Search results

This book offers a systematic view of social analysis that will advance the communication of results between different academic disciplines. It overcomes misunderstandings that are due to the use of an unstructured variety of methodological traditions in the analysis of complex socioeconomic and political processes. The book focuses on the special features of human society: humans as subjects, non-repetitiveness and irreversibility of social actions, and the peculiar relations between necessity and possibility in human action. It defines methodological criteria, procedures and rules that enable researchers to select and classify realistic hypotheses to derive general principles and basic organizational features. It then applies these criteria in critical reviews of major theories and interpretations of society and history, offering clarifications and alternative proposals with regard to crucial aspects of anthropological, political, juridical, sociological, and religious thought.

Social entrepreneurship is usually understood as an economic activity which focuses at social values, goals, and investments that generates surpluses for social entrepreneurs as individuals, groups, and startups who are working for the benefit of communities, instead of strictly focusing mainly at the financial profit, economic values, and the benefit generated for shareholders or owners. Social entrepreneurship combines the production of goods, services, and knowledge in order to achieve both social and economic goals and allow for solidarity building. From a broader perspective, entities that are focused on social entrepreneurship are identified as parts of the social and solidarity economy. These are, for example, social enterprises, cooperatives, mutual organizations, self-help groups, charities, unions, fair trade companies, community enterprises, and time banks. Social innovation is a key element of social entrepreneurship. Social innovation is usually understood as new strategies, concepts, products, services, and organizational forms that allow for the satisfaction of needs. Such innovations are created in particular in the contact areas of various sectors of the social system. For example, these are spaces between the public sector, the private sector, and civil society. These innovations not only allow the solving of problems but also extend possibilities for public action.

The advancement of social theory requires an analytical approach that systematically seeks to explicate the social mechanisms that generate and explain observed associations between events. These essays, written by prominent social scientists, advance criticisms of current trends in social theory and suggest alternative approaches. The mechanism approach calls attention to an intermediary level of analysis in between pure description and story-telling, on the one hand, and grand theorizing and universal social laws, on the other. For social theory to be of use for the working social scientist, it must attain a high level of precision and provide a toolbox from which middle range theories can be constructed

Examines issues related to the use of social research in planning & formulating social policy, reviews a series of models of research use, & considers researchers' motives for producing policy-relevant research as well as the institutional obstacles they face. Focus is on practical characteristics of a research study that increase the likelihood of its consideration & application by policymakers. Recommendations are made for discussion & research in this area. 29 References. Adapted from the source document.

Socialism, Social Ownership and Social Justice is concerned with the emergence in Europe over the centuries of dreams and aspirations amongst the poor and weak for new societies of justice and equality based on common ownership and common sharing. It ranges from the Greek legendary ideal of a simple communal golden age of equals and the dark reality of Spartan perverted communalism, to the collapse of Soviet communism and the abandonment by West European socialist parties of their commitment to transform ruling-class dominated capitalist societies into democratic, egalitarian socialist societies

This article examines the nexus of spatial and social mobility by focusing on how migrants in Germany use cultural, economic and moral boundaries to position themselves socially in transnational social spaces. It is based on a mixed-methods approach, drawing on qualitative interviews and panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Survey. By focusing on how people from different origins and classes use different sets of symbolic boundaries to give meaning to their social mobility trajectories, we link subjective positioning strategies with structural features of people's mobility experience. We find that people use a class-specific boundary pattern, which has strong transnational features, because migrants tend to mix symbolic and material markers of status hierarchies relevant to both their origin and destination countries. We identify three different types of boundary patterns, which exemplify different ways in which objective structure and subjectively experienced inequalities influence migrants' social positioning strategies in transnational spaces. These different types also exemplify how migrants' habitus influences their social positioning strategies, depending on their mobility and social trajectory in transnational spaces.

SOCIAL SCIENTISTS TEND TO WORRY ABOUT RAINSING THIS LEVEL OF INTRISIC USEFULNESS OF SPCEIFIC STUDIES WHILE GOVERNMENT PEOPLE TEND TO FOCUS ON INCREASING POLITICAL USEFULNESS. BOTH GROUPS SEEM TO OVERLOOK THE NEGATIVE IMPACT THEIR REFORM MIGHT HAVE ON THE INTELLECTUAL USEFULNESS OF RESEARCH PROGRAMS.

PurposeThis paper aims to describe and analyse the development of a teaching module that introduces undergraduate students to the core skills required to develop and manage a welfare organisation. It makes particular reference to social enterprise.Design/methodology/approachThe paper explores the political and educational context which inspired this initiative and the theoretical basis for the approach used. A particular focus is placed on the entrepreneurial aspects of the development. It moves on to describe the delivery of the module to the first cohort of students and includes their assessment of the learning and an evaluation of how they performed the assessment task.FindingsStudents were very positive about the content of the module; the teaching style employed and reported that it had inspired them to be entrepreneurial.Practical implicationsStudents who are now paying large sums in fees may well be motivated to enrol on courses that are practice based or enhance professional development through engaging with "real world" issues. Such courses equip them with the skills and knowledge they need to boost their chances of pursuing a career in an area that fits their personal motivations, values and interests.Originality/valueThe paper addresses the real life experience of delivering enterprise skills training to social policy students, a group not traditionally associated with this type of approach. The paper will be of interest to students, academics and practitioners in the fields of contemporary welfare delivery and management who are interested in developing entrepreneurship skills training in higher education and workplace settings.

