Showing papers on "Social change published in 1969"

The Ritual Process : Structure and Anti-Structure

Abstract: In The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, Victor Turner examines rituals of the Ndembu in Zambia and develops his now-famous concept of "Communitas". He characterises it as an absolute inter-human relation beyond any form of structure. The Ritual Process has acquired the status of a small classic since these lectures were first published in 1969. Turner demonstrates how the analysis of ritual behaviour and symbolism may be used as a key to understanding social structure and processes. He extends Van Gennep's notion of the "liminal phase" of rites of passage to a more general level, and applies it to gain understanding of a wide range of social phenomena. Once thought to be the "vestigial" organs of social conservatism, rituals are now seen as arenas in which social change may emerge and be absorbed into social practice. As Roger Abrahams writes in his foreword to the revised edition: "Turner argued from specific field data. His special eloquence resided in his ability to lay open a sub-Saharan African system of belief and practice in terms that took the reader beyond the exotic features of the group among whom he carried out his fieldwork, translating his experience into the terms of contemporary Western perceptions. Reflecting Turner's range of intellectual interests, the book emerged as exceptional and eccentric in many ways: yet it achieved its place within the intellectual world because it so successfully synthesized continental theory with the practices of ethnographic reports."

Development of an Empathy Scale.

Abstract: The concept of empathy—the intellectual or imaginative apprehension of another's condition or state of mind— is central for understanding a broad range of social phenomena including, in particular, moral development. Within this latter context, an empathic disposition can be regarded as the capacity to adopt a broad moral perspective, that is, to take "the moral point of view." This paper discusses the development of a 64-item self-report measure of empathy, constructed by comparing the responses of groups with high- and low-rated empathy, using the combined MMPI-CPI item pool. After providing evidence concerning the scale's reliability and validity, an attempt is made to show its relevance for specifically moral conduct by relating empathy scale scores to real life indexes of socially appropriate behavior and to certain previously wellvalidated measures of personality. Some form of empathic disposition, roletaking ability, or social sensitivity is assumed by all approaches to personality which take the interpersonal situation as a major focus of concern. Accordingly, most writers in the role-theoretical tradition (Cottrell, 1942; Gough, 1948; Mead, 1934; Sarbin, 1968) have given careful attention to this aspect of social functioning. Mead, for example, has argued that role-taking ability is the key variable in social and moral development; extending this line of reasoning he equates the "g" factor in intelligence with social sensitivity, the origins of which can be found in the central nervous system. In a similar vein, Cottrell and Dymond (1949) also maintained that empathy is the basic process in all social interaction. Empathy, seen as an everyday manifestation of the disposition to adopt a broad moral

History and Social Theory

Abstract: * Preface *1 THEORISTS AND HISTORIANS * A Dialogue of the Deaf * The Differentiation of History and Theory * The Dismissal of the Past * The Rise of Social History * The Convergence of Theory and History *2 MODELS AND METHODS * Comparisons * Models * Quantitative Methods * The Social Microscope *3 CENTRAL CONCEPTS * Roles and Performances * Sex and Gender * Family and Kinship * Communities and Identities * Class and Status * Social Mobility and Social Distinction * Consumption and Exchange * Social and Cultural Capital * Patrons and Clients * Power and the Public Sphere * Centres and Peripheries * Hegemony and Resistance * Social Protest and Social Movements * Mentalities, Ideologies, Discourses * Communication and Reception * Postcolonialism and Cultural Hybridity * Orality and Textuality * Memory and Myth *4 CENTRAL PROBLEMS * Rationality versus Relativism * Concepts of Culture * Consensus versus Conflict * Facts versus Fictions * Structures versus Agents * Functionalism * The Example of Venice * Structuralism * The Return of the Actor *5 SOCIAL THEORY AND SOCIAL CHANGE * Spencera s Model * Marxa s Model * A Third Way? * Essays in Synthesis * Patterns of Population * Patterns of Culture * Encounters * The Importance of Events * Generations *6 POSTMODERNITY AND POSTMODERNISM * Destabilization * Cultural Constructions * Decentering * Beyond Eurocentrism? * Globalization * To Conclude * Bibliography * Index

Social Structure and Political Participation: Developmental Relationships, Part I

