PurposeUniversities are increasingly encountering high levels of national and international competition. In order for universities to continue with their business success and expansion, they have relied on developing and maintaining a differentiated brand identity by improving their branding strategy. The purpose of this paper is to examine the antecedents of students' identification with the brand of public universities in Iran.Design/methodology/approachSampling was done in multiple stages. In the first stage – using stratified sampling – students were recruited from distinct degree programs and universities based on the Iranian national demographic proportions. In the second stage, convenient sampling was used within each degree program category. For data collection, the interviewer distributed questionnaires among students regardless of age and gender. The number of questionnaires distributed in each university (i.e. the sample size in each university) was determined using the number of students in the country and percentage of students at each university.FindingsThe results showed support for the hypothesized positive relationship between brand identification and the antecedent factors including prestige, interorganizational and intraorganizational competition. On the other hand, the results showed no significant relationship between brand identification and the antecedent factors including distinctiveness and memorable experience. Outcomes (i.e. word-of-mouth, active engagement and loyalty) of brand identification were also tested and their relationships with brand identification are supported.Research limitations/implicationsThis study was conducted in the higher education sector in one cosmopolitan Iranian city (i.e. Tehran) to which Iranians from other cities travel to for studying. Thus, the results of this survey include a variety of sub-cultures. In the future, a study that incorporates all major metropolitan cities of Iran may increase the generalizability of the findings. Unrelated to the purpose of this study, a future research study may extend the currently studied geographical dimensions and examine the antecedents of students' identification with the brand of public universities across different nations using a cross-cultural approach.Practical implicationsA study of the antecedents of students' identification with the university brand can provide a guide for universities to manage their brand and marketing strategies. Managers of higher education institutions can take important steps in establishing a link between students and university brands. Managers can highlight interorganizational competitions. The authors recommended universities publicize and honor students' success in academic competitions on the university website, via ceremonies dedicated to the student winners, and using print banners that identifies their name and achievement, among other mediums. Additionally, competitions can be promoted among students through professors and motivational speeches from recognized leaders.Originality/valueResults revealed that brand prestige of public universities positively affects students' identification. This study highlights the importance of national and international rankings of universities and the sensitivity of students to such rankings. Undoubtedly, this is evident in Iranian students' behavior in selecting their university. Additionally, this study showed that brand distinctiveness of public universities does not significantly affect students' identification with the university brand. Further examination is recommended to help explain this finding and a cross-cultural comparison will assist in this endeavor.
"Popkulturell arbeitende Künstlerinnen stehen spätestens seit den Studien der Kulturwissenschaftlerin Angela McRobbie unter dem Verdacht, feministische Anliegen zu kommerzialisieren und zu trivialisieren. Der Vorwurf des Postfeminismus ist auch in Deutschland als Debatte 'alter versus neuer Feminismus' in Bezug auf die Kunst junger, erfolgreicher Frauen häufig zu hören. Im Missy Magazine werden verschiedene populärkulturell arbeitende Künstlerinnen porträtiert, wobei stets ein Bezug zum Feminismus hergestellt wird. Dieser Beitrag widmet sich den im Missy Magazine vorgestellten Theatermacherinnen und ihrem feministischen Selbstkonzept. Die Kategorie 'Postfeminismus' wird dabei einer kritischen Prüfung unterzogen und mit dem Selbstbild zeitgenössischer Theatermacherinnen abgeglichen. Unter Einbezug der Theorie des postdramatischen Theaters werden Gemeinsamkeiten einer jungen Theatergeneration herausgestellt." (Autorenreferat)
Die Autorin geht in ihrer Studie der Frage nach, ob ein Zusammenhang zwischen der EU-bezogenen Berichterstattung in verschiedenen Medien und dem 'Europäisierungsgrad' der Nutzer dieser Medienarten besteht. Sie legt mit der Definition von Öffentlichkeit als Kommunikationssystem ein Konzept zugrunde, das von Jürgen Gerhards und Friedhelm Neidhardt als 'Arena-Galerie-Modell' bezeichnet wurde. Sie verstehen moderne Gesellschaften in Anlehnung an die Systemtheorie als funktional ausdifferenzierte Systeme, die in verschiedene Teilsysteme mit jeweils eigenen Kommunikationscodes gegliedert sind. Die politische Öffentlichkeit fungiert nach diesem Modell als Vermittlungssystem zwischen politischem System und Bürgern und besteht aus Arenen und Galerien, auf denen sich spezifische Leistungs- und Klientelrollen entwickeln. Eine politische Öffentlichkeit müsste es diesen Überlegungen zufolge den europäischen Bürgern ermöglichen, von den Galerien aus das politische Geschehen in der EU so zu verfolgen, dass sie die politischen Handlungen europäischer Akteure informiert bewerten und sich der europäischen Gemeinschaft zugehörig fühlen können. Anhand von Daten des Eurobarometers aus dem Jahr 2006 werden für die Länder Deutschland, Frankreich, Italien, die Niederlande, Spanien und Großbritannien folgende Hypothesen empirisch überprüft: (1) Die Häufigkeit des Lesens von Nachrichten in Tageszeitungen hat einen stärkeren Effekt auf das Wissen über die Europäische Union als die Häufigkeit der Nachrichtennutzung in anderen Medien. (2) Qualitätszeitungsleser identifizieren sich mehr mit der EU als Nutzer anderer Medien. (3) Je höher der Wissensstand über die Europäische Union ist, desto stärker ist die Identifikation mit der EU. (ICI2)
Positionality statement As we begin to discuss this issue, its origins, and its importance in contemporary society, I wanted to acknowledge my positionality and the role that it may play in the formation of this issue. Jonathan O. Cain is an African-American male working in the LIS field. Before moving into administration, I taught data and digital literacy and worked on developing programs that focused on improving access to these critical skills at zero cost to learners. It is important to acknowledge my positionality and the lens through which I see the data science field. Trevor Watkins is an African American male working in the LIS field at an academic institution in an academic library. I teach critical data literacy workshops and engage in diversity and BIPOC-related digital projects with faculty, students, and the broader academic community across the country. I am also a researcher and practitioner in artificial intelligence (AI) and data science. The global pandemic, its impacts, and why it matters We first met in August 2020 to discuss the possibilities of this special issue about five months into the pandemic. We spent a good chunk of that meeting getting to know each other and, most importantly, discussed the toll the pandemic placed on our communities and us. It is probably safe to say that many of you, at some point, were uncertain of the future. Like most people worldwide, we lost family and friends or knew of people who succumbed to Covid-19 and other illnesses that weren't treated because the focus shifted to Covid-19. We get it. At one point, Covid-19 killed over three thousand people per day (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2022). According to data from the CDC, 90% of the 385,676 people who died between March and December 2020 had Covid-19 listed as the underlying cause of death on their death certificate. The murders of Ahmaud