Дисертації з теми "SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Social Theory"

U.S. citizens disengaged from politics and from each other in the latter half of the 20th century, which is evidence of decreased social capital and a weakening democracy. At the same time, small farms were lost at an alarming rate resulting in fewer farms and the rise of "Big Ag". Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) reconnects people to the food they eat and cultivates a community among the farmers and member-shareholders. CSA democratizes food for growers who are beholden to their members rather than to agribusiness, and for members who elect to support a CSA rather than purchase supermarket foods of unknown origin. This study used a survey of 132 CSA operators from across the United States to test whether operators who described "community" as a motivating factor to run a CSA and measured their success in terms of community took concrete actions to build social capital within their CSA and community. The findings revealed that "community" as a motivation and as a measure of success was significantly correlated with social capital building activities. More specifically, CSA operators who rated "Generating a sense of community" as an important motivation and "Community development/quality of life" as an important measure of success were more likely to survey their members as to their wants and needs, host open house events at the farm, participate in community events, and report that the CSA improved social capital in their communities. CSA could be one method to improve depleted social capital and cultivate food democracy.

This work examines the ways in which the relationship between society and nature is problematic for social theory. The Frankfurt School’s notion of the dialectic of enlightenment is considered, as are the attempts by Jurgen Habermas to defend an ‘emancipatory’ theory of modernity against this. The marginalising effect Habermas’ defence of reason has had on the place of nature in his critical social theory is examined, as is the work of theorists such as Ulrich Beck and Klaus Eder. For these latter authors, unlike Habermas, the social relation to nature is at the centre of contemporary society, giving rise to new forms of modernisation and politics. ¶ Michel Foucault’s work on biopolitics and governmentality is examined against the background of his philosophical debate with Habermas on power and rationality. The growth of scientific ecology is shown to have both problematised the social relation to nature and provided the political technology for new forms of regulatory intervention in the management of the population and resources. These new forms of intervention constitute a form of ecological governmentality along the lines discussed by Foucault and others in relation to the human sciences. ¶ However, Foucault’s work is not sufficiently critical of the relationship between the natural sciences and power. Extending Foucault’s biopolitics to environmental discourse is consistent with his general approach to power, but his incomplete critique of political sovereignty meant that for him agency remained tied to an idealised notion of the autonomy of the human subject. He therefore made too strong a distinction between the human and natural sciences and between power and the capacities of non-human entities, and continued to view the natural sciences as separating themselves from power in a way that was not possible in the human sciences. ¶ A more general critique of epistemic sovereignty reveals that the natural sciences (including ecology) are subject to disciplinary and normalising practices similar to those of the human sciences. Foucault’s key inadequacy is that he linked agency to human autonomy and sovereignty. The work of Bruno Latour and other actor network theorists show that an unambiguous ontological distinction between nature, material technologies and active human subjects is highly problematic. In the place of a separate ‘society’ and ‘nature’, this thesis argues that it is preferable to see these as a single socio-nature populated by the hybrid products of translation networks. ¶ By drawing together the insights of recent governmentality studies and the approach of actor network theory to agency and translation, Foucault’s concept of biopolitics can be adapted to provide a theoretical framework for understanding the ecological programs of government that have emerged around the problem of nature in second half of the twentieth century.

An organization that seeks to transform persons, places or things needs resilience to achieve its goals. In their effort to transform their societies, political organizations compete "not just for resources and customers (followers), but for political power and institutional legitimacy, for social as well as economic fitness" (DiMaggio and Powell 1991). Weber believed that 'turning raw power into legitimate authority was the central dilemma of politics' (Ikenberry 2001:17). Political organizations that are transformation-seeking and also strategically use violence as part of their transformation missions—defined as insurgencies in this research—are arguably the most resource-intensive forms of non-state political organizations (Ashforth & Gibbs 1991; Weinstein 2006).

There is wide variation, however, in the resilience of these organizations (Byman 2007 and 2006, Hoffman 2002). This dissertation will investigate the specific payoff to three insurgent organizations for their 'social deposits' to legitimate their power sufficiently prior to the shocks. The specific organizational payoff to be studied is the impact on the organization's resilience. Goodwin & Skocpal (1989) noted that the lifeblood of any insurgent organization "is the ongoing provision of such collective and selective goods (e.g., security, social aid), not ideological conversion in the abstract, that has played the principal role in solidifying social support for guerilla armies." This research will challenge that position in the sense that the provision of material payoffs is likely necessary but far from sufficient to produce organizational resilience.

With the rapid growth of Facebook, the social networking website is becoming a lucrative target for malicious activity. Users of Facebook therefore should be aware of various malicious attacks and know how to identify them. This research analyzed Facebook users' level of understanding in the domain of malicious social engineering on Facebook. The research examined differences in awareness among multiple generational groups; secondary research questions focused on how factors such as age, gender, education, Internet usage, and trust affected users' awareness of malicious activity. Results suggest that the Baby Boomer generation is the least aware of malicious social engineering tactics on Facebook, specifically in regard to the Donation scam category. In addition, education level and educational background are significantly associated with awareness. These findings indicate a need for future work to gain a deeper understanding of Facebook users' awareness of malicious social engineering and generate targeted training in order to increase said awareness.

Thesis (PhD) -- Macquarie University, Division of Society, Culture, Media and Philosophy, Dept. of Sociology, 2008.
Bibliography: p. 233-248.
Academic vessels: STS and HPS -- SSK : scientism as empirical relativism -- Latour and actor-network-theory -- Tensions and dilemmas in science studies -- Kuhn - paradigm of an uncritical turn -- Critical theory of technology: Andrew Feenberg -- Critical theory and science studies: Jürgen Habermas -- Concluding remarks: normativity and synthesis.
Science Studies is an interdisciplinary area of scholarship comprising two different traditions, the philosophical History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) and the sociological Science and Technology Studies (STS). The elementary tension between the two is based on their differing scholarly values, one based on philosophy, the other on sociology. This tension has been both animating the field of Science Studies and complicating its internal self-understanding. --This thesis sets out to reconstruct the main episodes in the history of Science Studies that have come to formulate competing constructions of the cultural value and meaning of science and technology. It tells a story of various failed efforts to resolve existing antimonies and suggests that the best way to grapple with the complexity of the issues at stake is to work towards establishing a common ground and dialogue between the rival disciplinary formations: HPS and STS. --First I examine two recent theories in Science Studies, Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK) and Actor-Network Theory (ANT). Both of them are found to be inadequate as they share a distorted view of the HPS-STS divide and both try to colonise the sociology of science with the tools of HPS. The genesis of this colonizing impulse is then traced back to the Science Wars which again is underpinned by a lack of clarity about the HPS-STS relationship. This finding further highlights the responsibility of currently fashionable theories such as ANT that have contributed to this deficit of understanding and dialogue.
This same trend is then traced to the work of Thomas Kuhn. He is credited with moderate achievements but recent re-evaluations of his work point to his culpability in closing the field to critical possibilities, stifling the sociological side and giving rise to a distorted view of the HPS-STS relationship as seen in SSK and ANT. Now that the origins of the confused and politically divided state of Science Studies is understood, there is the urgent task of re-establishing a balance and dialogue between the HPS and the STS sides. --I use two important theoretical threads in critical theory of science and technology to bring clarity to the study of these interrelated yet culturally distinct practices. Firstly I look at the solid line of research established by Andrew Feenberg in the critical theory of technology that uses social constructivism to subvert the embedded values in the technical code and hence democratize technology. --Secondly I look at the work of Jürgen Habermas's formidable Critical Theory of science that sheds light on the basic human interests inside science and technology and establishes both the limits and extent to which social constructivism can be used to study them. --Together Feenberg and Habermas show the way forward for Science Studies, a way to establish a common ground that enables close scholarly dialogue between HPS and STS yet understands and maintains the critical difference between the philosophical and the sociological approaches that prevents them from being collapsed into one indistinguishable entity. Together they can restore the HPS-STS balance and through their shared emancipatory vision for society facilitate the bringing of science and technology into a democratic societal oversight, correcting the deficits and shortcomings of recent theories in the field of Science Studies.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
vii, 248 p

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Sociology, 2008.
Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Jul 21, 2009). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-10, Section: A, page: 4133. Adviser: Bernice A. Pescosolido.

