses the mark since their concerns deal almost exclusively with Stage Tissues. Had they been familiar with the earlier works to develop applied sociology, perhaps their paper could have made a more pertinent contribution to the development of Stage II. However, the issues that were debated at length in the 1960s and 1970s have now become rather tiresome.

Geographers have long debated for whom and for what ends academics should research and publish, how geographical knowledge is produced, and the use and value of such knowledges. This paper contributes to these debates through a discussion of an on-going project concerning the financial crisis in Ireland and its legacy of ‘ghost estates’. The analysis is framed with respect to Michael Burawoy’s taxonomy of forms of scholarly knowledge production and details the use of 10 forms of writing praxis, aimed at engaging a variety of audiences. The paper demonstrates that the classes in Burawoy’s taxonomy are far from mutually exclusive, and illustrates how geographical scholarship can make an impact in a variety of registers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The aim of the paper is to discuss the issue of social activity of senior citizens from the perspective of sociology and social gerontology. Design/methodology/approach: The barriers of social activity experienced by elderly people as well as its amenities are presented in the order of the SWOT-like analysis. The main issue has been discussed within the scope of gerontology. Psycho-social and sociological theories has been applied to distinguish two levels of potential factors of social activities of senior citizens: individual level and the level of society. Findings: As a result of discussion in the summary author the role and the connection of theory and research in the practice of providing the opportunities for social activities of senior citizens. The special role belongs to action research which directly lies in between science and practice, the surveys which provide knowledge about scale of the problems and forms of activity of elderly people whereas longitudinal studies indicate the changes in attitudes and the modes of activity in the life course of aging individuals. Originality/value: The paper combines and puts in order the scientific arguments concerning chances and factors hindering social activity of senior citizens. It is addressed to sociologists, social workers and some other specialists in the scope of social sciences and practical professions dealing with the issues of elderly people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper compares the lives of three female social scientists born in the first two decades of the twentieth century and belonging to the first generations that had the opportunity not only to study at universities, but also to realistically consider a professional career in academia. Marie Jahoda, Herta Herzog and Patricia L. Kendall made their ways separately and interacted only rarely with each other, but shared at least one characteristic which influenced their careers: they were married to Paul F. Lazarsfeld, one of the eminent sociologists of the twentieth century, prominent as someone who encouraged and supported many of his collaborators and students. The comparison of these three women shows that they were professionally successful but did not completely prioritize academic work before other interests, ambitions, and obligations. These priorities found a correspondence in their underperformance in academia with regard to the particular preconditions to enter the pantheon of an academic discipline. Both their oeuvres and their academic records suggest that they were not actively striving to become academic 'immortals.' Here it is shown that women, even if they are to be located below the 'ultra elite,' produced remarkable and memorable intellectual achievements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the course of research using Talcott Parsons's papers at the Harvard University Archives, Charles Camic read "Prolegomena to a Theory of Social Institutions" in manuscript form. Given sociologists' continuing interest in Parsons's ideas, Camic suggested that ASR make the paper widely available. We are pleased to do so in this issue. Camic's prologue places "Prolegomena" in the historical context of Parsons's work. Both James Coleman and Jeffrey Alexander have previously written about Parsons and were asked to comment on the implications of "Prolegomena" for our understanding of his theoretical contribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As sociologists, we engage in history whether or not we see ourselves, professionally, as historical sociologists. These remarks discuss the varieties of ways sociologists use and approach historical scholarship, including history-as-context, analytic comparative/historical sociology, and interpretive approaches. I also reflect on the first fifty years of Midwest Sociological Society to show that, at different moments, the MSS mirrored, propelled, or lagged behind societal change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among French Jewish intellectuals who rejected Zionism in the early twentieth century was René Worms, a sociologist who used sociological theories as well as "franco-judaïsme," the French-Jewish model of assimilation, to oppose it. In 1920–21, during debates organized by the Société de sociologie de Paris on the future of Palestine and Zionism, Worms used various theories to counter Jewish nationalism. Influenced by biology and race science, he began by denying the existence of a Jewish race, emphasizing the racial heterogeneity of modern Jews. His understanding of the evolution of modern religions toward universalism, influenced by Auguste Comte and Émile Durkheim, also discredited Zionism. Finally, his sociology of nationality, interwoven with Ernest Renan's conception of the nation, precluded any national claim to Judaism. This article examines the arguments Worms made and compare them to those of other speakers in debates between sociologists in Paris. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article serves as a reply to comments made by E.G. Dunning and E.I. Hopper on the author's paper on social stratification in industrial society. Dunning and Hopper state that his paper 'explicitly sets out to explore' the problem of convergence. This, the author is afraid, is to claim too much for it. The author also wants to correct the statement made on the notion of one-way convergence. He wants also to explain that he does not think that American work on the subject of convergence as monolithic. He also explains that claim made that he regards national culture, political ideology and political organization as 'fixed and unalterable constraints on the effects of economic organization and technology'. Dunning and Hopper apparently fail to realise that the argument of Leach's to which they refer can equally be directed against the making of comparisons of a superficial kind. Certainly the existence of `generalised structural patterns' may be masked by differences in their specific manifestations in particular cases; but at the same time it is also implied by Leach's analogy that apparent similarities in social structures may be deceptive and may conceal underlying differences which it is the task of sociological analysis to expose.

