Showing papers in "Japanese Sociological Review in 1986"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors take note of the forms which the actor may utilize to present his self in accordance with the rules of situational propriety and make his action significant to others, and make an attempt to explain why Goffman, for all his symbolic interactionist tendency that placed stress on the creative subjectivity of the actor, intruded into his school's tabooed area of the objective aspects of situation through the influence of the Durkheimian bias that emphasizes the constraint of social fact.
Abstract: Erving Goffman's “dramaturgy” provides a great stimulus to those who are concerned with studies of forms and implications of everyday human experience in relation to social situation. His dramaturgy is an approach using the theatrical metaphors to describe the subjective as well as the objective fact of social interaction. It assumes that one's “self” is an artificial product presented within the closed system of social situation, just as “a character” on the stage is the output of an existing script, completely detached from the wider world outside the theater.This paper takes note of the forms which the actor may utilize to present his self in accordance with the rules of situational propriety and make his action significant to others. With proper attention to these forms, an attempt is made to explain why Goffman, for all his symbolic interactionist tendency that places stress on the creative subjectivity of the actor, intruded into his school's tabooed area of the objective aspects of situation through the influence of the Durkheimian bias that emphasizes the constraint of social fact. In answering the above question, we also discuss the structure, which, latent in every surface manifestation of experience, attaches meanings to the forms of experience.
4 citations
TL;DR: The uniqueness of Japanese society can be attributed to the fact that the family, one of the most fundamental institutions in society, exhibits the dual nature of both modernity and tradition.
Abstract: A dual structure is a social structure which simultaneously contains elements of both modernity and tradition within itself. The uniqueness of Japanses society can be attributed to the fact that the family, one of the most fundamental institutions in society, exhibits the dual nature of both modernity and tradition.Analyses of external and internal aspects of the Japanes family today reveal that it is not modern or traditional, but that it is a harmonious coexistence of both modernity and tradition. For example, external or demographic characteristics of the Japanese family examined in the present study all demonstrate the modern nature of the Japanese family today. The internal or structural nature of the Japanese family and household today, on the contrary, exemplifies the persistence of the traditional elements. These findings suggest that the uniqueness of the Japanese family today exists in the very fact that it is externally modern but internally traditional. This harmonious coexistence of traditional-modern nature of the Japanese family today in a certain sense parallels the history of Japan as a modern society, in that Western industrial technology was enthusiastically adopted, but at the same time traditional Japanese culture was retained. This duality is the essence of Japanese society today as well as the unique feature of the contemporary Japanese family.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors define the environmental history as the study on the tradition and knowledge of peoples' everyday life which have been accummulated in the number of generations and emphasize the rebellious traits based on uniqueness of local cummunities in modernizing society where unifying power on everyday life is strongly permeating.
Abstract: Although various approaches from social sciences have been made as to the issue of environmental degradation, sociological studies are very limited so far in Japan in terms of both the scope and the number of the study. The scope of the environmental study from the sociological fields are limited to pathological sociology, citizens' movement, or some system's approaches. This paper proposes a possibility of new field of environmental study, namely environmental history, which deals with environmental problems from the standpoint of cultural and historical studies of local communities. Here, we define the environmental history as the study on the tradition and knowledge of peoples' everyday life which have been accummulated in the number of generations. In other words, this approach emphasizes the uniqueness of each local community in terms of cultual and historical backgrounds of contemporary environmental issues. We also emphasize the rebellious traits based on uniqueness of local cummunities in modernizing society where unifying power on everyday life is strongly permeating. This paper also deals with the perceptional background of uniqueness of local communites in terms of meanings of space and localities where peoples' daily experiences are usually sublimated into a collective illusion. This collective illusion sometimes plays an important role in the decision making process at local level.
2 citations
1 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyzed the career-formation process of managerial women by interrelating the subjective and objective factors, through tracing the personal history of working life from entering a company until now.
Abstract: Equality between women and men, the utilization of women's capability and their promotion are urgent problems in recent years. In this paper, the career-formation process of managerial women are analyzed.In most studies of managerial women, the preventing factors have been investigated. On the contrary, the promoting factors are made clear in this research by the procedure of life history which regards subjective factors as important.Firstly, the process of career-formation is explained by interrelating the subjective and objective factors, through tracing the personal history of working life from entering a company until now. At the same time, some typical patterns are classified noticing the qualitative representation.Secondly, the characteristic factors promoting career-formation are examined. They are factors of the history, industries, companies, human relations, the movement and the consciousness.
1 citations
1 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed a life-environmentalism, which is a kind of social theories under some ideology or ism. And they called their ideology as a life environmentalism, to distinguish it from a natural environmentalism which emphasizes ecological setting, and from a modern techno-centrism which put its emphasis on the modern techniques.
