Showing papers on "Ideal type published in 2007"

Defensible spaces: ideologies of professionalism and teachers' work in the romanian private tutoring system

Abstract: This study seeks to analyze the nature and extent of as well as the reasons for the private tutoringactivity practiced by fifty-one Romanian secondary education teachers. The findings of my research draw to the conclusion that, although undeniably present, material self-interest does not prevail in their work as private tutors. Instead, their chief goal has been consistently to gain more professional and social status - a goal challenged by successive regimes of contrasting political hues. While identifying the ways in which their work in schools has been "proletarianized" and in which the economic and the political have pervaded their teaching activities, they understand their private tutoring work as a critical solution in a critical period of transition in the Romanian society. This practice has grown into a very well organized, hierarchical system, which aims to recuperate an ideal type of relation teacher-student and to offer them authority, autonomy, prestige and economic rewards - exactly the elements that are at the heart of their ideals of "professionalism". Besides being a subtle answer to the education policy changes, private tutoring is a momentous attempt at re-legitimating their profession and restoring their professional and social images.

The Concept of "Religion" in Mesoamerican Languages

Abstract: The article examines whether the indigenous languages in the cultural region called Mesoamerica comprise words corresponding to the European concept of "religion." In spite of the fact that the highly advanced phonetic (i.e. logosyllabic) writing systems are capable of expressing and recognising abstract representations in the languages, extant pre-Columbian Mesoamerican inscriptions do not contain words which can be rendered as "religion." Attention has therefore been directed to the descriptions of indigenous languages made by Spanish ethnographer-missionaries in the 16th and 18th centuries. Six indigenous lexemes translated as "religion" in colonial dictionaries, are analysed. It is, however, argued that the native terms for "religion" were in reality constructed by the Spanish ethnographer-missionaries in order to promote evangelisation and the conversion of the indigenous people. Nevertheless, it is not ineffective to operate with "religion" as an etic notion when analysing Mesoamerican cultures. A theory is put forward suggesting that a linguistic/philological examination of a given language offers a strategy for defining "religion" as a cultural analytical category according to Max Weber's notion of "ideal type."

Max Weber's Influence on Schumpeter

Abstract: During his whole lifetime, Schumpeter shows a deep concern with Max Weber’s methodological writings. In Schumpeter’s first book, Epochen der Dogmen- und Methodengeschichte (1908), the Weberian concept of Wertfreiheit (freedom from evaluation) allows Schumpeter to stress the non-normative character of economic science. The subsequent Theorie der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung (1912) is also influenced by Weber. The Kreislauf (circular flow) is an Idealtypus (ideal type) in the Weberian sense. Also apparently taken from Weber are the hedonistic or ‘rational’ motives which animate the Kreislauf. In the inter-war period, while the two sociological essays on imperialism still continue to use Weber’s concepts of Idealtypus and rationality in the Weberian sense, Schumpeter’s subsequent reflections on econometrics and above all his Business cycles (1939) show a sort of uncertainty between an empiricist attitude towards research, not in contradiction with Weber, and an ‘historicist’ and idealist approach to economics. In the History of Economic Analysis (1954) Weber’s lesson is definitively dismissed. Instead of defining economic science through the rationality of economic agents, Schumpeter adopts a broad approach that includes economic history among the techniques of economic ‘analysis’, in apparent agreement with the German Historical School. Similarly, Weber’s Wertfreiheit seems to be abandoned, since Schumpeter argues that ‘vision’ interferes to some extent with ‘analysis’, and it is almost impossibile to keep the former distinct from the latter. This interference, however, may lead to the ‘Ricardian vice’, i.e. the false belief that abstract scientific propositions are immediately suitable for resolving practical problems. This approach, by which economic science is annihilated and turned into political action, was mainly followed by John Maynard Keynes.

Pierre Bourdieu on the Verstehende Soziologie of Max Weber

Abstract: Pierre Bourdieu was influenced by and critical of the work of Max Weber. In articles written in the early 1970's on Weber's analysis of prophets and priests in ancient Judaism, Bourdieu questioned key elements of Weber's verstehende soziologie including his predecessor's privileging of the conceptual over the non-conceptual in the understanding of human behavior and utilization of the ideal type "charisma." Bourdieu, at the same time, extended Weber's work on religious specialists and the evolution of the religious field in the West. In closing, I compare Bourdieu's advice to the Weberian sociologist of religion with that offered by Mary Douglas and Jon Elster.

Ideal Types as Hermeneutic Concepts

Abstract: My paper sets out to demonstrate that Weber's ideal-typical theory of concept formation, subject to certain modifications, is compatible with the principles of philosophical hermeneutics and is therefore a valuable strategy of concept formation for interpretive historical inquiry. The essay begins with a brief recapitulation of the philosophical-hermeneutic approach to the human sciences. I then chart out the affinities as well as the discrepancies between philosophical hermeneutics and Weber's theory of the ideal type. Against this backdrop, I proceed to offer a number of correctives and additions to Weber's theory so as to tighten its fit with philosophical hermeneutics. First, I argue that the ideal type's proper logic of concept formation is a logic of significance rather than a logic of commonality. Second, I claim that the relationship between the various empirical cases to which a given ideal type is (or can be) applied is a Wittgensteinian relationship of family resemblance. Finally, I present two main kinds of epistemological functions that ideal types can fulfill within the framework of historical inquiry: argumentative and orientational-clarificatory.

A Heuristic Attempt at Understanding Economic Action in South Korea

Abstract: This article presents a heuristic attempt at understanding economic action in South Korea. The heuristic is based on the idea of experience-near concepts — as introduced by Clifford Geertz — and constructed by the terms 'affiliation', 'indebtedness' and 'mediation'. In order to enrich the understanding of economic action in Korea I chose the interplay between the functionalist and the interpretivist paradigm. Qualitative interviews with native and foreign executives were conducted on site and interpreted against the background of (Neo-)Confucianism in South Korea. For the purpose of the study I developed 'the (Neo-)Confucian way of life' as an ideal type, following Max Weber's 'ideal typical construction of meaning'.

Towards a New Professional Autonomy in the Public Sector

Abstract: In 2001 Eliot Freidson published his last book “Professionalism, The Third Logic” before he died in 2005. In this book he presents professionalism as the third ideal type alongside Adam Smith’s ‘free market’ and Max Weber’s ‘bureaucracy’. In his opinion all three are alternative models for the organisation of work. Freidson’s concept of professionalism is sketched in the first paragraph, along with some comments. Next, this ideal type is used to describe the amount of professionalism in the present day public sector, and it is concluded that, due to political primacy, most professionals in the public sector have limited professionalism compared to Freidson’s ideal type. Also different kinds of public sector professionals are distinguished, like public managers, inspectors of different kind, care and welfare ‘workers’, etc. In the third paragraph some developments in the public sector are sketched that interfere with professionalism. These developments try to make public services more efficient and transparent but as a result de-professionalise public service delivery. In the last paragraph Freidson’s pledge for ‘re-professionalization’ is translated to the public sector. It is my opinion that at least part of the professionals working in the public service should have a ‘doctor-like’ autonomy with accompanying associations and regulations like codes of ethics, internal reviews etc. Here the political primacy again is the most important element to take into account. Ideally politicians should not interfere with professional decisions. The conditions under which such a ‘new professionalism’ is thinkable, are examined. I propose not to organise professional autonomy on the individual level, but on the level of working units or teams. In such a way a collective professionalism is created, and the conditions can be maintained much better.