Arbery in February, Breonna Taylor in March, and George Floyd in May 2020 sparked civic unrest across the United States (US) and protests across the globe in solidarity against racial injustice. When we announced this special issue and initiated a call for papers, we didn't get much of a response initially. We expected and acknowledged that it would probably take some time before we received inquiries or proposals about the issue, the intent to submit, or any submissions. Like many of you, we are still picking up the pieces from 2020 and dealing with the aftermath of Covid-19. The pandemic may be over now, depending on whom you ask, but the emotional scars are still there and may remain so for quite some time. Patience was the one quality we all had throughout this process, which is why we can present this publication today. Data and liberatory technology Liberatory technology. This is a concept that invited contemplation as we sat down to record our reflections on this special issue. In drawing together scholars, educators, and practitioners to address the issue of data and its relationship to race, ethnicity, and representation, we, as coeditors, were making a statement about the importance of data, the material impact that this seemingly abstract and ethereal object can and does have on individual and community lives. And thinking about that impact brought liberatory technology to the front of our minds. The definition of liberator technology offered by the IDA B. Wells Just Data Lab intrigues us and invites us to grapple with that topic. They defined liberatory as something that "supports the increased freedom and wellbeing of marginalized people, especially black people outside of capitalism and settler colonial power structures" and technology as "a tool used to accomplish a task." And as we contemplate this set of definitions, we are left to question whether data can be a liberatory technology or not. (LIBERATORY TECHNOLOGY AND DIGITAL MARRONAGE, n.d.) In Liberation Technology: Black Protest in the Age of Franklin, Richard S. Newman draws parallels with the asserting ownership and mastery of new communication technologies and black liberation activities. Reflecting on the transformative nature of print technology, he writes, "If the Marquis de Condorcet was right in 1793 that print had unshackled Europe from medieval modes of thought and action, then it is also true that print was perhaps the first technology to liberate blacks from the servile images that had long haunted their existence in Western culture." And draws a 19th-century example of how it expressly connects to black lives post-emancipation noting "W. E. B. Du Bois certainly thought that black history and print history worked in tandem. Wherever one found newspapers in the post-Civil War South, he observed, one found some form of black freedom" (Richard S. Newman, 2009, p. 175). He even notes how scholars note that black activists embraced other communication technologies like photography "to reshape the image of African Americans in nineteenth-century culture." (Richard S. Newman, 2009, p. 175) We have no shortage of examples of how data and data-driven technologies fail to support the "increased freedom and wellbeing of marginalized people outside of capitalism and settler colonial power structures." In 2016, ProPublica published Machine Bias, a report that looks at Risk assessment technologies used in arraignment and sentencing. They report that "The formula was particularly likely to falsely flag black defendants as future, wrongly labeling them this way at almost twice the rate as white defendants" and "white defendants were mislabeled as low risk more often than black defendants" (Julia Angwin, 2016). A 2021 article, Fairness in Criminal Justice Risk Assessments: The State of the Art, in their analysis, noted, "The false negative rate is much higher for whites so that violent white offenders are more likely than violent black offenders to be incorrectly classified as nonviolent. The false positive rate is much higher for blacks so that nonviolent black offenders are more likely than nonviolent white offenders to be incorrectly classified as violent. Both error rates mistakenly inflate the relative representation of blacks predicted to be violent. Such differences can support claims of racial injustice. In this application, the trade-off between two different kinds of fairness has real bite." (Berk et al., 2021, p. 33) These are just a few examples of how these technological developments, on their own merits, fail to meet the definition offered by the authors of the "Liberatory Technology and Digital Marronage" Zine from the Ida B. Wells Just Data Labs. Reflecting on the technological path illustrated by Newman, the work of ownership and mastery of the tool provides the potential for it to be liberatory. Through this lens, the work of the Just Data Lab is exemplary for this meditation; it draws a direct line from technology, education, mastery, and liberatory technology. Data in higher education Data literacy education is an area that has been a focus of our careers in librarianship. It's a space where we saw the libraries' ability to make a meaningful impact. Data has had a tremendous impact on college campuses, from how research is conducted to the pressures colleges feel from stakeholder groups: students, governments, funders, donors, and employers to prepare students with the data and technology skills to gain employment in the knowledge economy. As colleges and universities have turned (with varying degrees of success) to meet the needs of these communities, a myriad of explorations on the importance of the representation of these marginalized communities in these systems—to combat and dismantle the harmful practices that we see embedded in the systems that drive society and the potentially debilitating consequences they produce. That is partly why the works in this special issue are so important at this moment in time. These scholars and scholar-practitioners are engaging with these issues that drive the opaque structures surrounding us. And hopefully, their work can give us another perspective on how to engage with these structures and transform them to support liberatory practices. The entries in this issue We have some fantastic articles for you to read in this issue. We open with an article by Kevin Manuel, Rosa Orlandini, and Alexandra Cooper, who discuss how the collection process of racial, ethnic, and indigenous data has evolved in the Canadian Census since 1871, the erasure of minorities and indigenous citizens from those censuses, and the work to restore and accurately identify and categorize racialized groups. In the next article, Leigh Phan, Stephanie Labou, Erin Foster, and Ibraheem Ali present a model for data ethics instruction for non-experts by designing and implementing two data ethics workshops. They make important points about the failure of academia to incorporate the ethical use of data in course curriculums and digital literacy training and demonstrate how academic libraries have become an essential resource for the academic community. Their workshop structure can be modeled for any academic library that endeavors to provide a similar service to its community. In the third article, Natasha Johnson, Megan Sapp Nelson, and Katherine Yngve, interrogate the collective and local purposes of institutional data collection and its impact on student belongingness and propose a framework based on data feminism that centers the student as a person rather than a commodity. Finally, our closing article from Thema Monroe-White focuses on marginalized and underrepresented people in the data science field. The author proposes that racially relevant and responsive teaching is necessary to recruit more people from these groups and diversify the field. She discusses how the Ladson-Billings model of cultural relevant pedagogy has been applied and is beneficial to STEM curriculums, and how a liberatory data science curriculum could promote a student's voice and sense of belonging. Conclusion We want to thank all those involved in producing this special issue. We want to thank the authors first. Their patience, dedication, and perseverance throughout