Suchergebnisse

Zwischen Gender Studies und Systemtheorie sind bislang kaum Verbindungslinien wahrgenommen worden. Vielmehr besteht das Vorurteil, die beiden Forschungskonzepte seien von Grund auf verschieden: Die »kühle Beobachtung« der Systemtheorie Niklas Luhmanns vertrage sich nicht mit dem politischen Engagement der Gender Studies. Tatsächlich aber eröffnet ein Austausch zwischen beiden Theorien neue Perspektiven: Gender Studies auf der einen Seite lenken das Augenmerk der Systemtheorie auf die von ihr bisher vernachlässigte Kategorie »Geschlecht«; die Systemtheorie auf der anderen Seite eignet sich gerade durch ihre auf Differenz abstellende Form der Beobachtung von Kommunikation dazu, Geschlechterkonstrukte ertragreicher zu analysieren, als dies bisher häufig der Fall ist.

This article examines how the special theoretical significance of the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) is affected by attempts to apply relativist-constructivism to technology. The article shows that the failure to confront key analytic ambivalences in the practice of SSK has compromised its original strategic significance. In particular, the construal of SSK as an explanatory formula diminishes its potential for profoundly reconceptualizing epistemic issues. A consideration of critiques of technological determinism, and of some empirical studies, reveals similar analytic ambivalences in the social study of technology (SST). The injunction to consider "technology as text" is critically examined. It is concluded that a reflexive interpretation of this slogan is necessary to recover some of the epistemological significance lost in the constructivist move from SSK to SST.

This review takes stock of contemporary social science research on homelessness. Research on homelessness in the 1980s has been prompted by the increased numbers and visibility of homeless persons including men, women, and families, as well as young people without families. Most empirical research employs a working definition of homelessness as the condition of those people who are without a permanent place to live. However, a wide range in perspectives differ over what homelessness is. In part, this reflects recognition of some the dynamics of homelessness that include intermittent movement in and out of homeless situations. But it also reflects changes in social values over what constitutes adequate housing. Research shows that the population of homeless persons is diverse, although most homeless persons are young and single. Many have severe chronic problems including mental illness, alcoholism, physical disabilities, and poor health. A significant number have criminal histories. Many were raised in foster care situations. All suffer from economic deprivation, and many have experienced long-term unemployment. Considerable disagreement exists over the number of homeless persons, in part because the scarcity of resources to address this problem politicizes the debate. There is also strong disagreement over the root causes of homelessness. Debate over the causes of homelessness is caught up in whether the focus of research should be on structural forces that permit homelessness to occur or the immediate reasons why people become homeless. Research now suggests that the extreme situation of homelessness may be more accurately portrayed as the result of the convergence of many factors that drive this phenomenon, including housing market dynamics, housing and welfare policy, economic restructuring and the labor market, and personal disabilities. Policies designed to ameliorate homelessness have been inadequate to stem the tidal forces that produce such severe destitution, and this trend is likely to continue. Future important directions include addressing the role of employment and social ties in producing homelessness, comparing the economic and social situation of homeless and non-homeless persons, evaluating programs designed to aid homeless persons, and developing international comparisons of homelessness.

While there are several different approaches to the study of gender and science, this paper focuses on the consequences of the introduction of the concept of gender on studies of scientific and medical practices. It is limited, in the main, to historical studies of twentieth‐century biomedicine, which allows an examination of the validity of scientific assumptions underlying our understanding of the natural world, the genesis and the present status of scientific definitions of masculinity and femininity, and the ideological basis of science‐based technological interventions in the domain of sexuality and reproduction.

Long description: Mit ihrem Lehrbuch trägt die Autorin zur Vermittlung von Gender-Kompetenzen für die Soziale Arbeit bei. Zugleich bietet sie eine allgemeine Einführung in die Entstehung und Entwicklung, in aktuelle Fragen und Kontroversen der feministischen Frauenforschung und der Geschlechterforschung. Die ersten Kapitel sind historisch und systematisch orientiert und bieten einen Wegweiser durch den Dschungel der Gender-Literatur. In den weiteren Kapiteln geht es um Sozialisation und Identität, soziale Ungleichheit, Alter und Migration als Gender-Themen. Von einer soziologischen Betrachtung ausgehend, führt die Lektüre weiter in das breite Themenfeld der interdisziplinären Gender studies. Die jedem Kapitel zugeordneten kommentierten Literaturhinweise und Quellentexte laden zur selbständigen Vertiefung ein. Zur ersten Vertiefung dienen die ausgewählten Quellentexte, die in drei Blöcken zusammengefasst sind und Texte zur historischen, theoretischen und praktischen Orientierung zur Verfügung stellen. Integraler Bestandteil des Buches sind auch die ausführlichen Literatur-Hinweise am Ende jeden Kapitels. Sie eröffnen über die Quellenangaben im Text und das Literaturverzeichnis hinaus gezielte Zugänge zur vertiefenden und weiterführenden Literatur. Darin sind auch solche Themen berücksichtigt, die im Text nicht ausführlich dargestellt werden konnten.

