Search

The paper ethnographically explores the cultural embedding of atomistic indifference in online, global financial markets: arenas that have been digitally designed according to economic ideals and that demand an extreme form of relational and social dissociation from the partners to exchange and from those affected by the transactions. Its case‐study is lay financial‐trading in Israel, a country undergoing extensive neoliberalization. The study shows that dissociation is embedded in an economic culture marked by constant, multi‐sited declarations that economic‐Others are cold, uncaring and manipulative. It takes shape as traders convert the distrust towards Others into distrust towards portions of the Self that represent links to these Others, namely their own social‐psychology and social concern. Acting atomistically and selfishly in the market thus entails considerable reflexive work. The paper contributes to an ongoing debate on the moral and cultural embeddedness of markets in general and of the expanding financial markets in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the construction of combat motivation in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), arguing that although Israeli society at large is in a 'Post Heroic' era, the 'Heroic Spirit' is revealed during emergencies. A total of 1535 questionnaires were administered among combat soldiers during large-scale operations fought during national emergency and during small-scale routine operations. The results reveal differences in the construction of combat motivation typical for emergency vs. routine, as well as for reserves vs. regular units. These results indicate that the Post Heroic era is a condition that could be shifted according to cultural, organisational and individual determinants. This paper discusses the roots of these constructions and their implications on the theory of combat motivation and combat experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages with the recent discourse on decolonization of knowledge in South Africa from a sociological perspective. It interrogates the position and relevance of both sociology and sociologists to the development aspirations of South Africa. Its basic assumption is that sociology as a discipline is invaluable to the current needs for social reformation and reconstruction in South Africa. While the relevance of sociology as a discipline consistent with unravelling the complex and complicated dynamics of social formations remains unquestioned, its value as the embodiment of social aspirations and development has been undermined by the unquestioning assumption of the superiority of knowledge systems from outside and the glaring failure to promote sociology that is both contextualized and responsive. There is no arguing the prominent role of sociology in the liberation struggles and initial encounter with imperialism; there is also no doubt that sociologists nowadays have found comfort in an uninvolving study of society and the generation of knowledge that hardly functions as an adequate anchor for the existential needs of society. This paper therefore argues for the emergence of "frontier" sociologists and sociology of relevance which interrogates knowledge from outside and critically builds conviviality between outsider and African ontologies and epistemologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development sociologists generally agree that states play a critical role in promoting, as well as in impeding, development. However, far less scholarly consensus exists on the precise historical processes that lead either to strong or to weak states. This paper investigates the factors that shape varied state capacities through a comparative-historical analysis of two similar countries with divergent development outcomes—Trinidad and Tobago and Gabon. In the 1960s, both countries had comparably large amounts of oil wealth, minimal state involvement in the economy, and low levels of development. In the 1970s, state capacity in Trinidad and Tobago dramatically increased and the country went on to achieve high levels of development. The Gabonese state, on the other hand, remained weak resulting in persistent low levels of development. This paper traces the divergence in state capacity to variations in working class mobilization, specifically the particular type of working class movements in each country and the political opportunity contexts. In doing so, this paper reveals new agents and contingencies producing state capacity that are not predominantly discussed in the contemporary development literature, and the meso-level mechanics by which these agents are successful or constrained in doing so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists have done much to show that the education system, whatever its meritocratic rationale, is associated with the generation and reproduction of fundamental inequalities. This paper explores how the recent epidemic of mental illness amongst undergraduate students can be seen as part of this dynamic. Reflecting on the dearth of sociological work in this area, the paper draws together the sociologies of inequality, education, and health and illness and explores the value of Bourdieusian framework for understanding the rise of mental health disorders in the undergraduate population. The suggestion is that whilst widening participation has extended educational opportunities, it has simultaneously created a context in which a state of hysteresis (Bourdieu in Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1977) can emerge which, when combined with social congestion in the workplace (Brown in Br J Sociol Educ 34(5-6):678-700, 2013) and high levels of debt, serves to elevate rates of depression and anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on an analysis of qualitative interview data from a study of formalized same‐sex relationships (civil partnerships) this paper examines the enduring significance of marriage and family as social institutions. In doing so, it intervenes in current