this process were much appreciated. The reviewers provided timely, very detailed, and thorough feedback. We would be remised if we didn't acknowledge their hard work and labor. We would like to thank the IQ Editorial Team, Michele Hayslett and Karsten Boye Rasmussen, for working with us over the last two years, and Ofira Schwartz-Soicher, for helping us get to the finish line. Trevor Watkins Jonathan O. Cain References Berk, R., Heidari, H., Jabbari, S., Kearns, M., & Roth, A. (2021). Fairness in Criminal Justice Risk Assessments: The State of the Art. Sociological Methods & Research, 50(1), 3–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124118782533 Flipsnack. (n.d.). Liberatory Technology Zine. Flipsnack. Retrieved December 17, 2022, from https://www.flipsnack.com/EBC8CD77C6F/liberatory-technology-zine.html LIBERATORY TECHNOLOGY AND DIGITAL MARRONAGE. (n.d.). IDA B. WELLS JUST DATA LAB. Retrieved December 17, 2022, from https://www.thejustdatalab.com/tools-1/liberatory-technology-and-digital-marronage Mattu, J. A., Jeff Larson,Lauren Kirchner,Surya. (n.d.). Machine Bias. ProPublica. Retrieved December 17, 2022, from https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing Richard S. Newman. (2009). Liberation Technology: Black Printed Protest in the Age of Franklin. Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 8(1), 173–198. https://doi.org/10.1353/eam.0.0033
South Africa celebrated twenty years of democracy in 2014 following more than 100 years of colonization and institutionalized discrimination through Apartheid. A 'broken' family structure is one of the pathetic legacies left by political instability in post-colonial and post war countries globally. This phenomenon of broken families is evident in South Africa following the period of discrimination against Black people and the systematic migrant labor system that was sponsored by and for the Apartheid government. The migrant labor system separated fathers from their families and men left their families in the rural communities to work in the burgeoning mines and factories in urban areas. The current democratic State has a responsibility to strengthen broken families through policies and intervention informed by research evidence. There is an emerging body of research on Father Connections in post-war and post-colonial settings. This special issue brings together eight articles on Father Connections in South Africa. The articles present data from diverse but interesting research; for example the piece by Nduna M and Taulela M focuses on the experiences of 'discovering' biological fathers for youth who grew up with absent and unknown fathers. The participants that the article draws from are young women from a small town, in Mpumalanga. Through narrative analysis, the article explores how young people deal with finding out who their biological fathers are. In the article by Selebano N and Khunou G, the experiences of young fathers from Soweto are explored. It is illustrated in this article that, there are strong ties between young men's experiences and the community values, history and culture where they experience fatherhood. The article by Langa M interestingly looks at narratives and meaning makings of young boys who grew up without fathers. Langa looks at how young boys can adopt alternative ideas of what it means to be a man in contexts that would otherwise be assumed to automatically lead to an embrace of hegemonic notions of masculinities. On a similar note the article by Nduna M focuses on experiences of young people who grow up without a father entering into endeavours to find and use their father's surname. The article looks at how the signifying paternal ancestry is developed and maintained in contexts of father absence, through pursuing an absent father's surname as the 'right surname'. The article by Lesch E and Ismail A focuses on the significant question of the father daughter relationship and examines constraining constructions of fatherhood for daughters with a specific focus on the Cape Winelands community in South Africa. In Chauke P and Khunou G's contribution on the media's influence on societal notions of fatherhood in relation to the maintenance system is examined. The article looks at how cases of maintenance are dealt with in print media. Franklin A & Makiwane M's article provides a significant examination of male attitudes of family and children. This article begins to speak to the transformations of expectations of men in families. This transformation is addressed through a look at racially disaggregated quantitative data. Mthombeni A reviews a book, Good Morning Mr. Mandela by Zelda Le Grange where she examines some of the challenges of fatherhood in South Africa's past and present.
From about 1950 until the end of the Cold War realism was the dominant paradigm in international relations in the United States and widely influential abroad. It never went unchallenged and other paradigms have made considerable inroads. Within the realist paradigm there is now considerable diversity. Realism is unusual in being one of the few developments in international relations theory that has had significant impact in the wider world. Policymakers, military officers, intelligence officials and journalists, and not just in the United States, tend to be far more accepting of the so-called verities of realism than most scholars. Realism was propelled to the forefront of thinking about international relations by the pre- and early post-war writings of Nicholas Spykman (a Dutch immigrant), Arnold Wolfers (a Swiss who left Nazi Germany where he ran a prominent institute in Berlin), E. H. Carr (British), William T. R. Fox (American) and Hans J. Morgenthau and John H. Herz (German-Jewish immigrants). In the United States, by the far the most influential realists were Morgenthau and Herz. Politics Among Nations, first published in 1948, had an extraordinary print run. The sixth and posthumous edition, revised by Kenneth W. Thompson, appeared in 1985. John Herz's early works on international relations theory, published in 1950 and 1951, were followed by a widely read text in 1959. Morgenthau and Herz were particularly influential because they developed the theoretical outlines for a paradigm, and a full-blown theory in Morgenthau's case. Unlike Herz, who was shy and retiring and described himself as introverted, Morgenthau thrived on public exposure. His numerous lectures, newspapers, radio and television interviews, magazine articles and later, magazine articles about him, did much to publicize his books and propagate the fundamentals of his brand of realism. It is certainly possible that the paradigm of realism would have developed in the absence of these two German-Jewish refugees. In the aftermath of World War II and America's rise to "superpower" status (a term introduced by realist William T. R. Fox in 1944), realism provided the intellectual foundations for an activist foreign policy based largely on considerations of power. It seems less likely that home-grown realism would have been embedded in a general theory of international relations that claimed validity across cultures and epochs. Kenneth Waltz published such a theory in 1979, but it was written very much in response to the earlier works of Morgenthau and Herz. Their writings are distinct in another sense; they are worldly in a way more parochial American political science is not. While they aim at a synthetic and parsimonious treatment of international relations they are aware of numerous complexities, including the independent role of leaders and the importance and diversity of regime types; characteristic features of international relations that confound the kind of parsimonious theories they aspire to construct. Educated in the German idealist tradition, they conceived of international relations theory as a transformative project and one closely linked to ethical imperatives. These features of their writings were largely ignored during the Cold War even dismissed as irrelevant or embarrassing but have been increasingly welcomed and emphasized in the post-Cold War era by scholars attempting to reconstruct what has come to be called "classical realism.". Adapted from the source document.