Abstract: How valid is science to environmental problems? We, scientists, implicitly feel hatred towards those who place “science” and “validity” into the same category. Since science is one type of our knowledge, it should not necessarily have to benefit society. This kind of opinion is frequently heard among scientists.However, when we see the destructions of the environment occuring in front of our own eyes, we desperately need to fill the gap between science and environ-mental problems. Our science is not fully efficient, though.What makes things worse is that environmental problems do not fit with the method of science. For instance, in the field of sociology one can discover the method of re-organization of inhabitants in the regions where environment has destroyed. Also one can point out the characteristics of movements concerning ecology and even classify the movements. But you step forward wanting to “diagnose” the problem, you will find yourself soon holding up your hands in surrender. And then we, field reseachers, have intended to make a framework which is suitable to analize and even diagnose the environmental problems oc-curing in communities.Our foci are as follows. We consider all social theories in the world are under some ideology or ism. And we call our ideology as a “life-environmentalism”. This is the naming to distinguish it from a natural-environmentalism which emphasizes ecological setting, and from a “modern techno-centrism” which put its emphasis on the modern techniques without doubt. We just stand the same position with the inhabitants who live everyday life in communities. We try to understand the meaning of the traditional knowledges and the logics having been fostered in everyday life, of organization they have made. In other words, our starting point to analize social problems are to try to understand what is the “facts” to the inhabitants but not to the scientists.
1 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors have been studying the characteristic features of networking, taking up some cases of civil activities to produce co-developing power among local inhabitants in urbanized societies in Japan today.
Abstract: Civil activities are manifold in the city, but networking is defined as consistent social movements in which citizens create life culture, trying to solve social contradictions voluntarily. The meaning of networking will be explained by making a mutually-related examination of the principles of civil activity in the movement, organization and creative culture.My view of the matter is hypothesized by dividing into twelve standards in this essay in which I have been studying the characteristic features of networking, taking up some cases of civil activities to produce co-developing power among local inhabitants in urbanized societies in Japan today.Consequently the question is that the networking raises the tension both on the self-governing body's administration and on the local organization (CHONAIKAI) in Japan. Therefore an important problem is how to create a primary network based upon daily voluntary activities. Such a daily activity is expected to exercise a basic influence both upon the administration and the local organization, creating a new way of community life. Another problem is that an inevitable change in consciousness is brought on the side of the staff actually engaged in administrating.To solve the two problems we must notice inhabitants' universally-oriented autonomy especially in Japan's networking. Studying this form of networking has revealed contradictions lurking in the city. On the other hand, the more urgently important the solution becomes, the more amplified the qualitative networking linked with civil activities becomes while the networking itself has contradictions and complications. It is yet to be expected that a dynamic law of the networking in Japan's urbanized societies can be defined by researching such action, organization and culture as created by civil movements.
TL;DR: In this article, the problem of "misplacedness" of the concrete reality of life world from the abstract reality of science is discussed, and the same problem is also discussed in Niklas Luhmann's system theory from a different point of view.
Abstract: It has recently become very popular in such a discipline as sociology, philosophy and linguistics that the matter of everyday experience, everyday knowledge and everyday life comes into reconsideration in all its aspects. In the sphere of sociology the problem of everyday life is discussed mainly in what is called “new” sociology, such as ethnomethodology, symbolic interactionism and phenomenological sociology.In this paper the matter will be discussed in three points as follows.1. What is the impulse that makes sociologists turn their interests to the problem of everyday life? Why is the everyday experience-oriented sociology called “new” ? How and in any problem-context are the matter of everyday experience and system theory related with each other?2. We will examine as a typical example of Parsons-Schutz dispute about the theory of social action the problem of “misplacedness” of the concrete reality of life world from the abstract reality of science, which is clarified in the section 1.3. One can find that the same problem of the section 2 is also discussed in Niklas Luhmann's system theory from a different point of view, that is, one of the self-hypostatization of science. Luhmann insists that the self-hypostatization of science can only be solved by means of self-thematization of social system. We must critically examine the logic of Luhmann's thesis.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the family policy in U.S. A. and found that the character of emotional motivation is changing moral motivation become weeker and utilitarian motivation is invasing family activities.