The twin objectives of this dissertation, understanding political behavior as a social phenomenon and assessing the relative impacts of action and interaction on behavior, are realized through the empirical study of cosponsorship in the United States Congress. Cosponsorship, the formal support of a bill, is commonly said to be a rational action by a member of Congress designed to further electoral goals. However, it is also possible that cosponsorship is the arational result of social interaction. Processes based on the principles of action and interaction may occur within the Congress or with reference to entities outside the Congress. Combinations of principle and environment provide a simple theoretical framework from which a number of hypotheses are generated. To test these hypotheses, a random sample of 100 bills from the House of Representatives during the 105th Congress is generated. Information regarding leadership, reciprocity, congressional districts, campaign contributions, media coverage, election results, organizational memberships, member demography and bill cosponsorship is recorded for each combination of sampled bill, member of the House, and week the Congress was in session. Comparisons and relations between members are represented in matrix form. A combined network effects-discrete time approximation approach converts these matrices into individual-level predictions of a congressperson's likelihood of cosponsorship over time. Alternatively, QAP analysis regresses relations on relations to make cross-sectional predictions about any two members' cosponsorship overlap. Results illuminate the importance of interaction to political behavior.

Networks of communication evolve in terms of reflexive exchanges. The codification of these reflections in language, that is, at the social level, can be considered as the operating system of society. Under sociologically specifiable conditions, the discursive reconstructions can be expected to make the systems under reflection increasingly knowledge-intensive. This sociological theory of communication is founded in a tradition that includes Giddens' (1979) structuration theory, Habermas' (1981) theory of communicative action, and Luhmann's (1984) proposal to consider social systems as self-organizing. The study also elaborates on Shannon's (1948) mathematical theory of communication for the formalization and operationalization of the non-linear dynamics. The development of scientific communications can be studied using citation analysis. The exchange media at the interfaces of knowledge production provide us with the evolutionary model of a Triple Helix of university-industry-government relations. The construction of the European Information Society can then be analyzed in terms of interacting networks of communication. The issues of sustainable development and the expectation of social change are discussed in relation to the possibility of a general theory of communication.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Instructional Systems Technology, 2007.
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-03, Section: A, page: 1062. Adviser: Thomas M. Schwen. Title from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 30, 2008).

The equation between society and the nation-state in sociology has been subject to severe criticisms in recent times. This equation has been given the name of ‘methodological nationalism’ and is underpinned by a reading of the history of sociology in which the discipline’s key concept, society, and modernity’s major sociopolitical referent, the nation-state, allegedly converge. At the critical level, my thesis argues that this is too restrictive a view of the history of the discipline and at the positive level it reconstructs the conventional version of sociology’s canon in relation to nation-states. The first part of the thesis surveys the main trends in the current sociological mainstream, reviews the rise of the critique of methodological nationalism and establishes a distinction between a referential and a regulative role of the idea of society in sociology. The body of the thesis constructs a history of the sociology of the nation-state in its classical (K. Marx, M. Weber and E. Durkheim), modernist (T. Parsons and historical sociology) and cosmopolitan (U. Beck and M. Castells) moments. As an essay on the history of sociology, this thesis seeks to uncover how the conceptual ambivalences of sociology reflect the actual ambivalences in the position and legacy of nation-states in modernity.

Whether the initiators are government states or rebel groups, sustained and systematic violence against civilians is a regular feature of intrastate warfare. However, especially in recent years, the barbaric atrocities of rebel groups such as ISIS, Al Shabaab, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, and the Al Nusra Front have largely overshadowed the ruthless massacres initiated by so-called “legitimate” states. Even though such actors may at times find independent sources of revenue from external patrons, trans-border outlets, or ethnic kin, civilian support (e.g., food, shelter, weapons, refuge, and recruits) is often necessary to sustain a military effort in a civil war. The question, then, is if civilian support is important, why would states – seemingly irrationally – kill the goose that lays the golden egg?

This study seeks to answer this question. In this research, I argue that “social control” over the population offers the potential to dramatically change the environment in which all of the actors (the government, rebel groups, and civilians) live, facilitating an end to the civil war, or at least alleviating some of its negative consequences. Ever-growing surveillance and dataveillance practices make this social control possible. When civilians believe that they are being closely watched by their government (and might be punished for real or perceived disobedience), they instinctively refrain from behaviors they believe might incite the government to use violence, which in turn leads states to perpetrate less violence against civilians. For the state, this environment of constant surveillance and the information it yields substantially affect the level of virtual control that can be exerted, thereby reducing the amount of violence the state needs to initiate.

Multi-cultural demands of public lands in the United States continue to challenge federal land managers to address social and cultural concerns in their planning efforts. Specifically, these individuals lack adequate knowledge of cultural concerns as well as a consistent strategy for acquiring that knowledge for use in decision-making. Current federal approaches to cultural concerns include public participation, conservation partnerships, government-to-government consultations with American Indian tribes, cultural resource inventories, and landscape analysis. Since cultural knowledge arises from human-nature relationships and shared perceptions of natural environments, and landscapes are the ultimate expression of such knowledge, an exploratory methodology was developed for a different approach to understanding cultural concerns through landscape perceptions. Using cultural landscape theories and applications from the natural and social sciences, this study examined the landscape perceptions of four groups concerned with management planning of the Baboquivari Wilderness Area in southern Arizona: the Bureau of Land Management, landowners of the Altar Valley, recreationists, and members of the Tohono O'odham Nation. The methodology is based on a human nature relationships rather than cultural aspects or features. It takes a holistic approach that differs from other perception studies by including: emic aspects of data collection and analysis; a spatial component: triangulation of data collection through narrative and graphic descriptions; conducting ethnographic, on-site interviews; and consensus analysis and small-sample theory. The results include: verification of four cultural groups; two levels of consensus---in the population of concern, and in each group---that overlap in some aspects of landscape perception; descriptions of four cultural landscapes that illustrate similarities and differences among the groups, and include patterns and representations of spatial relationships; an effective methodology for revealing cultural concerns that are not identified through public forums, and with potential for application by agencies at the field office level.