Abstract: Economic development has consequences for many aspects of social life. Some of these social consequences, in turn, have an impact on a nation's political life. Studies of social mobilization, for example, have demonstrated that economic development is associated with sharp increases in the general level of political participation. These studies report strong relationships between aggregate socio-economic measures such as per capita income, median level of education, and percentage of the population in urban areas, on one hand, and aggregate measures of political participation, such as voting turnout, on the other. Simultaneously, scholars conducting surveys of individual political participation consistently have reported that an individual's social status, education, and organizational memberships strongly affect the likelihood of his engaging in various types of political activities.In spite of the consistency of both sets of findings across many studies and although the findings appear frequently in analysis of political stability, democracy, and even strategies of political growth, we know little about the connections between social structure and political participation. With few exceptions the literature on individual participation is notable for low level generalizations (the better educated citizen talks about politics more regularly), and the absence of systematic and comprehensive theory. While the literature on the growth of national political participation has been more elaborate theoretically, the dependence on aggregate measures has made it difficult to determine empirically how these macro social changes structure individuals' life experiences in ways which alter their political behavior.

Marketing's Changing Social Relationships:

Abstract: What are marketing's boundaries in a highly automated, industrialized society? What are marketing's social responsibilities today? These and other important questions are raised by the author. He c...

Family Planning in Taiwan: An Experiment in Social Change

Abstract: The experimental family planning program begun in 1963 in Taichung, the provincial capital of Taiwan, was the largest intensive program of its kind ever to be carried out for a sizable concentrated population Its use of systematic observation and measurements was also unique In evaluating the program and the data gathered, the authors seek to establish the extent to which the decline in Taiwan's fertility level resulted from the program rather than from the changes already underway in the society at that time Finally, two vital questions occupy them: What has been learned in Taiwan, and how much of this can be applied to other developing countries with rapid population growth? Originally published in 1969 The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905

Contending Forces: A Romance Illustrative of Negro Life North and South

Abstract: Published in 1900, this is Hopkins's best-known novel, and her only fiction to be published in book form in her lifetime. Like her magazine fiction, it employs the conventions of the sentimental novel with the goal of effecting social change. A uniquely detailed examination of black life, and a richly textured piece of fiction, it is one of the most important works produced by an Afro-American before the First World War.

The Social Organization of Legal Contacts

Abstract: This is a study of how both the organization of the legal system and of citizen affairs lead citizens to define affairs as legal matters and to seek advice from a lawyer. The data are from a sample survey of the problems and legal experiences of 780 residents of the Detroit Metropolitan Area, 604 white and 176 Negro. The findings show that income and location in the social structure affect citizen contacts with attorneys not only by providing relevant resources but by determining their types of problems. Each type of problem has its own pattern of requirements and constraints for the use of legal services. The type of problem, institutionalized definitions about it, available resources, and the social organization of problem solution engender contacts with the legal profession.

Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America: The Quest for the New Moral World

Abstract: Robert Owen and the Owenites were associated with the rise of an early industrial society in Britain and with the development of an agricultural, frontier society in the United States during the first half of the nineteenth century. This book, originally published in 1969, was the first to use both British and American source material, and tells the story of Robert Owen and the movement associated with his name, from the standpoint of comparative social and intellectual history. The book directs new light on Owenism, and at the same time illuminates general problems of the history of social movements and social change in modern societies.

Social Planning: The Search For Legitimacy

Abstract: Where does the reform oriented planner get his authority to propose social change? A review of city planning experience suggests four sources of authority: expertise, bureaucratic position, consumer preferences, and professional values. In a parallel fashion, social reformers have looked to elite institutional interests, social science research, and client participation in their search for legitimacy. The dilemma is that individually each approach limits the effectiveness of planning, yet the various sources of authority are mutually exclusive and cannot be pursed together by one planning organization. The difficulties of this choice between approaches are central to the education of social policy planners.

IV. Women Preachers in Mid-Victorian Britain: Some Reflexions on Feminism, Popular Religion and Social Change

Abstract: Of the making of books on the women's rights movement there is no end, but detailed study of the ways in which the role of women changed in the second half of the nineteenth century has by comparison hardly begun. Yet it is clearly such investigations alone which can show how far the conventional stress upon feminism has been well judged. The religious activities of nineteenth-century British society are admittedly very far from being the area in which the greatest changes occurred in this connexion. Nevertheless for two reasons their investigation seems well worth while. In the first place, when ‘the woman question’ first attracted widespread attention among the British middle classes, the churches were still the great arbiters of public attitudes towards social issues, and the social influence of religious beliefs, practices and institutions was undoubtedly far more extensive than, for example, that of John Stuart Mill or the National Society for Women's Suffrage.