debates in the sociology of family and personal life about how such institutions are undermined by reflexivity or bolstered by convention. Against the backdrop of dominating sociological frames for understanding the links between the changing nature of marriage and family and same‐sex relationship recognition, the paper analyses the diverse and overlapping ways (including the simple, relational, strategic, ambivalent and critical ways) in which same‐sex partners reflexively constructed and engaged with marriage and family conventions. My analysis suggests that instead of viewing reflexivity and convention as mutually undermining, as some sociologists of family and personal life do, it is insightful to explore how diverse forms of reflexivity and convention interact in everyday life to reconfigure the social institutions of marriage and family, but do not undermine them as such. I argue the case for recognizing the ways in which 'reflexive convention', or reflexive investment in convention, contributes to the continuing significance of marriage and family as social institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociology has made significant contributions to the conceptualisation of risk and critique of technical risk analysis. It has, however, unintentionally reinforced the division of labour between the natural/technical and social sciences in risk analysis. This paper argues that the problem with conceptualisations of risk is not a misplaced emphasis on calculation. Rather, it is that we have not adequately dealt with ontological distinctions implicit in both sociological and technical work on risk between material or objective risks and our socially mediated understandings and interpretations of those risks. While acknowledging that risks are simultaneously social and technical, sociologists have not, in practice, provided the conceptual and methodological tools to apprehend risk in a less dualistic manner. This limits our ability both to analyse actors and processes outside the social domain and to explore the recursive relationships between risk calculus, social action and the material outcomes of risk. In response, this paper develops a material-semiotic conceptualisation of risk and provides an assessment of its relevance to more sociologically informed risk governance. It introduces the ideas of co-constitution, emergent entities and enactment as instruments for reconciling the material and social worlds in a sociological study of risk. It further illustrates the application of a material-semiotic approach using these concepts in the nuclear industry. In deconstructing social-material dualisms in the sociology of risk, this paper argues that a material-semiotic conceptualisation of risk enables both technical and social perspectives on risk not only to coexist but to collaborate, widening the scope for interdisciplinary research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociological production is prompted and affected by the major social preoccupations of the society it stems from. This is an inherent feature of the social sciences because those who produce knowledge, in this case sociologists, participate in the society they study. The aim of this article is to highlight the social and historical conditions that are at the root of the production of knowledge in the sociology of sports, and the role the latter has played in the exercise sciences in Quebec. This article is composed of two parts. First, it will try to shed light on the social dynamics that created the sociology of sport. Second, it will try to show that the researchers' problematics and the theoretical traditions they have followed were a part of the power dynamics specific to Quebec society and the field of physical education. Briefly, this paper aims to show that the sociology of sport in Quebec has been shaped by the socio-historical conditions in which it has been created and that, at the same time, it has generated a specific social and academic dynamics.

This paper is written for Professor Michael Cernea’ 90th birthday. However, I did not perform an in-depth analysis of his work as a sociologist of development because his contributions are worldwide known. What is less known is his activity before his employment at the World Bank, in 1974. He did his studies during a period when sociology was banned in Romania. Despite this, he became one of the pioneers of the process of rehabilitation of sociological field research in Romania. First, he dealt with industrial and urban sociology. Then, under the influence of interwar sociological traditions, he turned to rural sociology. The activity after 1974 cannot be fully understood without knowing the Romanian background of this sociologist who has recently turned 90. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to review a fundamental book for any sociology student. In “The paradigms of Society knowledge” social scientist Ion Ungureanu organizes in an original manner the “theoretic core of sociology”: sociology’s main paradigms. He argues that sociology is a multi-paradigmatic science: it does not have an universal paradigm, but several paradigms which are competing for hegemony. The Romanian sociologist establishes the main fields of sociological studies: the constitution, organization, change and evolution of society. Although synthetic, the book is a vast one, and the review will be limited to the presentation of the links between some of the paradigms. Each paradigm has scientific potential, and from this point of view, Ion Ungureanu's work can open entire fields of research in Romanian sociology and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Work of Jovan Cvijić includes several scientific disciplines and time periods. He left a considerable scientific heritage of about 10,000 pages. Cvijić's body of work is, up to date, researched by geographers, geologists, ethnologists, biologists, psychologists, philosophers, historians, sociologists. Over 1,000 of papers, monographs and conferences were dedicated to him. In the