Suchergebnisse

Le champ des études empiriques de mobilité sociale est longtemps demeuré sous l'emprise exclusive d'une seule technique d'observation, celle du survey research. Celle-ci ayant, comme toute technique, ses points aveugles, sa domination totale a rejeté hors de l'observation, puis bientôt de la réflexion sociologique elle-même, une énorme quantité de phénomènes sociaux pertinents. Il était donc nécessaire de développer d'autres techniques d'observation qui donnent accès à ces phénomènes. L'une d'elles est proposée ici, soit la méthode des Généalogies sociales commentées et comparées. Elle cherche à combiner la flexibilité de l'instrument d'observation, qui s'adapte aux particularités des phénomènes observés (processus de formation des trajectoires de vie, modalités de transmission d'éléments de statut social, règles des jeux locaux de concurrence sociale), et le recueil de données factuelles pouvant être traitées par le calcul. Revenant sur la question de la représentativité statistique, on montre alors qu'elle repose sur le présupposé d'homogénéité, ou plutôt d'homogénéisation par la modernisation, des sociétés nationales étudiées. Tenu pour allant de soi pendant la période de la guerre froide, ce présupposé est aujourd'hui battu en brèche par la crise de la forme État-nation. Ce n'est donc pas seulement pour des raisons internes à la sociologie, mais aussi à cause de la crise du présupposé de société" nationales homogènes, que s'impose la nécessité d'ouvrir une alternative à la construction de l'objet " mobilité sociale ".

This essay has sought to bring out salient points that can throw light both upon the vexing problems of cultural transformation and on the related phenomena of economic growth. It has employed concepts that are relatively recent in the social sciences and that when synthesized provide the elements of a theory of social change. The five main concepts are: the city as a cross-cultural type; the functional urban hierarchy; the nodular regional structure; effective social, political-administrative and economic space; economic growth as being part of a more comprehensive process leading to successively higher levels of integration of the social system.From the concept of the city as a cross-cultural type it follows that there are no fundamental distinctions between industrial and preindustrial cities, but both are sharply distinguished from communal village life. All cities have in common a way of life that is characterized by varying degrees of social heterogeneity and cultural vitality, and by inventiveness, creativity, rationality, and civic consciousness. From the fact that cities and the regions related to them may be seen as functionally differentiated and arranged in hieratic fashion it follows that the extent of urban influence will vary with (a) the stage of evolution reached by the hierarchy as a whole, and (b) the relative position of any given city within the hierarchy.Economic growth has to be seen as part of a comprehensive process of cultural transformation. From the ruthless destruction of old social forms no aspect of society will be spared. It is the influences spreading outward from cities that accomplish both the disruption of the traditional social patterns and the reintegration of society around new fundamental values. The city acts as a coordinating, space-creating force, thus achieving the integration of the social order in its spatial dimensions. Intellectuals, administrators and entrepreneurs are the city's agents in this task. With their success in organizing the life of a society, both as a pattern of activities and as a pattern in space, the traditional notion of a city as a place having definite geographic limits will tend gradually to disappear. Just as Karl Mannheim speaks of fundamental democratization as one of the tendencies of our age, so one may speak of fundamental urbanization as the end-result of modern economic growth. With this, the former distinction between town and country will beblurred and will leave a thoroughly organized, impersonal, and functionally rational society to carry on.

The article is devoted to the analysis of imagination as a philosophical and sociological concept that played a significant role in the development of social theory in the middle of the 20th century. Exploring the premises of the contradictory relationship between science and society, it is easy to find a connection between the development of science and social change. Currently, it is generally accepted that scientific, including social theories, through the transfer of ideas, transform the social order and, on the contrary, social practices transform knowledge about the world. The article proves that imagination plays a key role in this process. An excursion into the theory of ideas reveals the connection between imagination and irrational and experiential knowledge. The author of the article refers to the works of P. Berger and T. Luckmann, C. Castoriadis and C. Taylor, who showed a direct connection between theoretical ideas and the world of "social imaginary", collective imaginary and social changes. For the first time in the history of mankind, thanks to imagination, society does not see the social order as something immutable. Methodological cases are presented that illustrate the specific role of the concept of imagination as a source of the formation of new research strategies that allow for a new look at the problem of nationalism (social constructivism) and the study of public expectations from the implementation of technological innovations (STS). For decades, Benedict Anderson's work "Imagined Communities" predetermined the interest of researchers of nationalism in social imagination and the collective ideas based on it about the national identity of modern societies, their history and geography. The research of Sheila Jasanoff and Sang-Hyun Kim has formed a new track for the study of science as a collective product of public expectations of an imaginary social order, embodied in technological projects. The conclusion is made about the contradictory nature of social expectations based on collective imagination: on the one hand, they strengthen the authority of science in society, on the other hand, they provoke the growth of negative expectations from the introduction of scientific discoveries. The article substantiates the opinion that imagination is an effective tool for assessing the risks of introducing innovations.

