Showing papers on "Contemporary society published in 2016"

Masculinities in Cyberspace: An Analysis of Portrayals of Manhood in Men's Rights Activist Websites

Abstract: A growth in cultural ideologies concerned with men and masculinities in contemporary American society has recently emerged. Men’s rights activist (MRA) groups embody a movement emphasizing the crisis of masculinity. Despite men’s privileged societal status, MRAs seek to establish resources for men to utilize in elevating their perceived subordinated position in society in relation to women and social minorities. Little research has systematically investigated MRAs on the Internet, which is rapidly becoming a primary source of information and social connectedness for people. Through a content analysis of the 12 most prominent MRA websites, we explore the various strategies used by contemporary men’s groups designed to provide support for men in their pursuit of social legitimacy and power. Two primary categories of MRAs with distinctive ideological strategies emerged from this analysis: Cyber Lads in Search of Masculinity and Virtual Victims in Search of Equality. Though both groups promoted men’s entitlement to social power, Cyber Lads utilized themes of explicit aggression towards and devaluation of women, while Virtual Victims adopted political and social movement rhetoric to address men’s issues. The implications of these websites are discussed in terms of gender equality and their potential effects on individual men and women.

Social marketing: the state of play and brokering the way forward

Abstract: Contemporary societies around the world face a number of what have been termed ‘wicked problems’ (Churchman, 1967; Rittel & Webber, 1973). These issues include but are not restricted to health ineq...

Energy demand for everyday mobility and domestic life: Exploring the justice implications

Abstract: The consumption of energy services for everyday mobility and domestic life is a fundamental pre-condition for participating in many contemporary societies, but it can also impact upon current and future generations in ways that raise questions of equity and fairness. Whilst the field of ‘energy justice’ has become more established in recent years, much work remains to be done to further this area of study. In this lead article for a Special Issue on ‘Energy demand for mobility and domestic life: new insights from energy justice’, we begin by outlining the many interlocking issues of (in)justice raised by energy consumption for mobility and domestic services, identifying gaps in the current literature. We then describe the articles within the Special Issue, discussing these in relation to three themes: uneven access to energy and transport services; the unequal burdens of low-carbon policies; and reducing energy demand and the good society. We conclude by highlighting potential directions for future research; for example, conceptualising ‘excessive’ consumption as an issue of (in)justice, and identifying low-energy social practices and arrangements that simultaneously contribute to human well-being.

Learning to labour unequally: understanding the relationship between cultural production, cultural consumption and inequality

Abstract: Inequality has become essential to understanding contemporary society and is at the forefront of media, political and practice discussions of the future of the arts, particularly in the UK. Whilst there is a wealth of work on traditional areas of inequality, such as those associated with income or gender, the relationship between culture, specifically cultural value, and inequality is comparatively under-researched.The article considers inequality and cultural value from two points of view: how cultural value is consumed and how it is produced. The paper argues that these two activities are absolutely essential to understanding the relationship between culture and social inequality, but that the two activities have traditionally been considered separately in both academic research and public policy, despite the importance of culture to British and thus international policy agendas. The article uses the example of higher education in the UK to think through the relationship between cultural consump...

Power, Objectification, and Recognition of Sexualized Women and Men:

Abstract: In contemporary society, sexual objectification is usually thought of as something that men do to women. However, this notion risks conflating the gender of the perpetrator with the fact that men o...

Non-normative critique Foucault and pragmatic sociology as tactical re-politicization

Abstract: The close ties between modes of governing, subjectivities and critique in contemporary societies challenge the role of critical social research. The classical normative ethos of the unmasking researcher unravelling various oppressive structures of dominant vs. dominated groups in society is inadequate when it comes to understand de-politicizing mechanisms and the struggles they bring about. This article argues that only a non-normative position can stay attentive to the constant and complex evolution of modes of governing and the critical operations actors themselves engage in. The article outlines a non-normative but critical programme based on an ethos of re-politicizing contemporary pervasive modes of governing. The analytical advantages and limitations of such a programme are demonstrated by readings of both Foucauldian studies and the works of and debates regarding the French pragmatic sociology of Boltanski and Thevenot.

