Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

Introduction 1. Woman's Place in Man's Life Cycle 2. Images of Relationship 3. Concepts of Self and Morality 4. Crisis and Transition 5. Women's Rights and Women's Judgment 6. Visions of Maturity References Index of Study Participants General Index

In a Different Voice. Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge, MA (Harvard University Press) 1982.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.2307%2F3343168.pdf

Development as Freedom

Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world's top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers - often implicitly - assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these "standard subjects" are as representative of the species as any other population. Are these assumptions justified? Here, our review of the comparative database from across the behavioral sciences suggests both that there is substantial variability in experimental results across populations and that WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species - frequent outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the heritability of IQ. The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior - hence, there are no obvious a priori grounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation. Overall, these empirical patterns suggests that we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions of human nature on the basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity. We close by proposing ways to structurally re-organize the behavioral sciences to best tackle these challenges.

/pdf/the-weirdest-people-in-the-world-480wr4m3kb.pdf

The WEIRDest People in the World

Since critics first allegedthat feminism claimed tospeak universally for all
women, feminist researchers havebeen acutely aware ofthe limitations of 
genderas a single analyticalcategory. In fact, feministsare perhaps alone in
the academy in theextent to which theyhave embraced intersectionality – the 
relationshipsamong multiple dimensions andmodalities of social relations
and subject formations – as itselfa central category ofanalysis. One could 
evensay that intersectionality isthe most important theoreticalcontribution 
that women’s studies,in conjunction with relatedfields, has made sofar.1

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/426800

The Complexity of Intersectionality

For the past 15 years, sociologists have been engaged in a lively conversation about the place of public engagement in our discipline. This topic gained renewed salience after the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States in November 2016. While many (but not all) sociologists reacted negatively to his political platform, the American Sociological Association (ASA) was particularly concerned with his policies that threatened conditions essential for knowledge production—to take only one example, Trump’s executive order declaring a ban on travel from seven Muslim countries. The ASA responded by signing a multisociety letter of protest, as this constituted a direct hindrance to freedom of movement and thus to the free exchange of ideas. As I was serving as president of the association starting in August 2016, it fell on me to take a leadership role in defending our professional interests. This short essay describes some of the actions the ASA took during my presidency.

Sociology's Response to the Trump Presidency: Views from the 108th ASA President

Thinking about standards in qualitative research: Interdisciplinary Standards for Systematic Qualitative Research

The sociology of the social sciences had developed rapidly in the last few decades. Researchers have given special attention to the development and institutionalization of sociology. Despite the availability of a large body of literature on various national sociological fields, comparative studies of the discipline are still few. The existing studies rarely compare these fields systematically along salient dimensions.

Comparing French and American Sociology

The corona pandemic has exposed the interconnected, tightly coupled and vulnerable globalised world. This White Paper sets the scientific stage for understanding and responding to such crises for global sustainability and resilient societies. We provide a systemic overview of the current situation; where people and nature are dynamically intertwined and embedded in the biosphere, placing shocks and extreme events as part of this dynamic; where humanity has become the major force in shaping the future of the Earth system as a whole; and where the rapid expansion of the human dimension has caused climate change, simplification of life on earth, growing inequalities, and loss of resilience to deal with uncertainty and surprise. Taken together, human actions are challenging the biosphere foundation for a prosperous development of civilisations. The Anthropocene reality, of rising turbulence, calls for transformative change towards sustainable futures. Emerging technologies, social innovations, broader shifts in cultural repertoires, as well as a diverse portfolio of active stewardship of human actions in support of a resilient biosphere are highlighted as essential parts of such transformations.

Our Future in the Anthropocene Biosphere: Global sustainability and resilient societies

This essay first describes some of the impressive theoretical and empirical contributions of The Sociology of Philosophies, namely, to cultural sociology. Second, it offers a criticism of Collins's argument by focusing on the conceptions of the self it posits; its lack of specificity concerning the relationship between intellectual networks and imagined communities of scholars; and its neglect of how the law of small numbers is affected by the size of a field. Against a priori definitions of the selves of intellectuals posited by Collins, I advocate approaching the diversity of their selves as an empirical issue. Against Collins's overemphasis on personal network centrality in the making of philosophical greatness, I propose that the transcendent values of intellectual work are insufficient but nonetheless necessary conditions for philosophical greatness.

Michèle Lamont

Papers

Sociology's Response to the Trump Presidency: Views from the 108th ASA President

Thinking about standards in qualitative research: Interdisciplinary Standards for Systematic Qualitative Research

Comparing French and American Sociology

Our Future in the Anthropocene Biosphere: Global sustainability and resilient societies

Three Questions for a Big Book: Collins’s The Sociology of Philosophies