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- PREFACE -- INTRODUCTION: TRANSSEXUALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE IDEA OF GENDER -- 1 GLANDS, HORMONES, AND PERSONALITY -- 2 PLASTIC IDEOLOGIES AND PLASTIC TRANSFORMATIONS -- 3 MANAGING INTERSEXUALITY AND PRODUCING GENDER -- 4 DEMANDING SUBJECTIVITY -- 5 BODY, TECHNOLOGY, AND GENDER IN TRANSSEXUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHIES -- 6 SEMIOTICS OF SEX, GENDER, AND THE BODY -- EPILOGUE -- NOTES -- INDEX

This volume brings together contributions that resemble spotlights thrown on the past twenty-five years of science and technology studies. The contributions cover a broad range: history of science; science and politics; science and contemporary democracy; science and the public; science and the constitution; science and metaphors; and science and modernity. The contributors provide a critical overview of how the field of science and technology studies has emerged and developed. While assessing major achievements and potential, they also cast a critical view on deficiencies; provide a diagnosis of where we stand at present and articulate thoughtful concerns about where to go from here. The 2002 Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook provides ideal teaching material for discussion in class. Social Studies of Science and Technology: Looking Back, Ahead is for practising professionals and students in social studies of science and technology. It is also relevant to social scientists who realize the importance of science and technology in contemporary society and to natural scientists who want to find out what this field has to offer

The past two centuries have witnessed tremendous upheavals in every aspect of Chinese culture and society. At the level of everyday life, some of the most remarkable transformations have occurred in the realm of gender. Chinese Femininities/Chinese Masculinities is a mix of illuminating historical and ethnographic studies of gender from the 1700s to the present. The essays in this highly creative collection are organized in pairs that alternate in focus between femininity and masculinity, between subjects traditionally associated with feminism (such as family life) and those rarely considered from a gendered point of view (like banditry). The chapters provide a wealth of interesting detail on such varied topics as court cases involving widows and homosexuals; ideal spouses of early-twentieth-century radicals; changing images of prostitutes; the masculinity of qigong masters; sexuality in the era of reform; and the eroticization of minorities. While most of the essays were specifically written for this volume, a few are reprinted as a testament to their enduring value. Exploring the central role of gender as an organizing principle of Chinese social life, Chinese Femininities/ Chinese Masculinities is an innovative reader that will spark new debate in a wide range of disciplines

The relevance of sociological theory for explaining the recent dramatic changes in Eastern Europe is at hand. The impact of the downfall of communism has been compared with those Great Transformations along which sociology evolved as a science of crisis par excellence (Habermas). The actual elaboration of a sociological theory of post-communist transformation and its relation to East European studies is, nevertheless, anything but clear. The unexpected collapse of socialism was perceived as a failure of prognosis and led to self-critical debates in all social science disciplines. In this rethinking its basic concepts, sociology is exposed to pressure from different sides - above all from the polemic launched with the surprising revival of the theory of totalitarianism against the ,,liberalist social sciences across the board. Influential historians like Robert Pipes, Martin Malia, Robert Conquest, and Francois Furet followed by sociologists from Robert Nisbet to Seymour Lipset hold the fatal influence exerted by social science concepts on Eastern European and Soviet Studies during the last decades responsible for the whole intellectual disaster in Western Academe which became apparent after 1989. These approaches, as the neo-totalitarian accusation runs, elevated Soviet socialism to a modernization strategy and conceded a reform capacity which, in fact, was not available. Target of this critique are all attempts of a social history from below, sociological theories of action and especially the positivist illusion of modernization theory. Blinded by political motives, it is said, the insights of (neo-)totalitarianism theory into the inevitable collapse of communism were dismissed. In order to correctly draw the lines in the controversies between neototalitarianism theory and the social science approach, it is helpful to follow them along the changing career of the concept of totalitarianism thereby reconstructing the sociological arguments involved in the current discussion on the disintegration of socialist societies. On this line it will be argued (section 2), that the crisis of the classic theory of totalitarianism and the social science approach in Soviet studies did not follow from a politically motivated revisionism since the 1960s and 1970s. Analysing the socialist societies after 1945 was shaped from the very beginning by sociological, political science and economic models, which contrasted with fundamental assumptions of the classic concept of totalitarianism (section 3). The findings generated by this type of research as well as its limits are revealed when it comes to explaining the disintegration of Soviet socialism. The neo-totalitarianist's objection is correct that ranging socialism in an evolutionary scheme of ascending forms of society was problematic. This construction seems highly inadequate in view of the postcommunist crises and regressions (section 4). On the other hand, a coherent and self-reliant neo-totalitarianism theory is not visible (section 5). Instead the research on Eastern Europe after 1989 has seen an explosive growth of the social science approach in the course of which many revisionist theorems have been refuted, modified or confirmed. Nevertheless, the wave of social science theories entering the post-communist studies does not imply a way back to the golden age of classic modernization theory. The lesson to be learned from (neo-)totalitarianism theory concerns the stress it lays on domination and its specific irrationalities, variables which were indeed neglected by mainstream sociology and, after the Soviet breakdown, are ignored by the liberalist optimism of neoclassic reform programmes. The drama of the post-communist crises reminds us that there are no hidden hands and no evolutionary universals which would lead, quasi automatically, to modernity. On the other hand, the lesson to be learned from the social science approach is that even the most total totalitarianism did not result from a logic of history, but from certain constellations of interests, reciprocities between rulers and ruled, institutions of administration and value commitments, etc. which are quite accessible to a reconstruction in sociological terms.