Abstract: Family activities in modern society differ from labour in the market sector. Illich notices family activities are non-payment labour and Boulding notices family activities are characterized by ‘gift’ instead of exchange. These characters have been maintained by exclusin of utilitarian motivation and supply of emotional and moral motivation, instead market sector have been maitained by supply of utilitarian motivation and exclution of emotional and moral motivation. This division of motivational mechanism has supported the production and reproduction of the capitalist society. The recent family situation in advanced capitalist society is shaking this division system. The character of emotional motivation is changing moral motivation become weeker and utilitarian motivation is invasing family activities. Consequently, the case that sufficient activities of family isn't supplied and that family activities execute for the market sector increase in number. The government of capitalist states have noticed this motivational crisis in the family sector, and have intervened the family activities, but not successfully. I try to examine this process, examplifing the family policy in U. S. A..
TL;DR: In interrelations of adjacent occupations every occupation shows clearly the possibility or the impossibility of its professionalizing, and the occupations whose job territories overlap with those of their adjacent occupations, or whose functions can be included by those of the adjacent occupations professionalize to a high degree.
Abstract: In interrelations of adjacent occupations every occupation shows clearly the possibility or the impossibility of its professionalizing. Accordingly I analyze the interrelations on medical occupations, legal ones, and so on.Between adjacent occupations, one occupation is prevented from professionalizing by the other occupation when the job territory of the former overlaps with that of the latter, or the function of the former can be included by that of the latter. The cause of non-professionalizing is A or B.A. The theoretical knowledges which both or either of those occupations uses are insufficiently systematic.B. The technology of the former occupation is confined in a part of vertically divided service process while that of the latter occupation is not confined.Therefore, by the removal of each cause, the occupations whose job territories overlap with those of their adjacent occupations, or whose functions can be included by those of their adjacent occupations professionalize to a high degree. But all the occupations can not remove each cause. Some of the occupations can remove it and others can not.
TL;DR: In this paper, the status inconsistency among three status varilables of education, occupational prestige and income is analyzed using two parallel methods: (1) status inconsistency score analysis and (2) cluster analysis.
Abstract: The big social change toward levelling and equalizaton in the social stratification in postwar Japan is first referred as a general background, and then the presentation of results of empirical data analysis of status inconsistency trends based upon the Japanese 1955, 1965 and 1975 national surveys on Social Stratification and Mobility follows as the main part.Status inconsistency among three status varilables of education, occupational prestige and income is analyzed using two parallel methods : (1) status inconsistency score analysis and (2) cluster analysis.The central research findings are : (1) that the degree of status inconsistency has consistently increased in these twenty years, whichever method of analysis is used; (2) that according to the result of cluster analysis, the part of status inconsistency is bigger than that of status consistency in the Japanese society and the former has been consistently growing in these twenty years; (3) that the social attitude, such as subjective strata identification and political party support, of status inconsistent part stands generally in the middle between the two extremes of the high-consistent group and the low-consistent group. Lenski's thesis that status inconsistency generates frustration and anger and stimulates identification with progressive political parties cannot be supported by Japanese data.Authors interpret that status inconsistency is not an abnormal and unhealthy state, but rather an ordinary and natural state in highly industrialized and modernized societies, and that it is one of the important factors in realizing levelling and equalization in such societies.
TL;DR: In this paper, a Schlussel zu the Frage in der Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns zu finden is given, e.g., wie Sprachentfremdung auftritt, blieb bisher ziemlich unklar.
Abstract: Es wird oft behauptet, das viele Probleme des modernen Bewustseins als Sprachentfremdung analysiert werden konnen. Aber wie die Sprachentfremdung auftritt, blieb bisher ziemlich unklar. Der Zweck dieses Aufsatz ist, einen Schlussel zu dieser Frage in der Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns zu finden.Ich ziehe dabei zuerst die in der Sprechakttheorie von J.L. Austin bis J. Habermas entwickelten Konzeptionen der Bedeutung und der Funktionen der Sprechakte heran. Sodann disktiere ich in diesem Zusammenhang A. Lorenzers Thorie von der Rolle Sprachentfremdung bei psychischen Krankheiten. Dabei erweisen sich die folgenden Punkte als bedeutend : -die Unterschiede zwischen der Kraft (force) und der Effekte des Sprechakts-die Unterschiede zwischen Sprechaktregeln und objektiven Kausalgesetzen-die Unterschiede zwischen Verstandnis und Interpretation-zwei Typen der Sprachentfremdung.Auf diese Diskussion grunde ich meine These, das die heutigen Sprachentfremdungen durch die Trennung des Effekt von der Kraft des Sprechakts und durch den Druck des Effekt auf die Kraft verursacht werden. Im Lichte dieser These konnen wir viele Phanomene besser analysieren, z.B. das Schrumpfen der Kommunikation und das Wuchern der Information, das Uberhandnehmen der Interpretation und der durch Signale konditionierten Reflexe.Damit lassen sich auch die gesellschaftlichen Probleme des heutigen Bewu Btseins tiefer verstehen.