Zur Mitte drängt sich alles (Teil 2).: Die Gegenwart im Lichte historischer Klassenstudien

Abstract: In public opinion and the social sciences, German post-war society has been interpreted as a ‘society beyond classes’, regardless of the fact that the class structure had not changed to a significant degree since the times of the Weimar Republic. This positive self-image was scientifically confirmed by Theodor Geiger’s study Society in the melting pot (1949) and Helmut Schelsky’s concept of a Leveled middle class society (1953). Even though in the last decades the level of inequality has risen, the mainstream of social and economic research in Germany keeps focusing on the income, living conditions and ‘anxieties’ of a widened and vaguely defined middle class – instead of reflecting the class structure of contemporary society as a whole. This kind of research and sociological thinking tends to focus on the distribution of wealth rather the causes of inequality stemming from the capitalist mode of production. Criticizing the dominant conception of middle classes on the basis of current examples, the author underlines the importance of a classrelated concept of modern capitalist society. The main groups of employees, even the more qualified ones, belong to the majority class of wage earners, not to an opaque ‘middle class’ unduly mixed of small business people, freelancers and dependent labour force. What is needed is a closer look at the changes in class structure and the growing influence of gender, habitus, milieus and ‘ways of life’ – but not at all the ideological and political segregation between the allegedly ‘old’ working class and the allegedly ‘new’ middle classes.

Divisão Sexual do Trabalho e Democracia

Abstract: The aim of this article is to analyze the connections between the sexual division of labor, understood here as a fundamental factor in the production of gender, and the limits of contemporary democracies. The analysis is supported by extensive literature on the subject, accompanied by empirical contributions that allow us to situate the discussion in the Brazilian context. Two axioms and one guiding hypothesis form the three main sections of the article, as follows: (A1) the sexual division of labor is at the heart of gender hierarchies in contemporary societies; (A2) these hierarchies assume different forms according to women’s class and race; (H) the resultant discrepancies – particularly in the form of unequal access to leisure time and income – restrict women’s political participation. Recognition of the impact of the sexual division of labor is made according to a broad vision of politics that takes into account everyday power relations. The analysis highlights how these relations combine to affect access to the political system, in order to help construct theoretical models that incorporate this fundamental dimension of gender relations, the sexual division of labor, and the critical analysis of the limits of democracy.

Employment And The Family The Reconfiguration Of Work And Family Life In Contemporary Societies

Abstract: Thank you very much for downloading employment and the family the reconfiguration of work and family life in contemporary societies. As you may know, people have search numerous times for their chosen readings like this employment and the family the reconfiguration of work and family life in contemporary societies, but end up in harmful downloads. Rather than enjoying a good book with a cup of coffee in the afternoon, instead they juggled with some malicious virus inside their desktop computer.

The hyper(in)visible fat woman: weight and gender discourse in contemporary society

Abstract: Jeannine Gailey’s book has been published at a time when the western world seems universally concerned with bodily appearance. We cannot go a day without an advert for a miracle weight-loss solutio...

Muslim neighbors or an Islamic threat? A constructionist framing analysis of newspaper coverage of mosque controversies:

Abstract: In recent years, growing communities of Muslim-Americans have faced tension in a series of debates over the construction of Islamic prayer spaces in American cities. Islamic community members have found themselves fighting for representation within the political process and for their philosophical right to exist within American society. This study presents a framing analysis of the debate in five US newspapers between 2010 and 2013 as a way of examining the position of Muslims within contemporary American society. The study examines five frames: Local Regulation, Legal Authority, Political Debate, Muslim Neighbors, and Islamic Threat. The first three were episodic frames, while the other two were thematic. Some of the discourse showed evidence of Islamophobia, or indiscriminate negative attitudes or emotions directed at Islam or Muslims. Other stories showed evidence of Islamophilia, which is the stereotypical presentation of ‘good Muslims’ who are model citizens in contrast to the ‘bad Muslims’ who serve...