This dissertation examines the role of social networks and social norms in health outcomes and behaviors among low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), with a particular focus on Uganda. Paper 1 presents a systematic review of sociocentric network studies conducted in LMICs on health-related outcomes and other development topics. I first discuss the sociocentric network study designs employed in 36 selected papers, and provide a catalog of 105 name generator questions used to measure social ties. Second, I show that network composition, individual network centrality, and network structure are associated with health behaviors and health and development outcomes in different contexts across multiple levels of analysis and across distinct network types. Lastly, I highlight opportunities for health researchers and practitioners in LMICs to 1) design effective studies and interventions that account for the sociocentric network positions of certain individuals and overall network structure, 2) measure the spread of outcomes or intervention externalities, and 3) enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of aid based on knowledge of social structure. Papers 2 and 3 exploit a population-based dataset on eight villages from rural Southwest Uganda, arising from a pilot study which myself and colleagues designed to collect sociocentric network data. There were a total of 1,669 adults interviewed representing a response rate of 96%. Paper 2 assesses the relationship between food insecurity and depression symptom severity in the general adult population, and the potential confounding or moderating roles of social network position, structure, and composition in that relationship. I find that severe and moderate food insecurity was associated with greater depression symptom severity among both men and women, and that none of the social network characteristics were directly associated with the outcome. Moreover, there were no interactions between food insecurity and network characteristics among women. For severely food insecure men, however, personal network centrality was positively associated with symptoms and personal network poverty composition was negatively associated with symptoms. Findings reveal that nutrition interventions aimed at improving food security in rural areas may have significant beneficial effects in terms of mental health outcomes for the whole population. I discuss the possible role of shame in affecting depression among severely food insecure men with wealthier networks and in more central network locations. Paper 3 examines the extent to which individuals underestimate the prevalence of HIV testing in their village and misperceive the norm, and also assesses the relationship between perception of the HIV testing norm in one’s village with personally never having been tested. I find that although a majority of people had been tested in each of the villages, a majority of people underestimated the actual prevalence and thought that testing was not normative. Men who perceived testing as not normative were much more likely to never have been tested, and both men and women who felt they didn’t know anything about the norm were also more likely to never have been tested. Results suggest that interventions promoting true HIV testing norms may help increase uptake of testing.
Health Policy

This thesis examines how the occupations people hold, and the social classes in which they are situated, affect the way in which they form and express opinions. At a theoretical level, it unites the 'deep-structure' macroanalysis of social theory with the individualised microanalysis of how subjects form and express opinions in opinion research, reviving an approach that has not been pursued since early-20th-century social research. At a practical level, it responds to several recent and prominent failures of prediction by the opinion polling industry, and asks whether a broader understanding of 'mass opinion' can help avert such failures in future. The thesis argues that opinions are subjects' judgments about their social conditions, based on mental pictures they have of these conditions that combine the values and attitudes they hold with the information they have about their environment. Subjects form opinions based on these pictures via three 'means of thinking'-personality-traits, emotions, and reason-and express them using two kinds of 'means of articulation'-bodily organs and media. The thesis shows how the variety of occupations subjects hold, and the extremity of class differentials between them, introduce substantial plurality into their values and attitudes, the way they acquire information, how they think, and how they articulate themselves. In particular, it highlights the considerable asymmetries between higher- and lower-class subjects regarding: which parts of their social conditions they are experts about, and how far they are influenced by others; whether they think about their conditions more emotionally or with reasoning; and how great a range and quality of opportunities they have to articulate their views. The thesis closes by suggesting that these findings offer opinion researchers and social theorists clear directions for measuring 'mass opinion' in new ways, and potentially emancipating the voices of subjects whose opinions are suppressed in late-modern society.

Hypertension is a serious medical condition. Although men and women of all racial groups in the US suffer from high blood pressure, black women have the highest rates of hypertension. For instance, the age-adjusted prevalence of hypertension among black women ages 20 and over is 44.3, compared to 28.1 among white women, 40.5 among black men, and 31.1 among white men.

Past research has focused on SES and behavioral factors as potential explanations for blood pressure disparities between black and white women. But, even after controlling for such factors, considerable disparities remain. The goal of this research is to examine cultural and social factors that have been shown to increase blood pressure. Specifically, I examine social support, psychosocial characteristics, and contextual factors associated with race/ethnicity and hypertension, in hopes of explaining some of the disparities in high blood pressure between black and white women.

Using data from Waves I, III, and IV of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), I estimated a sequence of multinomial logistic regression models predicting prehypertension and hypertension in young adulthood. Cross-sectional models show that racial disparities in hypertension remain after controlling for social support, psychosocial characteristics, and contextual factors. In fact, the only covariate that substantially reduced the racial disparity in hypertension was body mass index (BMI), a fairly reliable measure of body fatness for most people. I also estimated a set of multinomial logistic regression models predicting odds of prehypertension and hypertension by adolescent and cumulative social support, as well as psychosocial, contextual, and behavioral factors. These models were included to determine if early life and/or cumulative factors and conditions would help explain racial blood pressure disparities not explained by adulthood factors. Findings show that none of the early life or cumulative social support, psychosocial, contextual, or behavioral factors helped to explain racial differences in prehypertension or hypertension. Even after controlling for these factors, black women are still 1.18 times more likely than white women to have prehypertension and over two times more likely to suffer hypertension.

Indeed, my findings indicate that, of the factors included in all these models, only race, age, and BMI were significant predictors of blood pressure. Also, BMI was the only factor to explain some of the disparities between black and white women. These results are similar to other studies that have examined racial health disparities, suggesting that simply being a black woman in US society may be unhealthy. The health effects of racism, discrimination, and other sources of stress faced disproportionately by black women are not easily measured by social science research, which is possibly why racial disparities in blood pressure have yet to be explained. Future research should also explore possible epigenetic effects introduced by the health conditions experienced by previous generations, as well as the influence of prenatal and early life environments.

One year before my academic life began, Jim Kemeny published a book called ‘Housing and Social Theory’ (Kemeny 1992). This book has had a major impact within European housing and urban research over the last two and a half decades, not least by crystalizing its epistemic divisions into ‘mainstream’ and ‘critical’ (Webb 2012). In the face of Kemeny’s critique, ‘mainstream’ housing and urban researchers have remained wedded to ‘policy oriented’ empiricist approaches about which they have been defensive. In fact, it could even be argued that policy oriented housing researchers have been emboldened during this period. On the other hand, some housing and urban researchers have spent the last 25 years exploring the relationship between housing and social theory with a view to developing a more ‘critical’ understanding of housing and housing policy. My own work falls into this latter category and can be broken down into three phases (represented in the three parts of this thesis) which all bear the hallmarks of Kemeny’s influence, to greater or lesser degrees. Kemeny’s influence is most obvious in part I of the thesis. This contains a series of papers that represent my attempts to develop a sociology of housing and housing research. Although my initial contributions to the literature focussed on the social construction of housing problems and policy, my subsequent interventions recognise that it is not enough to focus ‘critical’ theoretical attention on policy issues alone; the context of research practice, itself, requires the same critical theoretical attention. This recognition set me on an intellectual track that resulted in published contributions to the sociology of knowledge literature, within the entrepreneurial context of the contemporary university. These contributions examine how entrepreneurial contexts shape academic subjectivities and the sociological episteme. If part I of the thesis finds sociology useful in illuminating housing policy and housing research practice then part II contains a book and two papers that call it into question. The origins of this ‘hostile turn’ towards sociology are in two pieces of research (into the lives of heroin users and visual impaired children) where sociology had hindered my attempts to develop an adequate knowledge of the phenomena under the microscope. The publications in this part of the thesis embrace phenomenology to make theoretical sense of the limits of the sociological episteme and to develop a more adequate understanding of the lives of heroin users and visual impaired children. They also set me on an intellectual path that led to my theoretical development of a more fundamental critique of housing and urban research and, eventually, a constructive and reconciliatory resolution to what I have argued are its epistemic limitations. The book and two papers contained in part III of the thesis were produced in conditions of acute conflict. The book and ‘fallacy paper’ were written in response to the controversial housing market renewal programme but were contextualised within my wider intellectual concerns about the fundamental problems of housing and urban research. They represent a full-frontal intellectual ‘attack’ on the professional enterprise of housing and urban research and its social consequences. The ‘impact’ paper was written and published 5 years later, following a ‘career break’ during which I had reflected on the fundamentally conflictual nature of housing and urban research and sought nonviolent alternatives to such conflict. It outlines a reconciliatory approach to housing and urban research that is true to the intellectual argument in the ‘fallacy paper’ whilst seeking to outline and advance the possibilities for collaboration between housing and urban researchers and their constituencies.