paper, the presence of biography articles about Jovan Cvijić in selected works of Serbian lexicography in the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century is established. The extent of dedicated articles is researched, their contents analysed and it is investigated which part of the rich Cvijić's scientific work was elaborated in most details. In order to evaluate Cvijić as a scientist, we have to understand the time period in which he lived and created his most important works. Furthermore, we need to understand the social climate within Serbian lexicography at the time, and only then try to establish how and why Cvijić was presented in the national lexicography the way he is. This also applies to the lexicographical presentation of the greatest individuals and scientists of the epoch besides Cvijić, whose scientific work, beyond any doubt, went ahead of his time. The paper represents a contribution to understanding of contemporary reception of Cvijić's scientific work in Serbia on the 150th anniversary of his birth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tracks Mead's induction into the sociological canon, focusing in particular on American sociologists who made a concerted effort to reconstruct Mead as a systematic social theorist and apply his ideas to empirical research. It distinguishes two interpretive strategies of framing the classic and constructing the canon -- the politics of orthodoxy and politics of the open canon. The politics of orthodoxy aims to ascertain the original meaning and close the textual canon, creating a template relative to which alternative interpretations are judged incomplete, unorthodox, or wrongheaded. The politics of the open canon proceeds on the assumption that the classic text lends itself to conflicting interpretations, that room for the honest difference of opinion must be safeguarded, and that the capacity to further productive inquiry rather than the adherence to an orthodox view recommends a particular construal as viable and canon-worhty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the participation by sociologists in several major conferences, mostly held in New York, that focused on issues related to science, democracy and faith between the late 1930s and the early post-World War II period. These events offered sociologists an opportunity to showcase the discipline to leading scholars, public figures, and other intellectuals and public audiences outside the discipline. Amidst widespread uncertainty and a quest for answers to significant social and economic problems, sociologists revealed that they were no more adept than other intellectuals to provide definitive pathways out of potential catastrophe. At the same time, the conferences and related events demonstrated that sociologists had analytical tools and insights that could be useful in framing questions and orientations that were of interest not only to scholar bodies, but also served as potential reference points for social policy and community development. These activities, in helping to legitimize the discipline and reinforce the boundaries within which it operated, did so in a manner that also separated and privileged sociologists, as professionals or experts, from broader publics in ways that narrowed the discipline's main foci and lessened its capacity to adopt more democratic public roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case study of a recent controversy among theoretical physicists modelled on case studies of experimental science conducted in recent times by sociologists and historians. The principal source is a series of interviews with leading participants in the controversy. I have also read published papers pertaining to the debate and the study is informed by my own experience as a researcher in the relevant field of theoretical physics during the earliest period of the controversy. I argue, on the basis of this study, that the work of theorists can be very like the work of experimentalists. Concepts such as 'tacit knowledge', and problems of replicability, may be just as relevant to the study of theorists as they are to experimenters. In analogy with Collins' 'Experimenters' Regress', I propose the existence of a 'Theoreticians' Regress' which expresses the difficulty theorists have in judging the correctness of rival calculations when the best or only test of their validity is their own result, which is itself in dispute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I review and discuss the articles in this issue by Walker, by Wanner, and by Heidtman et al. There are three main themes that appear in all three papers: these flow from the shared commitment among these authors to understanding and promoting "scientific theory construction" within sociology, and to dispelling some common misconceptions about scientific sociological theory. The common themes that run through the three papers can be put in the form of questions: 1) What is a theory? 2) How should we evaluate theory? 3) How does theory grow? In addition to discussing these three main themes. I discuss four sub-themes that emerged: 1) Sociology as a Scientific Endeavor; 2) Critiques of General Theory as Being Positivistic; 3) Unitary versus Multiple Forms of Theory Building; 4) Professional/Disciplinary Barriers to Theory Construction and Theory Building in Sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ever-watchful eyes of society have created burdensome challenges for mothers in the 21st century, who are constantly trying to manage their emotions and daily life in accordance with the dominant discourse of what a 'good mother' should be like. The aim of the paper is to explore the 'deep story' of new mothers in Latvia, employing the theoretical framework of sociologist Arlie Hochschild and her concept of 'emotion work'. Data were gathered from ten phenomenological interviews with women with a child under the age of two. The results of the narrative analysis show that new mothers systematically apply the principles of 'emotion work' and communicate