Este artículo tiene como objeto analizar los retos de la universalización, la consolidación, la vertebración y el reconocimiento social de los Servicios Sociales. Se ha utilizado una metodología cualitativa basada en el análisis del discurso a cincuenta expertas en Trabajo Social. Se diferencian cuatro discursos: a) el modelo neoliberal trunca el proyecto de universalización de los Servicios Sociales; b) el debate de la ley nacional de Servicios Sociales; c) los Servicios Sociales en la agenda política nacional; y d) el neoliberalismo introduce un modelo neoasistencialista en la atención a los problemas sociales. Se concluye destacando el valor del Trabajo Social en la configuración de los Servicios Sociales, tanto en su historia y como en el presente. ; The present study sought to analyse the challenges for Social Services in Spain, i.e. universalising, consolidating, structuring and social recognition. A qualitative methodology was followed based on the discourse analysis of fifty Social Work experts. Four types of discourses were distinguished that addressed the following issues: a) the neoliberal model and its truncating of the Social Services' universalising project; b) the debate on Spain's National Law of Social Services; c) Social Services in the country's political agenda; and d) the introduction by neoliberalism of a neo-assistance model to address social problems. To conclude, we highlight the valuable contribution of Social Work to the shaping of Social Services, both historically and today.

Two years ago, Jon Christensen and Stamen Design began to explore social media generated every day in California parks, open spaces and natural areas, from city centers to wilderness areas. So far, they have gathered social media from more than half a million unique users of Instragram, Flickr, Twitter, and Foursquare who have shared content in one or more of the 11,826 parks in California. The project, like this photo essay, shows that parks are social—that is, people do things in parks that they do in the rest of their lives. They also show that diverse Californians will see people like themselves in parks they do. It is hoped that representing this diversity will encourage more California to use their national, state, and local parks.

Recent literature recognises the importance of situating social networks in spatial contexts to better understand how space, place, and social networks interact and are co‐constituted. Despite this call, the mainstream literature in social network analysis pays relatively little attention to spatial dimensions of social networks and remains largely disconnected from the vast body of research on spatial networks in geography and cognate fields. This thematic issue is one step towards advancing this research agenda by examining how such an approach relates to issues of social inclusion and social participation. It includes a selection of studies that focus on the relation between space and social networks across a wide variety of research fields and contexts. Contributions use original, often mixed‐method approaches and multiple perspectives for capturing the role of space and people's experience of place in network formation through physical, cultural, and geographical dimensions. We conclude this editorial by briefly suggesting areas for future research.

AbstractThis is the third of four Last Lectures delivered by George Frederickson before his death in 2020. In "Thick Social Equity," Frederickson returns to an abiding theme of his scholarship: the advancement of social equity in public administration research and practice. He traces the progress in the literature over the decades from "thin" to "thick" social equity, praising advancements in theory and empirical research in the twenty-first century, while decrying the current state of social inequity, particularly in the United States.

This thesis examines the ways in which representations of orientalised and gendered 'others' are manipulated and deployed in the Bush Administration's 'War on Terror' discourse, enabling military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. International politics is characterised by practices of representation that, through their production of dominant regimes of 'truth' and 'knowledge', work to allow certain possibilities and actions whilst excluding or limiting others. Drawing on poststructural, postcolonial and feminist IR, this thesis identifies and challenges assumptions concerning the apparent naturalness of identities of race, gender and sex and their deployment in official 'War on Terror' discourse. This discourse utilises a range of binaries that situate the 'West' in opposition to the 'East' – for example, good/evil, civilised/barbaric, rational/irrational, progressive/backward – and involve the (re)production of mainstream understandings of 'race' and 'gender'.Using a discourse analytic approach, this thesis interrogates such representations using a critical lens based on Edward Said's concept of orientalism. In particular, it is concerned with the ways in which orientalist discourses configure gender and sexual differences, and as such the thesis begins by developing 'gendered orientalism' as the critical lens through which the discursive construction of the 'War on Terror' is unravelled. Tracing the development of US self-identity and its impact on foreign policy, the thesis then demonstrates the US' long-standing engagement with gendered orientalist discourses that shape the discursive construction of the military interventions into Afghanistan and Iraq. Analysing texts produced by the Bush Administration during the 'War on Terror' demonstrates that official representations work to legitimise intervention through the deployment of identity categories that are based on perceived differences in gender, gender roles, and sexuality and a belief that these differences are also rooted in 'race'. The hierarchical organisation of these categories, underpinned by orientalist dichotomies, lend themselves to the construction of narratives in which the US can position itself as the bringer of civilisation, democracy, equality, and security through the violence of the 'War on Terror'. Ultimately, the deployment of these gendered orientalist representations allows the 'War on Terror' and its military interventions to be constructed as unavoidable.