The study theorizes that a nation-state can manifest a condition similar to that of personality commonly associated with humans. Through the identification of consistent behaviors, a personality like condition is recognizable, and the underlining motivations dictate national policy independent of any current social/political influence. The research examines Russia during two historical periods examining the conflict events and social/political transitions of the period, to identify common behavioral characteristics, which indicate the existence of any independent personality like trait. The study focuses on two historical periods: the Monarch Period of Peter I (The Great), and the Post-Soviet Union period of Vladimir Putin, periods selected as historical eras in which Russia experienced major political or social transition. Using a comparative qualitative historical analysis with a behaviorist focus, the research examines these periods by profiling each era’s elements of society and the events of domestic and international conflict that Russia experienced, while evaluating the actions taken in response to each. The research discovers that Russia exhibits personality like traits, similar to those associated with humans and are likewise developed from experience, and once imbedded into Russian psychology, regardless of the current social/political elements or situational conditions, remain prime motivators to Russian behavior. The personality like characteristic identified was similar to inferiority, which leads to behavior characteristics comparable to narcissism, as the definition of narcissism relates to the need for admiration and or acceptance. The study identified the origins of the inferiority like complex and the narcissistic like behavior pattern exhibited by Russia in both periods.

Narratives of conflict regarding the connections between science and religion receive considerable attention in multiple forums of public discourse. These discussions tend to focus on philosophical, abstract, and/or polemical, rather than empirical issues. Data from a 2007 national survey indicate that a relatively small proportion of American adults perceive incompatibility between science and religion. Those who do are divided evenly into groups privileging science and privileging religion. These groups are markedly different with regard to sociodemographic and religious characteristics. Overall, I advocate a theoretical perspective on “science and religion” that is culturally constructionist, but methodologically empiricist.

The commons is a concept increasingly used by practitioners and social activists with the promise of creating new collective wealth (Bollier & Helfrich, 2014; De Angelis, 2003; Hardt & Negri, 2009; Klein, 2001). In recent years, a variety of scholarly research explained the different ways of organizing commons (Van Laerhoven & Ostrom, 2007). To that end, many streams of inquiry have emerged in various areas: organization theory (Ansari et al. 2013; Fournier, 2013; Tedmanson et al. 2015), institutional economics (Hess, C. & Ostrom, 2011; Ostrom, 1990, 2005, 2010), political philosophy and legal studies (Dardot & Laval, 2014; Holder and Flessas, 2008; Hardt & Negri, 2009), nonprofit studies (Aligica, 2016; Bushouse et al. 2016; Lohmann, 2014, 2016) and business ethics (Argandoña, 1998; Melé, 2009, 2012; O’Brien, 2009; Sison & Fontrodona, 2012; Solomon, 2004). However, these different theories are usually conceived and used separately. Empirical research on commons has mainly focused on natural resources at local and global levels (Ansari et al. 2013; Cody et al. 2015; Cox & Ross, 2011; Galaz et al. 2012; Ostrom, 1990, 2010; Poteete et al. 2010), and also on digital and scientific resources (Benkler, 2006; Boyle, 2008; Cook‐Deegan & Dedeurwaerdere, 2006; Coriat, 2015; Hess & Ostrom, 2011). Despite a long research tradition in local community organizations, there is little empirical scientific knowledge that uses the lens of the commons to study shared resources that are neither natural nor informational in nature. This dissertation aims to fill these gaps by analyzing social finance services and organizations from an interdisciplinary perspective. The aim is to understand whether communities can create financial commons. By analyzing the processes involved, the dissertation sheds light on the social and institutional components enabling the creation of human-made commons. We focus on community organizations linked to the solidarity economy movement in Brazil. Such movement aims to promote socio-economic alternative organizations, especially for poverty alleviation and inequality reduction.More specifically, the dissertation identifies the nature of two kinds of shared financial resources––microcredit services and complementary currencies––and looks at the functioning of community arrangements that provide them, the community components mobilized for creating commons organizations, and the institutional work strategies developed by intermediary organizations to adjust the scale of these social finance services.The dissertation is structured in four chapters, each of which addresses different research questions and uses different methods and units of analysis. The first chapter is conceptual and based on a literature review on complementary currencies in order to identify the commons dimensions of seven complementary currency systems. The second chapter is an in-depth single case study of Banco Palmas, a Brazilian community bank. This chapter analyzes the transformative power of governance on private goods when managed by self-governed grassroots organizations. Chapter three is a comparative case study of five community banks that focuses on the community components involved in creating commons as a grassroots response to contested market and state institutions. The final chapter focuses on the diffusion and institutionalization of social finance in Brazil and the role played by five intermediary organizations in this process.Starting from the observation that there is no definition of financial commons, Chapter 1 – Money and the Commons: Lessons from Complementary Currencies – proposes to assess the commons dimensions of monetary systems created and managed by local organizations. Specifically, we investigate the organizational features of seven complementary currency systems by making use of two main theoretical frameworks that are usually separate: the new commons in organization studies and the common good in business ethics. The findings show that these alternative monetary systems and organizations promote the common interest through the creation of new communities and can therefore be considered as commons according to the common good framework. Nevertheless, only systems relying on collective action and self-management fulfill the new commons framework. This allows us to suggest two new categories of commons: “social commons”, which fulfills both the new commons and the common good frameworks, and the “commercial commons”, which that fulfill the common good but not the new commons framework. Building on this, we define an ethos of the commons as a principle that consists in organizing commons practices through both collective organization and ethical concern for human flourishing.Chapter 2 - A Case Study of Microfinance and Community Development Banks (CDBs) in Brazil: Private or Common Goods? - looks at how governance mechanisms of self-managed community organizations affect the characteristics of microcredit services. Based on field research in Brazil, this chapter uses Elinor Ostrom’s design principles of successful self-governing common-pool resource organizations to analyze community banks’ microcredit systems. Our results suggest that private goods could be altered when governed by community self-managed enterprises. They become hybrid goods because they mix the characteristics of private and common goods. This change is facilitated by specific organizational arrangements, such as self-governance, that emerge from grassroots dynamics and the creation of collective-choice arenas. These arrangements help strengthen the inclusion properties of nonprofit microcredit services.In order to identify what components enable commons creation, we conduct a comparative case study of five Brazilian community banks in Chapter 3 – Building Commons in Community Enterprise: The Case of Self-Managed Microfinance Organizations. We analyze how community enterprises create commons whereas market and state institutions reproduce exclusion and inequalities. Our results suggest that four components are required to establish a new organization of commons: collective decision-making, community social control, servant leadership, and desire for social change. Building on this, we develop a model of commons organization and explain why these organizations are substitutes for existing marginalizing institutions. This study contributes to the literature by examining new elements for commons creation and shedding light on the emergence of new institutional arrangements for social change. Finally, after looking at commons institutional arrangements at local level in communities, we examine how commons organizations diffuse, institutionalize and organize in networks for consolidating their activities. Chapter 4 - Institutional Change and Diffusion in Institutional Plurality: The Case of Brazil’s Solidarity Finance Sector – explains how intermediary organizations help in this process. More precisely, we analyze the institutional work strategies deployed by five intermediary organizations in the Brazilian plural institutional context, where autonomous local state agencies and banks influence community banks' activities. We show how intermediary organizations support the institutionalization of community development banks (CDBs) through diffusing these organizations in different communities, performing external institutional work with governments and public banks at national and local levels, and accomplishing internal institutional work through structuring CDBs and CDB networks.
Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The famed French classical social theorist Emile Durkheim's academic reputation is based largely on his critical rejection of the British utilitarian tradition and specifically the writings of the classical British sociologist Herbert Spencer. In this thesis I critically evaluate Durkheim's critique of Herbert Spencer's methodological individualism. It is found that while select Durkheimian claims merit continued allegiance, his broader critique of Spencer's methodological individualism must be viewed as logically and empirically deficient. In conclusion I examine the implications for Durkheimian sociology and the broader social theoretical enterprise directed at analyzing and conceptualizing the nature of sociality and the social bond.