"Dieser Artikel behandelt die Rolle von Zeitungen im Rahmen des gegenwärtigen Demokratisierungsprozesses in Somaliland. Wie Diskussionen über sensible und schwierige politische Themen in den Zeitungen zeigen, ist Meinungsfreiheit gewährleistet. Als Hintergrund sind dabei einerseits die traditionelle Redefreiheit in der somalischen Gesellschaft und andererseits die jüngere Bürgerkriegsvergangenheit Somalias von Bedeutung. Somaliland spaltete sich nach einem langen Guerillakrieg gegen das Regime von Mahamed Siyad Barre von Somalia ab. Viele der Zeitungsunternehmer und Journalisten haben aktiv an dem Guerillakrieg teilgenommen. Bis 2007 gelang es, in Somaliland eine stabile, de facto staatliche Ordnung aufzubauen. Doch Somaliland ist international nicht als Staat anerkannt. Auch innerhalb des Landes gibt es Gegner der Abspaltung von Somalia. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird klar, dass die Zeitungen in der Hauptstadt Hargeysa aktiv in einen Prozess des 'nation-building' involviert sind. Dabei wird die Meinung eines signifikanten Teiles der Bevölkerung ausgeblendet. Dies trägt zur Erhöhung des politischen Konfliktpotentials in der Region bei." (Autorenreferat)
In: Veröffentlichung / Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, Forschungsschwerpunkt Sozialer Wandel, Institutionen und Vermittlungsprozesse, Abteilung Öffentlichkeit und soziale Bewegungen, Band 98-106
"Der vorliegende Beitrag skizziert den theoretischen Hintergrund, das Untersuchungsdesign und die zentralen Fragestellungen des Projekts 'Stimme der Medien im politischen Prozeß: Themen und Meinungen in Pressekommentaren'. Ziel des Projekts ist es, anhand einer Inhaltsanalyse von Kommentaren überregionaler Tageszeitungen den eigenständigen Beitrag von Medien zum politischen Diskurs zwischen 1993 und 1998 zu erfassen. Das Projekt geht zum einen der Frage nach, welche politischen Themen die Medien in ihren Kommentaren aufnehmen, in welcher Weise sie diese definieren und interpretieren und dabei bestimmte Akteure und Akteursbeziehungen ansprechen und bewerten. Es untersucht zum anderen, unter welchen Bedingungen die auf diese Weise erfolgenden Relevanzzuweisungen und Problemdeutungen im politischen System Resonanz finden. Die Annahme ist, daß die Wahrscheinlichkeit der politischen Resonanzerzeugung mit dem Ausmaß der in Kommentarvergleichen meßbaren thematischen Fokussierungen, Meinungskonsonanzen und Persistenzen im Mediensystem steigt. Ein Vergleich von Kommentaragenda und politischer Agenda - wie sie in Parteiprogrammen, Regierungserklärungen, Anfragen und aktuellen Stunden im Bundestag zum Ausdruck kommt - soll Aufschluß über wechselseitige Einflüsse zwischen Medien und Politik geben." (Autorenreferat)
In: Veröffentlichung / Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, Forschungsschwerpunkt Sozialer Wandel, Institutionen und Vermittlungsprozesse, Abteilung Öffentlichkeit und soziale Bewegungen, Band 97-102
"Dieser Beitrag betrachtet Medien als autonome Akteure im politischen Prozeß. In Kommentaren nehmen sie ihr Recht in Anspruch, Einfluß auf die Agenden und Entscheidungen des politischen Systems auszuüben, indem sie Probleme und Akteure explizit bewerten, aber auch bestimmten Themen oder Themenaspekten Relevanz zuweisen und politische Ereignisse entsprechend ihrer redaktionellen Linie deuten und interpretieren. Man kann davon ausgehen, daß der Einfluß von Kommentaren auf das politische System vom Ausmaß an Themenfokussierung und Meinungskonsonanz abhängt: Wenn unterschiedliche Zeitungen die gleichen Themen kommentieren und ähnliche Meinungen zum Ausdruck bringen, steigt der Druck auf das politische System. Unsere theoretischen Überlegungen zur Rolle von 'Medienmeinung' im politischen Prozeß und ein Überblick über relevante Arbeiten zum Agenda-Building zeigen, daß der Einfluß von Kommentaren auf die politische Agenda bisher nur ungenügend untersucht wurde. Das empirische Projekt, das hier vorgestellt wird, soll zur Schließung dieser Forschungslücke beitragen. Um festzustellen, unter welchen Bedingungen eine übereinstimmende Kommentierung entsteht und wie das politische System darauf reagiert, sollen Kommentarinhalte aus überregionalen Tageszeitungen zwischen 1993 und 1998 mit Daten über Äußerungen und Entscheidungen im politischen System in Beziehung gesetzt werden." (Autorenreferat)
In: Veröffentlichung / Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, Forschungsschwerpunkt Sozialer Wandel, Institutionen und Vermittlungsprozesse, Abteilung Öffentlichkeit und soziale Bewegungen, Band 98-107
"In einem von der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft geförderten und am Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin durchgeführten Projekt untersuchen wir anhand einer Inhaltsanalyse von Kommentaren überregionaler Tageszeitungen sowie von Anfragen und aktuellen Stunden im Bundestag, Parteiprogrammen und Regierungserklärungen den eigenständigen Beitrag von Medien im politischen Diskurs zwischen 1993 und 1998. Das Projekt geht zum einen der Frage nach, welche politischen Themen die Medien in ihren Kommentaren aufnehmen, in welcher Weise sie diese definieren und interpretieren und dabei bestimmte Akteure und Akteursbeziehungen ansprechen und bewerten. Es untersucht zum anderen, unter welchen Bedingungen die auf diese Weise erfolgenden Relevanzzuweisungen und Problemdeutungen im politischen System Resonanz finden. Neben einer kompakten Darstellung des theoretischen Rahmens der Studie und der Operationalisierung der Fragestellung informiert dieser Bericht über die methodischen Besonderheiten der Mehrebenenuntersuchung. Das Kategoriensystem der Kommentaranalyse - einschließlich der Ergebnisse des Reliabilitätstests - sowie einige Anpassungen des Schemas für die Analyse der politischen Agenda werden ebenso erläutert wie die Stichprobenauswahl und die technische Organisation und Durchführung der Codierarbeiten." (Autorenreferat)
Thus it came as a surprise to me, after reading the small selection of essays in his 'street' book, that so little of Kracauer's early work seems to have reached the other side of the Atlantic. Neither of his two novels, Ginster (1928) and Georg (1934), has been translated into English; the original English rendition of his social biography of composer Jacques Offenbach, Offenbach and the Paris of his Time (1937), written during Kracauer's Parisian exile, is long out of print, not to mention incomplete and flawed. And it is only in the past several years that English editions of his writing from the Weimar period have appeared, most notably his anthology of essays The Mass Ornament, put out by Harvard University Press in 1995, and the recent Verso translation of Die Angestellten, published as The Salaried Masses (1998). The English-speaking world is missing an important side of Kracauer. We know the Kracauer who fatuously unveiled the portents of National Socialism in such classic Weimar films as Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and, to a lesser extent, the Kracauer who reflected on the aesthetics of cinema in his other major American publication, Theory of Film (1960). But we have little insight into Kracauer's writings from the Weimar period and from his first years of exile. AS A MEANS of bridging the gap between the pre-war German works and their postwar American counterparts, Gertrud Koch's brief critical overview of Kraucauer's entire oeuvre, Siegfried Kracauer: An Introduction (first published in Germany in 1996 and translated here by Jeremy Gaines), offers a key addition to the still evolving secondary literature. Combining biographical sources and close textual analysis, Koch surveys the development of Kracauer's thought from his first sociological and journalistic writings in the 1910s and 1920s up to his final work, History: The Last Things Before the Last, published in 1969, three years after his death. At the outset of her study, Koch notes the profound difficulty critics have faced when trying to make sense of Kracauer's diverse, and sometimes competing, works and their reception. 'Kracauer exists,' she asserts, 'either as a film theorist or as a distant relative of the Frankfurt School, either as a journalist or as a philosopher, either as an essay-writer or as a novelist.' (Kracauer himself showed a certain awareness of this problem, suggesting late in life that he should not be viewed merely as 'a film man,' but as a 'philosopher of culture, or also a sociologist, and as a poet.') Yet, without attempting to attribute an artificial consistency to Kracauer's trajectory of thought, Koch examines, in seven crisp chapters, its development within a broad set of historical and theoretical contexts. BORN IN 1889 into an established Frankfurt-based Jewish family, Kracauer was raised amid a variety of cultural currents. His uncle Isidor Kracauer, who played a critical role in his upbringing, was an authority on the history of the city's Jewish community. After completing his studies in architecture, philosophy, and sociology, Kracauer himself participated to some degree in Frankfurt Jewish life, joining a small circle (which also included Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and Leo Lowenthal) gathered around the charismatic Rabbi Nehemiah Nobel. (He would eventually break with Rosenzweig and Buber, publishing a vociferous critique of their Bible translation in 1926.) It was also around this time, however, that Kracauer's relationship to the far more secular Adorno, with whom he met regularly on Saturdays to read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, began to blossom, as did his work on Georg Simmel, Max Weber, and Edmund Husserl. If anything, the first years of Kracauer's professional life reveal, as Koch suggests, deep commitment to a number of enterprises, from architecture to philosophy, from journalism to cultural criticism, without ever gaining a sense of permanence in any one single place. Indeed, in a 1923 letter addressed to Lowenthal and Adorno, Kracauer sardonically adopted a phrase from Georg Lukacs, giving his location as 'the headquarters of the transcendental homeless.'.