negative experiences only to selected confidants out of a fear of being condemned for not complying with the dominant narrative of motherhood. Although the 'deep story' of mothers is rather bleak, the key is open communication without judgement or patronising remarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper was written on the occasion of 120 years anniversary since Professor Henry H. Stahl’s birthday. A member of the Sociological School in Bucharest (founded by Dimitrie Gusti), H.H. Stahl became the most important and original Romanian sociologist and historian of the last century. Despite this, the author of the paper emphasizes that his life and activity are not sufficiently known. For this reason, the homage of this scientist must be the beginning of new research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout history, civilizations have served as the highest level of human progress, and just like countries, empires or societies, they have always been prone to rise and fall. As a result, attempts to understand their dynamics, formation, and decline have been significantly important for sociologists, politicians, anthropologists and historians, both recently and in the past. One of those was the Islamic scholar Abdurrahman Ibn Khaldun, who tried in his book "Muqaddimah" to explain the rise and fall of states, and despite the uniqueness and distinction of his proposition, Ibn Khaldun's contributions confined to the temporal-spatial context that Ibn Khaldun tried to explore, and his theory has not been developed to explain the civilizational dynamics, especially the Islamic civilization. This matter has been noticed by Malik Bennabi, who succeeded in making remarkably systematic contributions to the topic. Through relying on the psycho-sociological essence of Ibn Khaldun's theory. So that, this paper attempts to present some insights from psycho-sociological approach of Malik Bennabi in explaining the rise and fall of civilizations, compared to some Western theories that have addressed the relative topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

Sociologists Claus Offe and Hans Wiesenthal in a widely-cited and influential paper, theorize that capitalists and workers have inherently different logics of collective action that give capitalists a decided advantage over workers in organizing to make claims on other groups and on the state in particular. Because workers necessarily face capitalists as individuals who sell their labor power, it is difficult for them to identify their common interests and act in concert. Offe and Wiesenthal reason that capitalists, however, share unambiguous common interests that can be collectively pursued with relatively little cost to any particular capitalist. This article contrasts Offe and Wiesenthal's structural class theory with a historical view rooted in social movement theory. By the logic of collective action, we mean relationships among interests, identities, and organization found in the processes by which groups make claims on each other for rights, resources, and recognition.

This paper seeks to analyze the policies on the cultural field implemented in Chile in recent years, explaining how expertise became fundamental and, more specifically, how this expertise evolved from that of an expert intellectual to that of an expert professional. The paper is based on the general hypothesis that the cultural field needs to be viewed in the context of a growing differentiation and autonomization of Chilean society, but that there are some interesting nuances to its evolution, particularly with regard to the transformation of expertise. This article argues that the expert in culture has a twofold nature, which is illustrated through drawing a timeline from the 1980s to the present, marking certain milestones in Chile’s national and cultural history. This timeline incorporates the intellectual work of two of Chile’s most important contemporary sociologists and experts in culture and cultural policies, Manuel Antonio Garretón and José Joaquín Brunner. A sample of their publications is analyzed and then contrasted to documents on cultural policy since the approval of the country’s institutional framework for culture in 2003, when the National Council for Culture and the Arts was created, gauging the influence of the expert intellectual on this new institutional framework and the thrust of public policies on culture. The paper concludes that the figure of the expert in culture has shifted from the “expert intellectual” to the expert of a professional kind, although the theoretical work of the former has continued to influence the debate around cultural policies to this day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analytical concept of accounts has long presented sociologists with an excellent tool for the study of talk. Nonetheless, studies of accounts often neglect the fact that cooperation is common when an account for untoward behavior is constructed. Many studies tend to flatten the process of how accounts are created by routinely describing them as being “offered” by offenders and then “evaluated” by reproachers. We assume that accounts are often negotiated between parties as a means of avoiding conflict and preserving a relationship. As such, this paper develops the concept of cooperative accounts that are offered to (or projected upon) offenders as a means of explaining their untoward behavior. While also examining hostile accounts, this paper concentrates on developing the cooperative account in order to investigate more fully Scott and Lyman's (1968) argument that accounts are crucial for managing conflict and maintaining social order. Because offering cooperative accounts to others is a routine social interaction their examination provides an opportunity to reanchor the study of accounts back into the symbolic interactionist tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to understand the influence of institutional and organisational embeddedness on research productivity of Italian sociologists. We