Humans are social creatures, bound by relationships. This dissertation investigates the structure and function of such interpersonal ties in two different contexts: patient-doctor trust and the diffusion of public health interventions across social networks. Each chapter of the dissertation focuses on a particular type of relationship: in Chapter 1, the patient-doctor relationship; in Chapter 2, friendship; and in Chapter 3, ties among friends, spouses, and siblings. The hope is that a better understanding of the nature of these ties and the work they do will enable policymakers to develop regulations and programs that promote the benefits and minimize harm in these exchanges. In Chapter 1, I present the results of a randomized controlled lab study on the effects of disclosure of payments that physicians receive from the pharmaceutical and medical device industry on patient-doctor trust. I find that certain dimensions of patient-doctor trust—honesty and fidelity—are lower for individual physicians when participants view payments of over $13,000 compared to lesser or no payments, but ratings of the physician’s competence do not change. In addition, trust in the medical profession and industry are not affected by disclosure. These findings suggest that industry payments to physicians that exceed $13,000 may need to be regulated, or at least carefully monitored. In Chapter 2, I present a sex-stratified analysis of a randomized controlled field experiment on the network-based diffusion of public health interventions. While men and women are more likely to have same-sex friends, they are both more likely to distribute the public health products to women than to men, revealing a contrast between the nominated ties and activated ties. This finding demonstrates that a traditional name generator for friend ties is a poor predictor of behavior regarding the spread of health-related phenomena. Further research is needed to explore alternative ways to elicit social network data to optimize diffusion, or else network-based strategies for the spread of socially beneficial innovations may need to be reconsidered. In Chapter 3, I use simulations based on the Susceptible-Infected (SI) process to explore the generalizability of the Honduras Study findings to other contexts. In particular, I look at the spread of public health interventions in the Karnataka (India) networks and compare the spreading processes to those in Honduras. The simulations reveal underlying network processes that can variably constrain and promote access to health information and products. As a whole, these studies seek to quantify the nature of social ties and related implications for health care providers and public health programming.
Health Policy

This research is the main problem the complex relationship between science, especially the social sciences, and the complex of ideology from the perspective of historical ontology and György Lukács. Take a few significant works of the founders of Classical Social Theory (Emile Durkheim and Max Weber) as objects of our analysis. In addressing the problem of ideology in social science from the approach Lukacsian, uses critical reading to grasp the immanent connections conceptual and analytical, in the authors\' theories and propositions in question. The study first presents the fundamental elements of the perspective adopted, as well as the categories of Ideology and Science in Lukacsian approach. It starts with the notion that work is the foundation of social being, and that their development will gradually produce new social complexes. The problems of science, its emergence in social being, their complexity and refinement, many of their problems and issues are considered as moments of a procedural development and contradictory, historically and socially determined, whose dynamic is intertwined with the previous work. With the development of capitalism, this relationship becomes stronger, boosting the expansion of capital, while doing a science activity more elaborate, as their horizons are expanded in an increasing manner. It is still considered the everyday, as the space between the actions of individuals\' here and now, and its objectivations in science. The main methodological boundaries proposed by Emile Durkheim, present in two of his works: From the Division of Labor and Social Suicide, are examined. The main themes and concepts of Max Weber are reviewed from the theoretical framework above. Proposals for a \"value-free science\" of Weber, a science and devoid of \"preconceived notions\" of Durkheim, are analyzed in order to understand how their significant works equate the problem of ideology.
Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Alagoas
A presente pesquisa tem como problemática principal a relação existente entre o complexo social da ciência, especialmente das ciências sociais, e o complexo da ideologia a partir da perspectiva ontológica e histórica de György Lukács. Tomam-se algumas obras significativas dos fundadores da Teoria Social Clássica (Émile Durkheim e Max Weber) como objetos de nossa análise. Ao tratar do problema da ideologia nas Ciências Sociais a partir da abordagem lukacsiana, utiliza-se a leitura crítica imanente para apreender os nexos conceituais e analíticos, nas teorizações e proposições dos autores em questão. A pesquisa apresenta inicialmente os elementos fundamentais da perspectiva adotada, assim como, as categorias de Ideologia e Ciência na abordagem lukacsiana. Parte-se da noção que o trabalho é o fundamento do ser social, e que seu desenvolvimento vai progressivamente produzindo novos complexos sociais. Os problemas da ciência, seu surgimento no ser social, sua complexificação e refinamento, muitos de seus problemas e questões, são considerados como momentos de um desenvolvimento processual e contraditório, histórica e socialmente determinado, cuja dinâmica está entrelaçada com as atividades laborativas. Com o desenvolvimento do capitalismo esta relação passa a ser mais intensa, impulsionando a expansão do capital, e ao mesmo tempo fazendo da Ciência uma atividade mais elaborada, porquanto seus horizontes são ampliados de maneira crescente. Considera-se ainda o cotidiano, como o espaço intermediário entre as ações dos sujeitos no seu aqui e agora, e suas objetivações no campo da ciência. As principais demarcações metodológicas propostas por Émile Durkheim, presentes em duas de suas obras: Da Divisão do Trabalho Social e O Suicídio, são examinadas. Os principais temas e conceitos de Max Weber são analisados criticamente a partir do referencial teórico referido. As propostas de uma ciência axiologicamente neutra de Weber, e de uma ciência desprovida de prénoções de Durkheim, são analisadas, buscando compreender como equacionam em suas significativas obras o problema da ideologia.