Author's introductionNon‐human animals constitute an integral part of human society. They figure heavily in our language, food, clothing, family structure, economy, education, entertainment, science, and recreation. The many ways we use animals produce ambivalent and contradictory attitudes toward them. We treat some species of animals as friends and family members (e.g., dogs and cats), while we treat others as commodities (e.g., cows, pigs, and chickens). Our constructions of animals and the moral and legal status we grant them provide rich topics for sociological study.This teaching and learning guide can serve as a resource for those who want to learn more about the field or for those preparing to teach a course on animals and society. The materials have the common theme of examining animals within the context of larger social issues. The guide begins with an annotated list of major works in the area. It then lists useful online resources. Finally, it provides a sample syllabus, concluding with ideas for course projects and assignments.Author recommends:Arnold Arluke and Clinton R. Sanders, Regarding Animals (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1996). Regarding Animals was the first book‐length sociological work on human‐animal relationships. Arluke and Sanders focus on the ambivalent and contradictory ways that we humans view other species. It examines how we cherish some animals as friends and family members, while we consider others as food, pests, and resources. Based on research in animal shelters, veterinary clinics, primate research laboratories, and among guide‐dog trainers, the book provides sociological insight into how we construct animals – and how in the process we construct ourselves.Arnold Arluke and Clinton R. Sanders, Between the Species: A Reader in Human‐Animal Relationships (Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 2009).Arluke and Sanders have divided this reader into three units. The first, animal, self, and society, includes topical sections on 'Thinking with Animals', 'Close Relationships with Animals', 'The Darkside', and 'Wild(life) Encounters'. The second unit, which focuses on animals in institutions, includes readings on science, agriculture, entertainment and education, and health and welfare. The third unit is organized around the 'changing status and perception of animals'. Its chapters examine healing, selfhood, and rights. The articles, drawn largely from social science journals, have been edited for readability at the undergraduate level.Clifton Flynn, Social Creatures: A Human and Animal Studies Reader (New York, NY: Lantern, 2008).Flynn's edited volume examines the role of animals in language, as food, and as companions. It delves into issues of animal abuse and grief after pet loss. It contains over 30 chapters, mostly reprints of articles in scholarly journals, representing a range of perspectives. Part I gives an overview of the field of human–animal studies. Part II focuses on studying human‐animal relationships. Part III offers comparative and historical perspectives on those relationships. Animals and culture is the focus of Part IV. Part V examines attitudes toward animals. Part VI offers essays on criminology and deviance. Inequality and interconnected oppression focuses the essays in Part VII. The chapters in Part VIII concern living and working with animals, and Part IX includes readings on animal rights, as both philosophy and social movement. Each chapter offers study questions for study and discussion.Adrian Franklin, Animals & Modern Cultures: A Sociology of Human‐Animal Relations in Modernity (London, UK: Sage, 1999).This book examines the changes in human‐animal relationships over the 20th century. It argues that at the start of the century, animals were regarded most often as resources. Moreover, we drew a distinct boundary between humans and other animals. By the end of the century, our attitudes toward animals had changed, and we began to question the subordination implicit in the human–animal boundary. Franklin highlights companionship with animals, hunting and fishing, the meat industry, and leisure activities involving animals, such as bird watching and wildlife parks. He emphasizes variations by gender, class, ethnicity, and nation.Leslie Irvine, If You Tame Me: Understanding our Connection with Animals (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2004).This book examines our relationships with dogs and cats, arguing that animals have a sense of self. Drawing on research conducted at an animal shelter, in dog parks, and in interviews and observation, the author argues that animals become such important parts of our lives because of the subjective experience they bring to the relationship. Challenging the view that we simply anthropomorphize animals, Irvine offers a model of animal selfhood that explains what makes relationships with animals possible. Offering an alternative to George Herbert Mead's perspective on the self, Irvine argues that interaction with animals reveals complex subjectivity, emotionality, agency, and memory.Linda Kalof and Amy Fitzgerald, The Animals Reader: The Essential Classic and Contemporary Writings (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).This edited volume is notable for its diversity in perspectives. It includes readings on ethics, philosophy, sociology, cultural studies, environmental studies, history, and anthropology. It examines questions ranging from 'what is an animal?' to those surrounding the ethics of cloning. Part I examines animals as philosophical subjects. Part II includes essays that suggest that animals are reflexive thinkers. Part III considers the various roles of animals as domesticates, 'pets', and food. The chapters in Part IV focus on animals in sport and spectacle. Part V focuses on animals as symbols. Part VI examines animals as scientific objects. Each chapter offers an introduction and list of further readings.David Nibert, Animal Rights/Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation (Lanham MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002).David Nibert connects oppression based on species, gender, ethnicity, and social class to the institution of capitalism. By modifying Donald Noel's theory of ethnic stratification, Nibert explains the oppression of non‐human animals in all forms, from meat eating to vivisection. He then argues that the systematic oppression of animals led to the oppression of other humans.Online materials Animals and Society Section of the American Sociological Association http://www2.asanet.org/sectionanimals/ This website offers membership information specifically for sociologists interested in human–animal studies. It is especially notable for its online syllabi from courses on animals and society. Animals and Society Institute http://www.animalsandsociety.org/ The Animals and Society Institute includes programs in three areas: Human–animal Studies; AniCare, a program dedicated to animal abuse and other forms of violence; and the Animals' Platform, a set of guidelines for animal protection legislation at the state, local, or national levels. The website's homepage includes a link to a video introducing the institute and its programs. The 'Resources' link leads to useful web and print documents and other web pages, including lists of human–animal studies centers and courses. Animal Studies Bibliography http://ecoculturalgroup.msu.edu/bibliography.htm This extensive, well‐organized bibliography is the project of the Ecological & Cultural Change Studies Group at Michigan State University. It includes works on Animals as Philosophical and Ethical Subjects; Animals as Reflexive Thinkers; Domestication and Predation; Animals as Entertainment and Spectacle; Animals as Symbols and Companions; Animals in Science, Education, and Therapy; and a 'miscellaneous' category. HumaneSpot.org http://www.humanespot.org/node HumaneSpot is the creation of the Humane Research Council. It requires registration as a user, and users must complete a short online application and attest that they are animal advocates, but advocacy in the form of scholarship counts. Once registered, users have access to extensive research on all aspects of animal welfare. Users can also have summarized updates of recent studies delivered by email. The Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium (HARC) http://www.tufts.edu/vet/cfa/hoarding/ The