Precarious worlds: contested geographies of social reproduction

Abstract: The idea of precarity as an ontological condition in contemporary society has been a theme of considerable importance among social scientists of the past couple decades and only more recently among...

Affective capitalism of knowing and the society of search engine

Abstract: Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss the affective premises and economics of the influence of search engines on knowing and informing in the contemporary society. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual discussion of the affective premises and framings of the capitalist economics of knowing is presented. Findings The main proposition of this text is that the exploitation of affects is entwined in the competing market and emancipatory discourses and counter-discourses both as intentional interventions, and perhaps even more significantly, as unintentional influences that shape the ways of knowing in the peripheries of the regime that shape cultural constellations of their own. Affective capitalism bounds and frames our ways of knowing in ways that are difficult to anticipate and read even from the context of the regime itself. Originality/value In the relatively extensive discussion on the role of affects in the contemporary capitalism, influence of affects on knowing and their relation to search engine use has received little explicit attention so far.

Anormative Social Regulation: The Attempt to Cope with Social Morphogenesis

Abstract: The ‘problem of normativity’ concerns the role that society’s value system, norms and conventions play in legislative regulation. Rapid social change was always problematic, for example the swift displacement of French Revolutionary law by the Napoleonic Code. What validated one or the other, since both broke with previous social norms? Traditionally, both legal and social theories had appealed to shared normativity to account for the ‘bindingness’, the sense of obligation held to inhere in the law. However, the intensification of morphogenesis had growing negative repercussions on all the normative components of the legal order: law itself, norms and rules, conventions, custom and etiquette. It is argued that as these elements weaken, ‘Anormative Regulation’ (or ‘Bureaucratic Regulation’) takes over in contemporary society, entailing no ‘ought’, exerting a causal force not a moral one, and operating through penalizations and prohibitions, which are punitive without entailing either a criminal record or invoking social sanction.

Student Politics and Protest: International Perspectives

Abstract: Despite allegations of political disengagement and apathy on the part of the young, the last ten years have witnessed a considerable degree of political activity by young people – much of it led by students or directed at changes to the higher education system. Such activity has been evident across the globe. Nevertheless, to date, no book has brought together contributions from a wide variety of national contexts to explore such trends in a rigorous manner. Student Politics and Protest: International Perspectives offers a unique contribution to the disciplines of education, sociology, social policy, politics and youth studies. It provides the first book-length analysis of student politics within contemporary higher education comprising contributions from a variety of different countries and addressing questions such as: •What roles do students’ unions play in politics today? •How successful are students in bringing about change? •In what ways are students engaged in politics and protest in contemporary society? •How does such engagement differ by national context? Student Politics and Protest: International Perspectives explores a number of common themes, including: the focus and nature of student politics and protest; whether students are engaging in fundamentally new forms of political activity; the characteristics of politically engaged students; the extent to which such activity can be considered to be ‘globalised’; and societal responses to political activity on the part of students. Student Politics and Protest: International Perspectives does not seek to develop a coherent argument across all its chapters but, instead, illustrate the variety of empirical foci, theoretical resources and substantive arguments that are being made in relation to student politics and protest. International in scope, with all chapters dealing with recent developments concerning student politics and protest, this book will be an invaluable guide for Higher Education professionals, masters and postgraduate students in education, sociology, social policy, politics and youth studies.

Progress and disillusion: Civil repair and its discontents

Abstract: Civil Sphere Theory (CST) provides a more dynamic, cultural, and democratically oriented model of contemporary society than either conflict or modernization theory. Civil spheres expand and contrac...