The book focuses on three key issues of international social work: on international dimensions of social problems and how social work practice can deal with these challenges, on cultural issues social workers have to consider when practising, teaching and developing social work on an international level and finally on aspects of international approaches in social work education. The authors practice and teach social work in several countries and their professional experience gave them the chance to gain profound experience in international social work. Therefore, the authors not only write about international perspectives but also from an international perspective.

The topic of the social capital turns out to becentral in the analysis of the elements that canpromote conditions of development and socialinclusion, for its implications of economic, social,political and cultural order. This analysisnecessarily passes through the examination ofthe diverse conceptions on social capital andsocial inclusion and the experiences and locallearning in the topic. In this sense, the purposeof this document is to emphasize some elementsof the social capital that can be useful to the socialpolicy to generate social inclusion spaces. Forthis, in the first part some theoreticalapproximations of the social capital are explored.In the second section a theoretical approach isrevised on the concepts of social exclusion andinclusion. In the third part, general lines of thesocial policy in Colombia and Valle del Cauca areoutlined and finally, in the fourth paragraph, someelements of social capital that can play a role inthe social policy to propitiate social inclusion areidentified ; El tema del capital social resulta central en el análisis de los elementos que pueden potenciar condiciones de desarrollo e inclusión social, por sus implicaciones de orden económico, social, político y cultural. Este análisis pasa necesariamente por el examen de las diversas concepciones sobre capital social e inclusión social y las experiencias y aprendizajes locales en el tema. En ese sentido, el propósito de este documento es destacar algunos elementos del capital social que pueden ser útiles a la política social para generar espacios de inclusión social. Para ello, en el primer apartado se exploran algunas aproximaciones teóricas del capital social. En el segundo apartado ser revisa una aproximación teórica sobre los conceptos de exclusión/ inclusión social. En el tercer apartado, se esbozan las líneas generales de la política social en Colombia y el Valle del Cauca para finalmente, en el cuarto apartado, identificar algunos elementos de capital social que pueden jugar un papel en la política social para propiciar inclusión social

El desafío que supone que en la trasnformación de las sociedades capitalistas se produzca menos daño social, es una preocupación implícita en los recientes trabajos académicos en el Reino Unido. Los resultados de estos trabajos, sin embargo, suelen ser propuestas convencionales en favor de una mejor reglamentación más que un programa de transformación social. En este artículo se argumenta que los enfoques actuales acerca del problema de daño social, junto con la forma en que los estudiosos han definido el horizonte de su investigación, han tendido a limitar los effectos críticos del daño social en la explicación de los problemas contemporáneos y en la articulación de soluciones coherentes. Mediante la aplicación de puntos de vista de la filosofía política marxista, el artículo destaca la íntima relación entre la producción de daño social y las relaciones de producción capitalista. El desafío de la perspectiva de daño social gira entorno a la trascendencia de las relaciones sociales capitalistas existentes y las estructuras del Estado, no sólo en la mejor regulación del capitalismo realmente existente. ; The challenge involved in the transformation of capitalist societies so that social harm is far less prevalent has been a concern implicit in recent scholarly work in the UK. The results of this work have, however, tended towards conventional proposals in favour of better regulation rather than a more fundamental programme of social transformation. This article argues that current approaches to the problem of social harm, along with the way scholars have defined the horizon of their inquiry, have tended to limit the critical purchase of social harm in explaining contemporary problems and articulating coherent solutions. Applying insights from Marxist political philosophy the article highlights the intimate relationship between the production of social harm and capitalist relations of production. The challenge of a social harm perspective is one of transcendence of existing capitalist social relations and state structures, not merely the better regulation of actually existing capitalism. ; El desafío que supone que en la trasnformación de las sociedades capitalistas se produzca menos daño social, es una preocupación implícita en los recientes trabajos académicos en el Reino Unido. Los resultados de estos trabajos, sin embargo, suelen ser propuestas convencionales en favor de una mejor reglamentación más que un programa de transformación social. En este artículo se argumenta que los enfoques actuales acerca del problema de daño social, junto con la forma en que los estudiosos han definido el horizonte de su investigación, han tendido a limitar los effectos críticos del daño social en la explicación de los problemas contemporáneos y en la articulación de soluciones coherentes. Mediante la aplicación de puntos de vista de la filosofía política marxista, el artículo destaca la íntima relación entre la producción de daño social y las relaciones de producción capitalista. El desafío de la perspectiva de daño social gira entorno a la trascendencia de las relaciones sociales capitalistas existentes y las estructuras del Estado, no sólo en la mejor regulación del capitalismo realmente existente.