HARC website offers a collection of research on animal hoarding or 'collecting'. The studies address issues of animal welfare, public health, mental health, connections with other forms of abuse, and intervention. Pet‐Abuse.com http://www.pet‐abuse.com/ Alison Gianotto started Pet‐Abuse.com after someone kidnapped one of her cats and set him on fire. The cat died of the subsequent injuries and the abuser was never caught. Despite its name, Pet‐Abuse addresses abuse among many species, not just those commonly kept as pets. The project tracks incidents of cruelty throughout the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, and Spain. The website offers a database that is searchable by location, type of cruelty, gender of offender, and more. It also allows for the creation of real‐time graphic displays of statistics on cruelty cases.Sample syllabusPart I: introduction and overviewWhat is human–animal studies? How can we study animals sociologically? What can the study of animals offer to the field?Reading:Arnold Arluke, 'A Sociology of Sociological Animal Studies,'Society & Animals 10 (2002): 369–374. Leslie Irvine, 'Animals and Sociology,'Sociology Compass 2 (2008):1954–1971. Jennifer Wolch, 'Zoöpolis,' In: Jennifer Wolch and Jody Emel (eds), Animal Geographies: Identity in the Nature Culture Borderlands (London, UK: Verso), 119–138.From Social Creatures:Kenneth J. Shapiro, 'Introduction to Human: Animal Studies'Clifton Bryant, 'The Zoological Connection: Animal‐related Human Behavior'Barbara Noske, 'The Animal Question in Anthropology'Part II: studying human‐animal relationshipsHow can we study our interactions and relationships with animals? What approaches have been used, and what are their strengths and weaknesses?Leslie Irvine, 'The Question of Animal Selves: Implications for Sociological Knowledge and Practice,'Qualitative Sociology Review 3 (2007): 5–21.From Social Creatures:Kenneth J. Shapiro, 'Understanding Dogs through Kinesthetic Empathy, Social Construction, and History'Alan M. Beck and Aaron H. Katcher, 'Future Directions in Human – Animal Bond Research'Clinton R. Sanders, 'Understanding Dogs: Caretakers' Attributions of Mindedness in Canine – Human Relationships'Part III: historical and comparative perspectivesIn this section, we examine how people have regarded animals in other times and places.Reading:Lynda Birke, 'Who – or What – are the Rats (and Mice) in the Laboratory?'Society & Animals 11 (2003): 207–224.From Social CreaturesBarbara Noske, 'Speciesism, Anthropocentrism, and Non‐Western Cultures'Michael Tobias, 'The Anthropology of Conscience'Harriet Ritvo, 'The Emergence of Modern Pet‐keeping'Part IV: animals and cultureThis section focuses on how animals are portrayed in language, advertisements, and other media. It also considers how culture influences our attitudes toward animals.Reading:Rhonda D. Evans and Craig J. Forsyth, 'The Social Milieu of Dogmen and Dogfights,'Deviant Behavior 19 (1998): 51–71.Fred Hawley, 'The Moral and Conceptual Universe of Cockfighters: Symbolism and Rationalization,'Society & Animals 1 (1992): 159–168.Linda Kalof and Amy Fitzgerald, 'Reading the Trophy: Exploring the Display of Dead Animals in Hunting Magazines,'Visual Studies 18 (2003): 112–122.Jennifer E. Lerner and Linda Kalof, 'The Animal Text: Message and Meaning in Television Advertisements,'The Sociological Quarterly 40 (1999): 565–585.From Social Creatures:Andrew Linzey, 'Animal Rights as Religious Vision'Leslie Irvine, 'The Power of Play'Tracey Smith‐Harris, 'There's Not Enough Room to Swing a Dead Cat and There's No Use Flogging a Dead Horse'Part V: attitudes toward other animalsThis part of the course examines how we think about animals, including what research reveals about how our attitudes develop.Reading:Mart Kheel, 'License to Kill: An Ecofeminist Critique of Hunters' Discourse,' In: Carol J. Adams and Josephine Donovan (eds), Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995): 85–125.From Social Creatures:Harold Herzog, Nancy S. Betchart, and Robert B. Pittman, 'Gender, Sex‐role Orientation and Attitudes toward Animals'Elizabeth S. Paul and James A. Sarpell, 'Childhood Pet Keeping and Humane Attitudes in Young Adulthood'David Nibert, 'Animal Rights and Human Social Issues'Part VI: criminology and devianceThis section examines animal abuse and neglect, and its possible connections to other forms of violence, particularly that directed at human beings.Reading:Arnold Arluke, 'Animal Abuse as Dirty Play,'Symbolic Interaction 25 (2002): 405–430.From Social Creatures:Frank R. Ascione, 'Children Who Are Cruel to Animals: A Review of Research and Implications for Developmental Psychology'Linda Merz‐Perez, Kathleen M. Heide, and Ira J. Silverman, 'Childhood Cruelty to Animals and Subsequent Violence against Humans'Clifton P. Flynn, 'Women's Best Friend: Pet Abuse and the Role of Companion Animals in the Lives of Battered Women'Gary J. Patronek, 'Hoarding of Animals: An Under‐recognized Public Health Problem in a Difficult‐to‐study Population'Part VII: inequality – interconnected oppressionsThis section considers how our treatment of other animals influences our treatment of others, especially women and people of color.Reading:Isabel Gay Bradshaw, 'Not by Bread Alone: Symbolic Loss, Trauma, and Recovery in Elephant Communities,'Society & Animals 12 (2004): 144–158.Linda Kalof, Amy Fitzgerald, and Lori Baralt, 'Animals, Women, and Weapons: Blurred Sexual Boundaries in the Discourse of Sport Hunting,'Society & Animals 12 (2004): 237–251.From Social Creatures:Marjorie Spiegel, 'An Historical Understanding'Carol J. Adams, 'The Sexual Politics of Meat'David Nibert, 'Humans and Other Animals: Sociology's Moral and Intellectual Challenge'Part VIII: living and working with other animalsWe hold contradictory attitudes toward animals. We love our pets, but we consider some animals as disposable. What do our close living and working relationships with animals reveal about the roles of animals in society?Reading:Leslie Irvine, 'Animal Problems/People Skills: Emotional and Interactional Strategies in Humane Education,'Society & Animals 10 (2002): 63–91.Rik Scarce, 'Socially Constructing Pacific Salmon,'Society & Animals 5 (1997): 115–135.From Social Creatures:Andrew N. Rowan and Alan M. Beck, 'The Health Benefits of Human—Animal Interactions'Rose M. Perrine and Hannah L. Osbourne, 'Personality Characteristics of Dog and Cat Persons'Gerald H. Gosse and Michael J. Barnes, 'Human Grief Resulting from the Death of a Pet'Stephen Frommer and Arnold Arluke, 'Loving Them to Death: Blame‐displacing Strategies of Animal Shelter Workers and Surrenderers'Mary T. Phillips, 'Savages, Drunks, and Lab Animals: The Researcher's Perception of Pain'Part IX: animal rights – philosophy and social movementThis section examines the leading animal rights perspectives. It also considers who animal activists are and how animal rights exists as a social movement.Corwin Kruse, 'Gender, Views of Nature, and Support for Animal Rights,'Society & Animals 7 (1999): 179–197.From Social Creatures:Peter Singer, 'All Animals are Equal'Tom Regan, 'The Case for Animal Rights'Josephine Donovan, 'Animal Rights and Feminist Theory'Lyle Munro, 'Caring about Blood, Flesh, and Pain: Women's Standing in the Animal Protection Movement'Project ideasEssay topicsWrite an essay on each of the following topics: Topic 1: Focus on any species (other than dog or cat) and explore and present the nature of human–animal relations for that species. You should find and evaluate scholarly and popular print and Internet resources regarding this species and its relationships with humans. At least two of your sources should come from articles in scholarly journals.Topic 2: Find current media coverage of an event or issue that applies and extends material in the assigned text. This can involve an individual animal, a group of animals, or an entire species. For example, coverage of the role of livestock in global warming could be approached through several of the readings in the course. You cannot predict when these events will occur, so be continually on the lookout throughout the semester. JournalingTo help you think about the readings and ideas we are discussing, as well as relate the material to your own lives, you must keep a journal throughout the semester. You must have two entries per week. These need not be long; one page for each entry will suffice. However, they must demonstrate that you are thinking about the issues we are studying. The entries are to be analysis, not cute stories of how much you love animals. You must apply the material to your thoughts about and/or your interaction with animals. Each entry should have three parts: a personal reflection, a sociological insight, and an action step.1. Personal reflection (In this section, note any new observations, feelings, epiphanies, or other insights prompted by the course material.) Example: I never knew, or even thought about, the emotional lives of farm animals. Somehow, I have been able to draw a line between pets and other animals. I know many wild animals have emotions. I have seen programs about elephants experiencing grief, for example. However, I always bought into the idea that cows, chickens, and pigs were 'dumb'. I guess we have to think of them that way in order to treat them the way that we do. I was particularly struck by ... 