looked at all records published by Italian sociologists in Scopus from 1973 to 2016 and reconstructed their co-authorship patterns. We built an individual productivity index by considering the number and type of records, the impact factor of journals in which these records were published and each record’s citations. We found that sociologists who co-authored more frequently with international authors were more productive and that having a stable group of co-authors had a positive effect on the number of publications but not on citations. We found that organisational embeddedness has a positive effect on productivity at the group level (i.e., sociologists working in the same institute), less at the individual level. We did not found any effect of the scientific disciplinary sectors, which are extremely influential administratively and politically for promotion and career in Italy. With all caveats due to several limitations of our analysis, our findings suggest that internationalisation and certain context-specific organisational settings could promote scientist productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author of this paper discusses the current state of historical sociology in Russia reflected in the respective section of the Sociological studies journal. After noting the potentialities of the discipline, the author summarizes the overall output of the 20 years' long existence of this section. The basic preoccupation in the initial phase of the section's existence was to get - and convey to readers - a clear understanding of the essence and functions of contemporary historical sociology (HS in the text below), to introduce its potentialities to the Russian sociologist audience. However, even today there are few regular contributors, authors tend to delve into minor issues, and even resort to long surpassed views on the discipline. A most urgent issue for Russian historical sociology today is, according to the author, to draw lessons from Russia's recent centuries to understand the essence of Russia's present as it is penetrated by its past: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under the circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living" (K. Marx). This is the essence of the enigmas to be deciphered by historical sociologists. The author formulates some such enigmas (like the proverbial Russian rake repeatedly stepped-upon) observable in recent (as well as earlier) events in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out to establish that, besides the fundamental Schopenhauerian inspiration of the work, declared by the author himself and borne out exhaustively by academic research, the final chapters of the novel Una Vita (1892) converge with a series of studies and theoretical works brought out by doctors and sociologists at the end of the 19th century, from Enrico Morselli (1879) to Emile Durkheim (1897). What emerges clearly from the depiction of the suicidal instincts of the main character of the novel is an unconscious dynamic based on the fulfilment of a moral imperative, in which throughout is reflected and masked his self-destructive narcissism, a condition Freud was to elucidate in Mourning and Melancholia (1917). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some sociologists contributing to the foundations of relational sociology on the international stage have been recently remarking a kind of affinity between both notions of social relation and social life: they particularly refer to the pioneering views of Georg Simmel, who is largely mentioned and concerned in the following paper. The interaction among social subjects generates unexpected and emergent forms which sociologist must detect and inquiry: the interactive feature of any relation refers to the "content" of the social relation itself. Form and content stand for social life. This paper aims at addressing and deepening relational perspective, as regarded by Pierpaolo Donati, towards a Lebenssoziologie: in short, it hints to concern sensu strictissimo social relations as forms of social life. This lucky locution (i.e. Lebenssoziologie), adopted by Scott Lash more than ten years ago into a new interpretation of Simmel's social theory, concerns social life in terms of stream which fits with analysis on such themes as media and ICT. In this contribution, Donati's relational sociology is challenged and thematised in relation of a critical and relational Lebenssoziologie. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.)

The decline of interest among sociologists in the works of Talcott Parsons over the last several decades has been driven in substantial respects by a belief that he was personally conservative in his political views and that his theoretical formulations were rigidly tied to a conservative view of social order. The present paper reviews Parsons' major political involvements through the course of his career from his student days through the last decade of his life. The review demonstrates that Parsons was a typical academic liberal of his time and that his liberalism was expressed especially in several major applied essays. In the 1930s, he was an early and active opponent of Nazism. During World War II, he taught professionals to administer occupied territories and nations effectively. After the war, he advocated for government support of the social sciences, citing the important contributions they had made to the war effort. In the 1950s, he wrote a famous critical analysis of the Joseph McCarthy movement in American politics. In the 1960s, he contributed supportive essays to the Civil Rights movement. Later in the decade and in the 1970s, he contributed to the protection of academic freedoms while also proposing accommodations to the demands of the student movement for more "relevant" teaching and greater participation in university governance. Throughout his career, he taught and worked closely with students of various political views and sought to protect their rights of freedom of political expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decades