Empowerment has been a popular concept in management and leadership practice and research for more than forty years. The intentions behind empowerment at the workplace are positive: empowered employees should experience a greater degree of influence, decision-making latitude, and meaningfulness. This is achieved through transfers of power, such as increases in autonomy and responsibility. Although empowerment efforts have often been shown to successfully result in empowered and highly involved employees, there has also been research that shows the opposite: the so-called paradox of empowerment is a well-known problem that refers to failed empowerment efforts through which beneficiaries feel disempowered rather than empowered. This thesis comprises three papers intended to contribute to empowerment research and practice within a sociological framework that offers a better understanding of implicit assumptions between employer and employee and the unintended consequences these can have on the outcome of empowerment change efforts. The analyses utilize a communicative approach in line with sociological and social-psychological theories of communication and interaction. The first two papers are theoretical analyses, one examining the general concept of empowerment (Paper I), the other focusing more specifically on empowerment in workplace contexts (Paper II). Paper III is an empirical analysis that investigates some of the theoretical assumptions made in Papers I and II. The first paper analyzes empowerment from a sociological point of view and identifies possible mechanisms behind the paradox of empowerment. It is argued that such paradoxes may evolve from discrepancies between approaching empowerment from a purely economic and structural perspective versus a communicative and relational one. It concludes with the observation that, although their agency may be increased on a structural level, empowerees may experience a parallel decrease of agential options on a communicative level. The second paper deals with empowerment at the workplace as a management or leadership technique. Focusing on relational aspects, a “basic communicative structure” is identified. This is analyzed as comprising a contractual and a communicative context that should be taken into consideration by empowerers in order to avoid misunderstandings in the recipients’ sensemaking processes. Paper II concludes by arguing that the way recipients make sense of their roles and situations as defined by employment and/or psychological contracts might not necessarily be in line with the communicative meanings they ascribe to the change agents’ actions, and vice versa. The third paper analyzes employees’ orientations and attitudes toward empowerment and the relevance of their attitudes for the success of empowerment efforts. These issues are explored by means of survey data from 268 employees in the Swedish retail sector. Results indicate that age and work intensity (part-time vs. full-time), as well as cohabitation status may have significant impacts on how empowerment efforts are approached and received by employees. The thesis as a whole provides insights into sociological issues of empowerment, both generally and particularly in management and leadership contexts and concludes that the communicative context of empowerment interactions plays a significant role in employees’ empowerment orientations.

At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript. Paper 3: Manuscript.

Book Summary: Does theism dominant the language and practices of public life in the United States? This volume explores this question from a humanist perspective, and in so doing it provides insight into the relationship of religion to public policy, and offers ways to advance a more democratic and secular public arena.

Patronage networks are said to help elites advance into a regime's inner circle or lead to their downfall, as well as influence regime stability and other political outcomes. But researchers have only systematically studied individual patron-client ties instead of taking advantage of the tools provided by social network analysis (SNA). In three related papers, this dissertation evaluates the best method to measure patronage networks, develops a theory of coalition formation along them, and tests it on the members of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee from 1982 until 2012.

The first paper argues that informal politics is better conceptualized through networks than factions, and identifies and evaluates two common approaches to measure such networks: the inductive approach, which relies on a qualitative assessment of insider sources, and the deductive approach, which infers the network from publicly available data. The paper evaluates several commonly used approaches to deduce networks among Chinese political elites. Using methods and concepts developed in Social Network Analysis, it finds that coworker networks perform best in these tests, but can be further refined by noting the number of instances of working together, or by taking into account promotions that have occurred while the two individuals were coworkers.

The second paper develops a model in which one or two leaders form their coalitions along network ties connecting the relevant political elites, the selectorate. Simulations on random networks and real-life patronage networks among Chinese elites illustrate how all but the regular (lattice or complete) network lead to power differentials between the members of the selectorate. The model identifies three specific network positions: those that increase the chances of entering the winning coalition, those that enable coalition leaders to remain in charge of the coalition, and those that help a ruler fend off the opposition. It discusses their respective properties, and shows that powerful Chinese elites do indeed hold the corresponding positions. Furthermore, in a model with two competing leaders the network structure provides an endogenous explanation for winning coalition sizes smaller than the bare majority.

The third paper tests the theory on promotion networks - indicating who has been promoted under whom - among the Chinese Communist elite 1982-2012. A hazard analysis demonstrates that direct connections to patrons double the chance of being appointed to the Politburo. But links to current and former subordinates - unlike those to superiors - among the other elite also have a significant positive effect. Finally, network centrality measures can identify current patrons and predict appointments to the inner circles five or ten years later even if the identity of the patrons is unknown. Future Politburo members are found in network positions that capture popularity as a coalition partner (closeness centrality), while patrons hold network positions from which they can preempt opposition from within their coalition (betweenness centrality).

The dissertation thus shows the importance of analyzing informal elite networks instead of just the ties between one specific leader and his or her followers. It also proposes SNA as a new theoretical and empirical approach to the understudied informal institutions of authoritarian regimes, suggesting a more principled, but also more nuanced way of measuring one such institution: political patronage.

This thesis presents an ethnographic study of the role of users in user-centered design. It is written from the perspective of science and technology studies, in particular developments in actor-network theory, and draws on the notion of the assemblage from the work of Deleuze and Guattari. The data for this thesis derives from a six-month field study of the routine discourse and practices of user-centered designers working for a multinational microprocessor manufacturer. The central argument of this thesis is that users are assembled along with the new technologies whose design they resource, as well as with new configurations of socio-cultural life that they bring into view. Informing this argument are two interrelated insights. First, user-centered and participatory design processes involve interminglings of human and non-human actors. Second, users are occasioned in such processes as sociotechnical assemblages. Accordingly, this thesis: (1) reviews how the user is variously applied as a practico-theoretical concern within human-computer interaction (HCI) and as an object of analysis within the sociology and history of technology; (2) outlines a methodology for studying users variously enacted within design practice; (3) examines how a non-user is constructed and re-constructed during the development of a diabetes related technology; (4) examines how designers accomplish user-involvement by way of a gendered persona; (5) examines how the making of a technology for people suffering from obesity included multiple users that served to format the designers’ immediate practical concerns, as well as the management of future expectations; (6) examines how users serve as a means for conducting ethnography-in-design. The thesis concludes with a theoretically informed reflection on user assemblages as devices that: do representation; resource designers’ socio-material management of futures; perform modalities of scale associated with technological and product development; and mediate different forms of accountability.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Sociology, 2009.
Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Jul 12, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-12, Section: A, page: 4860. Adviser: Elizabeth A. Armstrong.

Book Summary: A shocking snapshot of the most current impulses in American religion. Rodney Stark reports the surprising findings of the 2007 Baylor Surveys of Religion, a follow up to the 2005 survey revealing most Americans believe in God or a higher power. This new volume highlights even more hot-button issues of religious life in our country. A must-read for anyone interested in Americans' religious beliefs and practices.

The male to female gender gap in higher education continues to average around 40% to 60%. This is a significant societal statistic that will continue to define generations to come and influence the demographics of the workforce and social roles. This Conflict Resolution study strove to find an answer to what are the societal influences impacting male enrollment in a community college in southwest Florida and to explore the role of conflict in prospective male students’ decision-making related to higher education. This question was broken down into sub-areas involving gender roles and society. The study was conducted using a grounded theory approach with an intensive interviewing style. From a larger group of potential interviewees, 17 volunteer participants were selected. The selected participants were enrolled at a southwest Florida community college. As with a grounded theory study, initial coding was used to study fragments of data. This was followed by the second phase of focused coding. During the focused coding phase, the most significant and/or frequent codes were used to sift through and analyze large amounts of data. Memo writing was used to help informally track and chart the important records and data findings thus far in the research process. This study will help high school and college administrators better understand how young males can be better prepared to make a decision to go to college or how to skillfully identify another path to a meaningful life after high school without the conflict of societal views.