2. Sociological insight (In this section, draw out some of the sociological relevance of the material.) Example: Farm animals have such a huge role in so many institutions. So much of the economy has to do with raising animals, transporting animals, killing them, processing their skin, muscle, organs, coats, and bones. It makes sense that we have commercials promoting 'Beef, it's what's for dinner' and 'Got Milk' ads. If it were 'natural' and necessary to consume animals, we would not need advertising campaigns designed to encourage us to do so. The 'animal industrial complex' depends on a steady supply of consumers. Vegetarians and vegans are very threatening to the status quo. No wonder popular culture makes fun of them.Farm animals also have a huge role in families. We eat animals on most of our holidays and other occasions. In addition, the histories of agricultural families go back ... 3. Action Step(s) (In this section, note at least one and as many as three ways that you will share your new knowledge. Action steps might include taking your cat to the vet, finding out about volunteering at an animal shelter, or becoming vegetarian.) Example: I intend to tell my roommates about the emotional lives of farm animals, and about the animal industrial complex. I will look for information about Farm Sanctuary online and pass it on to my sister.
Authors' introductionContemporary religion is at its core an organizational phenomenon. Religious behaviour is channelled and religious communities are structured through congregations, denominations, religious nonprofits, seminaries, and other organizational forms. To understand religion, then, one must understand the organizational aspects of religion. This includes those aspects common to all organizations and those unique to religious organizations.Authors recommendNancy Tatom Ammerman, Congregation and Community (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997) and Nancy Tatom Ammerman, Pillars of Faith: American Congregations and Their Partners (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005).No organization, religious or otherwise, is an island. Each is surrounded by a unique environment, and each is embedded in a network of social and organizational ties. These two works by Ammerman explore the ecologies and networks that shape the identity and behaviour of religious congregations.Ross P. Scherer, American Denominational Organization: A Sociological View (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1980).This edited volume serves as an introduction to the structure and operations of different religious organizational forms, including denominations, Catholic religious orders, theological schools, and 'parachurch' mission societies. It also has three chapters addressing issues of change and conflict in religious organizations.Mark Chaves, Ordaining Women: Culture and Conflict in Religious Organizations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997).Why did some denominations adopt policies allowing the ordination of women earlier than others? What explains the lag between adoption of the policy and actual implementation? Chaves applies ideas in organizational studies and social movements to understand these issues.Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America, 1776–2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005).Finke and Stark explore the dynamics underlying historical patterns of denominational growth and decline in the United States. Drawing upon ideas in economics, organizational studies, and other related disciplines they argue that American religious history can be understood as marketplace in which religious groups and organizations compete for resources.N. J. Demerath III, Peter Dobkin Hall, Terry Schmitt, and Rhys H. Williams (eds.), Sacred Companies: Organizational Aspects of Religion and Religious Aspects of Organizations (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998).An interdisciplinary collection of authors examines the intersection of research on religion, organizations, and social movements. Chapters include essays and empirical studies, mostly pertaining to religious organizations. They cover prominent organizational forms (denominations, congregations, and religious non‐profits) and incorporate theories drawn from organizational sociology, social movements, economics, and the sociology of religion.Online materials1. The Association of Religion Data Archives http://www.thearda.com/ The Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) contains over 400 freely downloadable data files focusing on religion in the United States and around the world. The site also features many interactive online tools, including QuickStats on religious beliefs and behaviors, denominational profiles and statistics, and maps of religious, social and demographic information. Instructors and students will be particularly interested in the ARDA's Learning Center, which features downloadable 'Learning Modules' and other classroom resources.2. The Pluralism Project http://www.pluralism.org/ The Pluralism Project at Harvard University aims to 'help Americans engage with the realities of religious diversity through research, outreach, and the active dissemination of resources'. The website contains a variety of tools for students and instructors, including online slideshows of religious communities around the United States. Check out the site's Teacher Resources page for syllabi, maps, weblinks, and many other valuable resources.3. Hartford Institute for Religion Research http://hirr.hartsem.edu/ The Hartford Institute's website is a virtual clearing house of information on religion research. It has content devoted to congregations, theology, denominations, religious leadership, and the sociology of religion as a field. Under these areas, you can find helpful summaries, bibliographies, and links. A special section on megachurches is especially popular.4. Faith Communities Today http://fact.hartsem.edu/ This is the homepage for a major collection of data on religious congregations. The Faith Communities Today (FACT) survey was first conducted in 2000 and has been repeated in 2005 and 2008. You can access summaries of findings and other resources related to the study on this site.5. The U.S. Congregational Life Survey http://www.uscongregations.org/ Another valuable source of information on congregations comes from the U.S. Congregational Life Survey (USCLS), administered in 2001 and again in 2008. The USCLS is a nationally representative study of congregations and their worshippers. A novel feature of the USCLS is that it gathered information from both a leader and participants in each congregation. The website gives an overview of the survey, reports on key findings, and links to publications.6. Religion & Ethics Newsweekly http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/ This is the website of a long‐running PBS series focusing on contemporary religion in the United States and abroad. Episodes are available online and often have relevance to the study of religious organizations. In addition, teachers can find other resources in the 'For Educators' section.Focus questions
How are religious organizations unique from other types of organizations, if at all? What are common forms of religious organizations? What research methods do sociologists use to study religious organizations? What are the major forces that influence the success or failure of a religious organization?