Sport policy evaluation and governing participation in sport: governmental problematics of democracy and health

Abstract: Sport and participation in sport has become an important welfare policy issue and is regarded as a solution to many of the ‘problems’ that face contemporary societies. Together with the ambition of ...

Contemporary Worship Music and Everyday Musical Lives

Abstract: Whilst Contemporary Worship Music arose out of a desire to relate the music of the church to the music of everyday life, this function can quickly be called into question by the diversity of musical lives present in contemporary society. Mark Porter examines the relationship between individuals’ musical lives away from a Contemporary Worship Music environment and their diverse experiences of music within it, presenting important insights into the complex and sometimes contradictory relationships between congregants’ musical lives within and outside of religious worship. Through detailed ethnographic investigation Porter challenges common evangelical ideals of musical neutrality, suggesting the importance of considering musical tastes and preferences through an ethical lens. He employs cosmopolitanism as an interpretative framework for understanding the dynamics of diverse musical communities, positioning it as a stronger alternative to common assimilationist and multiculturalist models.

Secondary school systems and inequality of educational opportunity in contemporary societies

Abstract: In modern societies, education is often seen as a key factor for economic and technological development. The emphasis on individual achievement and the ideal of equal educational opportunities have dominated contemporary school reform debates and political agendas across the world (OECD 2004). Influenced by the results of the PISA studies, educational reformers are aiming to improve both the efficiency and the equity of their school systems (Hanushek and Woessmann 2010). Whereas the organization of primary education is almost uniform across modern societies, systems of secondary school are still very different (Boli et al. 1985; Benavot and Resnik 2006). To understand why there is such a variety of educational differentiation in secondary education across countries today, we must look at the historical roots and legacies in the formation of national school systems (Benavot and Resnik 2006). Secondary education resulted from a long-standing, uneven, and historically contingent process of systematization of schooling and educational forms that involved various logics, ideas, and adaptions until a globalized convergence gained momentum after the end of World War II. It is important to remember that the structure of secondary education served different needs in different nations and genuinely interacted with the dominant cultural, social, economic, and political settings in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For instance, compared to the class-based roots of European school systems, meritocratic and democratic ideals were introduced right from the start when developing the secondary school in the United States. This is best exemplified by the inclusive model of the American ‘high school’ (Benavot and Resnik 2006). In contrast, European models of education started out largely from much more elitist conceptions of

Everyday places, heterosexist spaces and risk in contemporary Sweden.

Abstract: Subjective feelings of risk are a central feature of everyday life, and evidence shows that people who do not conform to contemporary normative notions are often more exposed to everyday risks than others. Despite this, normative notions are rarely acknowledged as risk objects. By drawing on the theory of ‘doing’ and ‘undoing’ risk, which combines intersectional and risk theory, this study contributes new perspectives on the everyday risks in contemporary society that face people who many would label as being ‘at risk’ – lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The study consists of five focus group interviews with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people of different ages in Sweden. Findings pinpoint risks and how these are done and un-done in different spheres of interviewees’ lives: the emotional risks prevailing in their private lives; the risk of discrimination at work and in relations with other institutions; and the risk of violence and harassment in public places. These risks ar...

Rethinking Children And Research Attitudes In Contemporary Society

Abstract: Thank you for reading rethinking children and research attitudes in contemporary society. Maybe you have knowledge that, people have search hundreds times for their chosen novels like this rethinking children and research attitudes in contemporary society, but end up in infectious downloads. Rather than reading a good book with a cup of tea in the afternoon, instead they are facing with some malicious virus inside their desktop computer.