of his life, Talcott Parsons was often indicted as conservative. More recently, his analyses of contemporary society have been perceived as obsolete. In the present paper, I argue that both these accounts are wrong. Parsons's biographical and intellectual profile is clearly – and rather consistently – that of a New Deal liberal. His "ate" works, moreover, articulate an original view of the integrative processes in modern societies that is still both theoretically compelling and politically relevant. Parsons's view of modernity has made possible the development of a sophisticated theory of societal pluralism, able to deal analytically with the astonishing variety of structural strains (and resources) arising from an increasingly diverse – in racial, religious, ethnic, sexual and moral terms - membership in contemporary societies. His sociological enthusiasm for inclusion has never been blind to the likelihood of backlashes and the strength of discontent such inclusion may bring. His work provides thus some important directions in the current storm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although attempts to complement the concept of reflexivity with social embeddedness have been made by many sociologists, theoretical tools for coming to grips with ‘temporally embedded’ aspects of reflexive activity have yet to make an entrance in the sociological arena. This paper intends to rectify this deficiency by spelling out how laypeople’s reflexive orientations draw onpastlived experiences in the social world. Margaret Archer’s celebrated approach to reflexivity struggles to accommodate this dimension of reflexive agents since its clear ‘subjective–objective distinction’ is hostile to any talk of reflexivity as beinghistorically constituted. A complementary account that allows us to map out and systematize temporal processes concerning reflexivity is, therefore, apt, an account that must address the fact that: reflexive activity does not start from scratch, in a vacuum, each time it operates; and, effects of previous lived experiences are at the heart of the mediatory process of reflexivity. By drawing on phenomenologically inspired sociology, and borrowing Schütz’s notion of ‘stock of knowledge’, I intend to flesh out how my account of reflexivity can be reconciled with the durable effects of sociotemporal embeddednesswithoutsacrificing the subjective and agentic qualities of reflexive activity. One immediate upshot of this ‘reconciliation’ is an empirical project that links a variety of reflexive orientations to multiple ‘time points’ (relevant lived experiences) and offers the prospect of penetrating deep intohowsocialization processes, identity formation and life trajectories actually transpire through temporality and reflexivity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The last decade has produced an upsurge of interest in affect and emotion. The classic theorists always recognized the important motivating force of affective response. In the late 1970's, sociologists challenged the popular view that emotions were a private, biological or psychological phenomenon by expressing the insight that most emotions originate in social events. Much debate has centered on the dispute between positivist autonomic and social constructionist positions. There are many signs now that the fast-growing research on emotions is maturing into a more highly developed substantive area. Having successfully declared the sociological relevance of the new subfield. Researchers interested in the new social analyses of emotions have formed their own community to a large extent. Quantitative work in the emotion area seems to be focused on stable aspects of affective response. Some surveys use traditional questionnaires to assess cultural beliefs. Others measure sentiments, the relatively enduring affective features of ongoing relationships.

This article presents critical views of the works of sociologist Alfred Schutz by sociologists Helmut R. Wagner, Jonathan B. Imber and David M. Rasmussen. In Schutz's theory, " value neutrality" means the non-assimilation of the fundamental anxiety and the exclusion of the experiences of music, business, friendship. Wagner traces what Schutz refers to in several places of his work as the fundamental anxiety biographically to Schutz's experience in the first World War. In his analysis of Schutz's" The Well-Informed Citizen," Imber suggests that ways of reading this paper are to see in it what the subtitle says," An Essay on the Social Distribution of Knowledge," that is, a sketch of Schutz's conception of the sociology of knowledge. Rasmussen's "Explorations of the Lebenswelt: Reflections on Schutz and Habermas," criticizes Schutz's use and development of phenomenology, his construction of the social world on the basis of face-to-face relations, and his exclusively methodological critique of Weber.

Sociology, like all the social sciences, is concerned with understanding human behavior, particularly behavior directly linked to social processes. There is considerable overlap between sociology and its sister disciplines, all of which appear to experience a problem with the publication process. In its most concrete form, sociology may be identified by what is published by sociologists as sociology. The thesis of this paper is that there are serious problems with regard to the review process, particularly among the three major general journals, for they lack either a particular substantive or theoretical focus. Furthermore, it is argued that these problems have serious implications for the content of sociology journals and the behavior of many sociologists. It the investigator decides to work within an existing paradigm then, indicates, this wilt frequently lead to serious distortions of reality in the data collection, analysis, and presentation. In contrast, investigators who decide to disregard existing paradigms have virtually no guidelines on how to proceed, for one of the basic functions of paradigms is to provide guidelines.