Sample syllabus DESCRIPTION A sociological approach to religion emphasizes the collective, social nature of religion. Consequently, religious organizations are an important area of investigation for sociologists. The quantity and quality of research in this area have improved dramatically in recent decades. This course is an introduction to this burgeoning area of research. It explores organizational aspects of religion, including organizational forms, common methodologies, and prominent theories. OBJECTIVES At the completion of this course, students should be able to:
Describe common forms of religious organizations. Identify methodological strategies for studying religious organizations. Explain the relevance of prominent organizational theories to religious organizations.
SCHEDULE 1. Defining Religious Organizations Ross P. Scherer, American Denominational Organization: A Sociological View (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1980).Thomas H. Jeavons, 'Identifying Characteristics of "Religious" Organizations: An Exploratory Proposal.' 79–95 in Sacred Companies: Organizational Aspects of Religion and Religious Aspects of Organizations, eds. N.J. Demerath III, Peter Dobkin Hall, Terry Schmitt, and Rhys H. Williams (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998).Margaret Harris, 'Religious Congregations as Nonprofit Organizations: Four English Case Studies.' 307–320 in Sacred Companies: Organizational Aspects of Religion and Religious Aspects of Organizations, eds. N.J. Demerath III, Peter Dobkin Hall, Terry Schmitt, and Rhys H. Williams (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998).Mark Chaves, 'Religious Organizations: Data Resources and Research Opportunities', American Behavioral Scientist 45 (2002): 1523–1549. 2. Religious Economies Theory Laurence R. Iannaccone, 'Why Strict Churches are Strong', American Journal of Sociology 99 (1988): 1180–1211. (Reprinted in Demerath et al.'s Sacred Companies, pp. 269–291.)R. Stephen Warner, 'Work in Progress toward a New Paradigm for the Sociological Study of Religion in the United States', American Journal of Sociology 98 (1993): 1044–1093.Rodney Stark and Roger Finke, 'A Theoretical Model of Religious Economies.' 193–217 in Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000).Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America, 1776–2005: Winners and Loses in Our Religious Economy (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005). 3. New Institutionalism Theory John W. Meyer and Brian Rowan, 'Institutional Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony', American Journal of Sociology 83 (1977): 340–363.Paul DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell, 'The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and the Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields', American Sociological Review 48 (1983): 147–160.Philip Selznick, 'Institutionalism "Old" and "New'' ', Administrative Science Quarterly 41 (1996): 270–277.Mark Chaves, Ordaining Women: Culture and Conflict in Religious Organizations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997). 4. Organizational Ecology Theory Michael T. Hannan and John Freeman, 'The Population Ecology of Organizations', American Journal of Sociology 83 (1977): 929–984.J. Miller McPherson, 'An Ecology of Affiliation', American Sociological Review 48 (1983): 519–532.Pamela A. Popielarz and J. Miller McPherson, 'On the Edge or In Between: Niche Position, Niche Overlap, and the Duration of Voluntary Association Memberships', American Journal of Sociology 101 (1995): 698–721.Nancy Tatom Ammerman, Congregation and Community (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997). 5. Resource Dependence Theory Richard Emerson, 'Power‐Dependence Relations', American Sociological Review 27 (1962): 31–41.Howard E. Aldrich and Jeffrey Pfeffer, 'Environments of Organizations', Annual Review of Sociology 2 (1976): 79–105.John P. Kotter, 'Managing External Dependence', The Academy of Management Review 4 (1979): 87–92.Roger Finke and Christopher P. Scheitle, 'Understanding Schisms: Theoretical Explanations for their Origins', 11–33 in Sacred Schisms: How Religions Divide, eds. James R. Lewis and Sarah M. Lewis (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009).Seminar/project ideaAn Organizational Study of a CongregationMany religious studies courses have students visit a local congregation with the intent of learning about the theology or culture of a group. Such observational learning is valuable for students and likewise can be directed toward the organizational aspects of a congregation. Groups of students (either self‐selected or assembled by the professor) will study a local congregation for the semester. The study has two parts:
Congregational profile. Each group must describe the purpose, participants, and performance of their congregation. Purpose, participants, and performance represent core features of all organizations. In congregations, purpose/goals/mission often is shaped by denominational heritage. What is the purpose or mission of the congregation? Is it widely understood and agreed upon? Participants include leaders and laity. Who are they? Where did they come from? Why are they there? What do they do for the congregation? Performance involves what the congregation does and the outcome of such activity. What happens at worship services? What other programs does the congregation operate? And, most notably, is the congregation growing or declining? Theoretical evaluation of current performance. Growth and decline in religious organizations are important outcomes for investigation. The final step of the group project is for students to apply one of the theories discussed in class to explain the growth or decline experienced in the congregation.
Answering these questions will require intensive investigative work. Group members should plan to attend the congregation's services and meetings, review relevant on‐line or print media from the congregation, and interview members and leaders.The semester‐long project will culminate with an oral presentation made in class and a written report submitted to the professor.(Final note to faculty: If possible, allow a day or two after all presentations have been made to discuss what groups' research overall says about the religious ecology of the local community. What types of religious groups are most prevalent in the area (Evangelical Protestant, Mainline Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, other)? Which are growing? Which are declining? How does this compare to national trends? And, of course, return to the question of why.)Note * Correspondence address: Pennsylvania State University. Email: cps153@psu.edu and Kevin_Dougherty@baylor.edu.