Contextual Responsiveness: An Enduring Challenge for Educational Assessment in Africa

Abstract: Numerous studies in Africa have found that indigenous conceptualization of intelligence includes dimensions of social responsibility and reflective deliberation, in addition to the dimension of cognitive alacrity emphasized in most intelligence tests standardized in Western societies. In contemporary societies undergoing rapid socio-cultural and politico-economic change, the technology of intelligence testing has been widely applied to the process of educational selection. Current applications in Zambia rely exclusively on Western style tests and fail to respond to some enduring cultural preoccupations of many parents, educators and policymakers. We discuss how recent and ongoing research addresses the challenges of eco-culturally responsive assessment with respect to assessment of intellectual functions in early childhood, monitoring initial literacy acquisition in middle childhood, and selection for admission to secondary and tertiary education. We argue that the inherent bias of normative tests can only be justified politically if a compelling theoretical account is available of how the construct of intelligence relates to learning and how opportunities for learning are distributed through educational policy. While rapid social change gives rise to demands for new knowledge and skills, assessment of intellectual functions will be more adaptive in contemporary Zambian society if it includes the dimensions of reflection and social responsibility.

Transtructures : prototyping transitional practices for the design of postindustrial infrastructures

Abstract: This dissertation is about 'transtructures', a term coined to describe new kinds of infrastructures that are more attentive and responsive to the needs of contemporary society, its emerging economi ...

Harry Potter and Contemporary Magic - Fantasy Literature, Popular Culture, and the Representation of Religion

Abstract: This article discusses the reasons for the religious reactions to the Harry Potter novels, arguing that the books contribute to, and reflect, the reconfiguration of religion in contemporary society. The article analyses the media qualities of fantasy literature and the specific representation of magic in the novels and argues that these aspects form an important part of the reasons for the religious reactions. Fantasy literature and other popular culture that represents and mediates religious expressions and phenomena actively contribute to the reconfiguration of, and communication about, religion in contemporary society and are thus of consequence for what we understand ‘religion’ to be in the study of religions.

A visual arts transformative learning practice in the aesthetic re-imagining of contemporary society

Abstract: This thesis is located in the areas of arts education, visual arts learning and society formation. The aims of the study were to undertake an analytical, empirical and conceptual study of the relationship between learning in the visual arts and contemporary society formation; to clarify the conceptual, policy, professional and practical issues relevant to the role of learning in the visual arts in stimulating learning and promoting contemporary society formation in a time of societal transition and change; and to generate theory and develop recommendations for theory, research, policy and practice. The study began with an examination of literature pertaining to the social, cultural and educational contexts of the study, with particular reference to Australia’s diversity, government policies relevant to culture and the arts, and to visual arts education and learning. This qualitative research study adopted an evolutionary epistemology and a meta-theoretical perspective based upon interpretivism. A Grounded Theory Method approach to data gathering and theory development was chosen. There were two distinct stages to the study. Data were gathered initially from teachers and secondary school students and then from a range of artists, senior arts administrators and visual arts educators. Two core categories were identified in the findings of the study. The first core category, Visual Arts Transformative Learning: Something Different and Significant, showed how learning in the visual arts can transform young people’s understanding of self, others and society and how learning in the visual arts itself can be transformed as a mode of learning. Such a transformative and transformed mode of learning can provide something different and significant both in stimulating learning and in contributing to society formation in a time of societal transition and change. The second core category, Re-Imagining Contemporary Society: The Distinctiveness of a Visual Arts Practice, based on data gathered from senior arts advocates, confirmed the relationship between visual arts learning and contemporary society formation, in particular the distinctive manner and form in which a visual arts practice might enable contemporary society to be re-imagined. The emergence of the substantive theory generated in this study, and the manner in which it addresses the central question of the nature of the relationship between learning in the visual arts and contemporary society, was assisted by reference to the metaphor of the loom, the warp and the weft, derived from the craft of weaving. From the examination of the findings, the substantive theory and the analysis of the relationship between the theory and the practice (practical wisdom) generated in this thesis, recommendations were put forward for the advancement of theory, research, policy and practice addressing a visual arts transformative learning practice and the aesthetic re-imagining of contemporary society.

Feminism in community: adult education for transformation

Abstract: Feminism in Community is about the theory and practice of non-profit feminist organizations in contemporary society, both North and South, and the learning that is often invisible or ignored. This ...