The liberalization of attitudes toward homosexuality in the United States over the past 30 years is well documented. Despite these changes, substantial resistance to equality for gay men and lesbians remains. Previous studies indicate that beliefs about the etiology of homosexuality are central to this discussion. Those who believe homosexuality is innate are more favorable, while those who believe it is the result of a choice are more negative. Moreover, experimental research indicates that those with negative views actually become more opposed when a natural explanation is proposed. This study highlights the importance of perceived sources of epistemic and moral authority for understanding views of homosexuality. Using stances on culturally controversial issues involving “science and religion” as indicators of where individuals place authority, we outline the connection between perceptions of moral authority and attributions about homosexuality. Analyses of a national survey of American adults show that, net of controls, one’s stance on moral authority is the strongest predictor of attributions about whether homosexuality is chosen or innate.

This dissertation project seeks to address the sociological processes, dynamics, and mechanisms inflecting how and why U.S. society reproduces a sexually dimorphic, binary gender structure. The project builds upon the work of sociologists of gender on the doing gender framework, intersectional feminist approaches to identity formation, and hegemonic masculinity and relational theories of gender. In a 2012 article in Social Science and Medicine presenting contemporary concepts in gender theory to the health-oriented readers of the journal, R. W. Connell argues that much public policy on gender and health relies on categorical understandings of gender that are now inadequate. Connell contends that poststructuralist theories highlighting the performativity of gender improve on the assumption of a categorical binary typical in public policy, but they ignore the insights of sociological theories emphasizing gender as a structure comprising emotional and material constraints of the complex inter-relations among social institutions in which performances of gender are embedded. According to Connell, it is the task of social scientists to uncover “the processes by which social worlds are brought into being through time – the ontoformativity, not just the performativity, of gender.” This project explores the ontoformativity of gender in consideration of Patricia Hill Collins’ concept of the four domains of power. According to Collins, matrices of domination are intersecting and interlocking axes of oppression including but not limited to race/ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, nation, age, ability, place, and religion that reproduce social inequalities through their interoperation in the cultural, interpersonal, structural, and disciplinary domains of power. West and Zimmerman contrast gender as an axis in the matrix of oppression with site-specific roles, arguing that gender is a master status that is omnirelevant to all situations such that a person is assessed in terms of their competences in performing activities as a man or a woman. The doing gender approach has been accused of theorizing gender as an immutably monolithic social inequality. This project seeks to explicate the dynamics of gender ideology by probing its weaknesses in the interpersonal and cultural domains of power. As Collins and coauthor Sirma Bilge posit, for people oppressed along axes of gender, race/ethnicity, class, age, place, ability, and other binaries that constrain their actions in the structural and disciplinary domains of power, “the music, dance, poetry, and art of the cultural domain of power and personal politics of the interpersonal domain grow in significance.” Each of the three components of the dissertation project addresses a facet of mechanisms and processes of the interpersonal and cultural domains of power in (re)producing the binary gender structure in U.S. society. Paper #1, titled, “Integrating Black Feminist Thought into Canonical Social Change Theory,” explicates how people in marginalized social locations mount definitional challenges to their received classifications in the cultural domain of power by rejecting the consciousness of the oppressor and wielding rearticulated collective identity-based standpoints as contextually attuned technologies of power to recast historical narratives. Paper #2, with teenaged co-researcher Emma Draper, titled “Ordering Gender: Interactional Accountability and the Social Accomplishment of Gender Among Adolescents in the U.S. South,” maps how youth theorize interactional accountability processes to binary gender expectations in the interlocking social institutions of medicine, the family, schools, and peer social networks. Paper #3 is a book proposal comprising an introductory chapter. The book will tell the story of how young feminist arts-activists challenge the binary gender structure through resistance in the cultural and interpersonal domains.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:25:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 1769.pdf: 580406 bytes, checksum: bafd439f46fd28dbb1dd4c574890c10b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-02-27
Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos
The ground of Social Science, in the nineteenth century, is an attempt to establish an independent field of knowledge from discussions with the Modern Philosophy. This autonomy appears in the design of social reality on the one hand and the configuration of a new epistemological model on the other. In view of this, this work suggests discussing the prospect of Karl Mannheim as an assessment of previous proposals (Positivism and Marxism) and therefore being able to open a new model of Social Sciences by redefining both the design of social reality on the modern epistemology. Therefore, the bias to this approach is the notion of ideology, used by Mannheim to support as a social ontology that prints the determination in social science, where to find the basis of Social Sciences. In this way for it will redeem the originality of the questions and answers presented by the author for the formation of Social Sciences
A fundamentação das Ciências Sociais no século XIX corresponde a uma tentativa de estabelecer um campo de saber autônomo a partir do debate com a Filosofia Moderna. Tal autonomia aparece na concepção de realidade social, por um lado, e na configuração de um novo modelo epistemológico, por outro. Em vista disso, este trabalho propõe discutir a perspectiva de Karl Mannheim como uma avaliação das propostas anteriores (positivismo e marxismo) e, por conseguinte, sendo capaz de abrir um novo modelo de construção das Ciências Sociais através da redefinição tanto da concepção de realidade social quanto da epistemologia moderna. Para tanto, o viés para fazer esta abordagem será a noção de ideologia, utilizada por Mannheim como suporte de uma ontologia social que imprime a determinação social na ciência, onde se pode encontrar a base das Ciências Sociais. Neste percurso, procurarse- á resgatar a originalidade das questões e respostas apresentas pelo autor para a constituição das Ciências Sociais

A plethora of stressors are known to be related to the process of transition to professional nursing practice as the neophyte registered nurse (RN) transitions from student to professional nurse. Although not new, accelerated second-degree baccalaureate nursing (ASDBN) programs have opened in record numbers in recent years in the wake of the current nursing shortage. Little is known about the experience of professional practice for accelerated second-degree baccalaureate graduate nurses (ASDBGNs). The stressful graduate nurse transition, current nursing shortage, and lack of an empirical base for ASDBN programs illustrate the significance of the research problem. This modified grounded theory study generated a substantive Theory of Overcoming: ASDBGN Transition to Professional Nursing Practice. Constant comparative method of joint data collection, analysis, theoretical sampling, and memoing was used. Data were collected through semistructured interviews using open-ended questions that were conducted over the telephone or in person. The identified basic social process (BSP), overcoming, encompasses 5 stages: reality check, goaling, getting started, coming out on top, and mastering. Study findings provide a beginning evidence-base for nursing education, policy, and clinical practice related to this growing student population.

The commodification of culture, space, and resources is incentivized by neoliberal urbanism. In response, we have seen an attempt to develop collectively organized, oppositional spaces within urban places. The tensions that arise when considering the production of commons in the development of the neoliberal city are the central focus of this paper. As I will observe, these spaces are subjected to commodification as they become increasingly de-politicized through neoliberal ideologies. In order to theorize about these contradictory elements, I observe a makerspace in Richmond, Virginia called HackRVA. Specifically, I consider HackRVA as an urban commons. Through in-depth interviews and participant observation, I consider how HackRVA engages with the neoliberal city of Richmond and how the organization and maintenance of their space and their community reflects commoning as social reproduction. I find that HackRVA’s relationship to the city is complicated as the community within the space both contests and assimilates to the creative economy.