Copyright of Przeglad Socjologiczny is the property of Lodz Scientific Society / Lodzkie Towarzystwo Naukowe 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.)

There is not one historiography of post-war social science but two: one focused on the sociologists, the other on the people the sociologists studied. This second historiography peels back the abstractions of social scientists to reconstruct the everyday lives and the 'vernacular' speech of those studied. John Goldthorpe's paper in this roundtable provides an opportunity to reflect on the historical concerns, methods, and future of the new literature on post-war sociology and social transcripts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Arab universities, sociologists rarely discuss the sociology of death. By studying social and cultural variables along with subjective and objective meanings of death, this paper contributes to filling this gap in research on death in a Sudanese urban area. Furthermore, the study examines the relationship between the burial of the dead and the time and place of their burial, social status, relatives, and religious affiliation as they relate to their burial. A major objective of the research is to explore the social and cultural dimensions of death in Sudanese communities. Data were collected using interviews and observations in the field using the descriptive method. Death is more of a social than a biological fact; therefore, the general findings of this research are about declaration of death, and what it implies about social cohesion. Burial and social acts following death are acts that express social meanings, and further, indicate how biological death has occurred. Based on variables such as social status, family relationship, and religious affiliation, it can be seen that the deceased person and/or family holds these beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai, Philologia is the property of Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania 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.)

This paper deals with the role of sociology in climate change research and policies. Climate change can be regarded as one of the greatest challenges facing the world today. It has attracted attention from several disciplines, with the physical sciences regarded as dominating climate change research. Apparently, despite that climate change is inherently a social problem, sociologists have been slow in tackling it, at both theoretical and policy levels. Even so, available literature contains assorted and interesting sociological contributions and insights. As such, this paper posits that sociologists are interested in climate change issues, have a lot to offer and they can draw from a number of sub-fields. For instance, using sociology of sustainable consumption sociologists can tackle how societies can re-organise consumption patterns and habits, sociology of education provokes more intriguing research into the construction of climate change science, knowledge and solutions and feminist sociology can extend robust research into how the material and discursive dimensions of climate change are profoundly gendered. Importantly, critical sociology provides a repertoire of concepts and novel methods that can be deployed in climate change research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophical arguments regarding academic freedom can sometimes appear removed from the real conflicts playing out in contemporary universities. This paper focusses on a set of issues at the front line of these conflicts, namely, questions regarding sex, gender and gender identity. We document the ways in which the work of academics has been affected by political activism around these questions and, drawing on our respective disciplinary expertise as a sociologist and a philosopher, elucidate the costs of curtailing discussion on fundamental demographic and conceptual categories. We discuss some philosophical work that addresses the conceptual distinction between academic freedom and free speech and explore how these notions are intertwined in significant ways in universities. Our discussion elucidates and emphasises the educational costs of curtailing academic freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea (1855-1920) was an economist, a philosopher, a sociologist and a literary critic who had a major contribution to the spread of Marxism in Romania and who studied the relations in our country through this current of thought. Amongst his most relevant preoccupations was the study of the agrarian issue, which led him to formulate the theory of the neo-serfdom. He painted a very realistic picture of the European economic world of his time and worked out the thesis of development from forms to the roots in the less developed countries. The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the specific features of Gherea's economic thinking and the historical context of his main ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the appointment of its first full-time professor in L.T. Hobhouse in 1907, British sociology lost an environmental approach that might have substantially altered the shape of the discipline. The environmental approach was that of Patrick Geddes, who made the relationship between people and their environments central for individual and social well-being. In spite of the fact that urban Britain was undergoing environmental crisis due to the negative effects of unrestrained industrialization, a range of other circumstances, personal as well as political and both inside and outside the academy, conspired to coalesce in the more or less deliberate exclusion of Geddes' ideas. The paper suggests that sociologists need to take a radically reflexive approach to the history of their own discipline that recognizes its embeddedness in the wider social world, since both individual and social action, as well as structural forces, may be as influential as quality or coherence in determining the fate of the ideas and theories that they create. In Geddes' case, this leads to a re-examination of both the historical context and the debate surrounding the establishment of sociology at the London School of Economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]