This paper presents a response to some criticisms by James Tooley of our research on parental choice The paper argues that many of Tooley's criticism are based on systematic misinterpretations and misreadings of our work, ignorance of the procedures of qualitative research and the we of untenable speculations about sampling, data collection and the interpretation of data It is suggested that Tooley's criticisms are ideologically driven and that if taken senously would make qualitative social research impossible [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article documents the writings of sociologist Samuel Wilson Blizzard. Some of them are "The Attitudes of Rural and Urban High School Students Toward the Values of Rural Livings" published in 1946. "The Value of Man," published in February 1948. "Problems in Meeting Religious Needs in the Rural-Urban Fringe" an address given at the National Presbyterian Town and Country Conference, Champaign, Illinois. "Social Participation Patterns of Husbands and Wives Who Are Migrants in the City" published in 1952, "The Church and the Community: A Discussion Guide for Christian Action; and an Instructor's Manual," published in 1952, "The Rural Church and its Community Relations," a paper presented at the Rural Leadership Institute, University of Kentucky, College of Agriculture and Home Economics, Lexington, April 1953, "The Place of the Social Sciences in Theological Training for Rural Ministers, The Christian Mission in the Rural Social Process," (New York: National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., Department of Town and Country Church), October 1955; and many others.

The article presents the response to a critical study related to sociology. Sociologist Michael W. Gillespie argues that the papers prepared by the sociologists K.W. Taylor and N.L. Chappell provide the misleading description of the log-linear methods and advocate a defective alternative method. The paper presents no tests of statistical importance and also fails to point out the inherent ambiguities shared by multiple association analysis with all variation partition schemes. The author says that Gillespie is correct in pointing out the potential ambiguities introduced into association coefficients because of correlated independent variables. Analysts who suspect that the raw frequency based coefficients are affected by nonorthogonal independent variables can analyze the percentaged data and compare both set of coefficients. If the relative magnitudes are similar, the nonorthogonality can be ignored. But if the relative magnitudes do not match, they must be more cautious in interpreting the frequency based coefficients.

The papers by Mauksch and Baker posed two fundamental questions: (1) How can academic culture be changed to recognize the critical importance of instruction in higher education? and (2) How can academic culture be changed to recognize teaching as a reputable professional activity of obvious significance to institutions of higher education? Most of the discussion of the two papers centered on policies or theories of action. With the exception of Baker's small-win strategies, we did not discuss specific tactics through which the principal goals night be achieved. Perhaps it was unrealistic to expect that this symposium would or could have done so. But an agenda of goals has been laid out, together with a handful of policies or strategies to attain them. Now it is time to operationalize those policies, and we invite all sociologists, or other readers who share these interests, to consider specific activities to serve that end. The lime is mole propitious than it has been for decades. The publication of, and widespread media attention to, national reports critical of instruction and curriculum in undergraduate education has opened a window of opportunity. These reports have received attention, critical attention, in many states. Action is almost sure to follow. If the academic profession wishes to remain in control of its own house, it must act as well, and quickly. Teaching Sociology, which is now published by he ASA and which replaces the Teaching Newsletter, is one vehicle through which suggestions and programs can be circulated. We sincerely hope that the coming months will see them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critics argue that few sociological publications are cited in the subsequent literature and that this implies many are superfluous. Data on the number of citations to three kinds of sociological documents-Journal ankles, chapters in edited books, and books-show that a substantial majority of each type is cited in the subsequent literature. Furthermore, the high proportions of ever-cited items do not result from authors' citation of their own work Average citation levels of journals are highly correlated with other measures of journal stature. The average book is cited about as often as an average article in a highly-cited journal while an average chapter in an edited book is cited about as often as an average article in an infrequently-cited journal. Within-Journal variation in article citation rates far exceeds between-journal variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the reviewer shares the authors' sentiments that the manuscript review process in the social sciences including sociology, would benefit from substantial revision. They focus on one of the major problems, the often slow turn-around time from manuscript submission to editorial decision. The authors suggested revision of the submission and review process, soliciting an initial editorial decision as to the appropriateness of a paper for a journal on the basis of an extended abstract is a reasonable modification of the present system that offers the potential for improving its efficiency. Finally, the paper provides limited evidence that journal editors may not be such stalwart defenders of the status quo as many believe. Moreover, a strong majority of the editors did cooperate with the authors. This suggests that the current climate is at least somewhat receptive to this innovation and perhaps others as well.