Como cientistas escolhem teorias? O objetivo de nossa tese é entender a resposta de Thomas Kuhn a este problema clássico da filosofia da ciência. Ao retirar o problema da escolha de teorias do campo metodológico e transportá-lo para o campo sociológico, Kuhn expõe os fundamentos de uma abordagem sociológica do desenvolvimento científico. Como tantos outros filósofos, Kuhn defende que teorias científicas são escolhidas a partir de valores epistêmicos critérios como precisão, consistência, abrangência, simplicidade e fecundidade. Segundo ele, porém, estes valores estão sujeitos a interpretações distintas: cientistas podem concordar quanto ao que se deve esperar de uma teoria, mas, em função de históricos pessoais e profissionais particulares, podem discordar em relação a qual delas melhor manifesta essas características. Mas se os cientistas aplicam os valores de maneiras distintas, em que sentido estes valores ditariam as suas escolhas? E, principalmente, como seria possível, dada a variabilidade dos valores, o consenso em uma comunidade de cientistas? A resposta de Kuhn, inaugurando sua abordagem sociológica, é a de que o acordo entre os membros da comunidade seria gerado por uma série de mecanismos sociais. Em primeiro lugar, a pedagogia e o treinamento dos cientistas, que tornaria as avaliações dos cientistas mais parecidas. Depois, a teoria de onda: a produção de novas evidências e argumentos responsáveis por convencer os adeptos de teorias rivais. Por último, a reestruturação da comunidade: a exclusão de membros resistentes e a divisão da comunidade em disciplinas distintas. A fim de esclarecer a natureza desta sociologia, discutiremos dois conjuntos de temas relacionados: os tipos de explicações de crença: racional e causal; e os níveis explicativos desta sociologia: indivíduos, comunidades e grupos. A última parte de nossa tese consiste em uma tentativa de sistematizar um modelo de explicação sociológica da dinâmica das controvérsias científicas, assim como apontar alguns caminhos para uma pesquisa empírica direcionada a estes tópicos.
How do scientists choose theories? The aim of our thesis is to understand Thomas Kuhn\'s answer to this classic problem in Philosophy of Science. By removing the theory-choice problem from the methodological field and transporting it to the sociological field, Kuhn sets out the foundations of a sociological approach to scientific development. Like so many other philosophers, Kuhn argues that scientific theories are chosen based on epistemic values criteria such as accuracy, consistency, scope, simplicity, and fruitfulness. However, these values are, according to him, subject to different interpretations: scientists may agree on what to expect from a theory, but depending on particular personal and professional histories, they may disagree as to which theory best expresses these characteristics. But if scientists apply values in different ways, in which sense would these values dictate scientists choices? And, especially, how could a consensus in a community of scientists be achieved, given the variability of values? Kuhn\'s answer, inaugurating his sociological approach, is that agreement among community members would be generated by a series of social mechanisms. First, the pedagogy and training of scientists, which make scientists appraisals more similar. Secondly, the wave-theory: the production of new evidence and arguments that convince the followers of rival theories. Finally, the restructuring of the community: the exclusion of resistant members and the division of the community into distinct disciplines. In order to clarify the nature of this sociology, we will discuss two sets of related themes: the types of explanations of belief: rational and causal; and the explanatory levels of this sociology: individuals, communities and groups. The last part of our thesis consists of an attempt to systematize a model of sociological explanation for the dynamics of scientific controversies, as well as to point out the ways to an empirical research directed to these topics.

Research on the topics of atheism, agnosticism, and irreligion has been limited during much of the last century. We explain the reasons for a lack of research in this field and discuss the recent interest in this topic. The most recent wave of research has been concentrated during the past decade and tends to look at the dual issues of who composes the religiously unaffiliated and why they choose this self-identification. Recent research has begun to take a much wider and deeper view on the subject. This includes research on particular segments of the population such as atheists, as well as understanding how the religiously unaffiliated are viewed by the broader culture. We conclude by describing important directions for future research. In particular, there is a need to break out the separate forms of irreligion and use creative new methodologies to find and study this significant portion of the population.

Religious institutions are among the deepest reservoirs of social belonging in America, but what determines whether belonging is cultivated in these institutions? Previous research shows that individuals’ social network composition is a primary predictor of feelings of belonging. However, less is known about how group characteristics condition the influence of social networks on belonging. We use data from the 2001 U.S. Congregational Life Survey and multilevel modeling to examine how organizational characteristics such as group size, in-group network density, and aggregate ideological uniformity moderate the effects of individual social networks on sense of belonging. Results indicate that both structural (network density, church size) and cultural (ideology) characteristics of groups significantly condition the effects of individual social networks on belonging. Smaller group size, network density, and ideological unity cultivate contexts that amplify the relationship between personal networks and belonging.

Issues of ‘wellbeing’ and ‘happiness’ are becoming more and more prevalent in discussions of social policy and in the provision of healthcare services. In recent years, the maximisation of a nation’s ‘happiness’ has emerged as both a key policy objective and as a central focus within social, political and economic research, with public policy makers around the world having demonstrated a growing interest in national accounts of ‘wellbeing’. In the UK context, this growing interest is comprised of a perceived need to ‘know’ ‘happiness’ and ‘wellbeing’ better, so that they might be maximised. Such attitudes and beliefs made possible the introduction of four new questions to the Annual Population Survey that were specifically designed to measure the UK’s “subjective wellbeing” (now referred to as “individual life satisfaction” following revisions in subsequent years). In addition to this, in 2010 a non-profit organisation named Action for Happiness (AfH) was founded which sought to maximise the ‘happiness’ of society by offering individual members help and training towards living a ‘happier’ life - an endeavour which is understood to be necessitated by the stagnation of ‘happiness’ in modern Western societies. This thesis seeks to critically account for the emergence of such social and political practices – or ‘happiness agenda’ - and does so from a poststructuralist, post-Marxist standpoint. This is achieved by utilising the specific methodological strategy developed by Glynos & Howarth (2007) which constitutes a retroductive, deconstructive, approach to accounting for socio-political phenomena. In doing so, three types of logics underpinning these practices are identified, presenting an explanation as to what, how and why these practices are. Accounting for the emergence of such a ‘happiness agenda’ enables it (and its emergence) to be critiqued – specifically, the notion contained within it that maximised individual ‘happiness’ constitutes social progression. Indeed, central to the critique of the ‘happiness agenda’ that this thesis presents is an acknowledgement of the need of a socio-political equality agenda, where ‘social progression’ is instead conceptualised as maximised social equality.

Substantial bodies of literature have examined public opinion about sexual education, the politicization of sexual education in public schools, and connections between population characteristics and social policies. At present, however, little is known about whether and how population characteristics predict the likelihood of specific sexual education policies. We analyze data at the state level in the USA to determine if and how specific religious aspects of states’ populations influence the likelihood of specific sexual education policies. Results indicate that high levels of theism significantly increase the likelihood of sexual education policies stressing abstinence, while higher levels of individuals not actively participating in organized religion correlate with a significantly higher likelihood of having sexual education policy that mandates the coverage of contraception. We discuss these findings in a framework of symbolic politics and moral communities, focusing on the intersections of religion, politics, and sexuality.

The Nonreligious: Understanding Secular People and Societies, by PHIL ZUCKERMAN, LUKE W. GALEN, and FRANK L. PASQUALE. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016, 336 pp.; $24.95 (paper), $99.00 (cloth)