Showing papers on "Social change published in 1996"

The rise of the network society

Abstract: From the Publisher: This ambitious book is an account of the economic and social dynamics of the new age of information. Based on research in the USA, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, it aims to formulate a systematic theory of the information society which takes account of the fundamental effects of information technology on the contemporary world. The global economy is now characterized by the almost instantaneous flow and exchange of information, capital and cultural communication. These flows order and condition both consumption and production. The networks themselves reflect and create distinctive cultures. Both they and the traffic they carry are largely outside national regulation. Our dependence on the new modes of informational flow gives enormous power to those in a position to control them to control us. The main political arena is now the media, and the media are not politically answerable. Manuel Castells describes the accelerating pace of innovation and application. He examines the processes of globalization that have marginalized and now threaten to make redundant whole countries and peoples excluded from informational networks. He investigates the culture, institutions and organizations of the network enterprise and the concomitant transformation of work and employment. He points out that in the advanced economies production is now concentrated on an educated section of the population aged between 25 and 40: many economies can do without a third or more of their people. He suggests that the effect of this accelerating trend may be less mass unemployment than the extreme flexibilization of work and individualization of labor, and, in consequence, a highly segmented socialstructure. The author concludes by examining the effects and implications of technological change on mass media culture ("the culture of real virtuality"), on urban life, global politics, and the nature of time and history. Written by one of the worlds leading social thinkers and researchers The Rise of the Network Society is the first of three linked investigations of contemporary global, economic, political and social change. It is a work of outstanding penetration, originality, and importance.

Justice, nature, and the geography of difference

Abstract: Thoughts for a Prologue. Introduction. Part I: Orientations. 1. Militant Particularism and Global Ambition. 2. Dialectics. 3. A Cautionary Tale on Internal Relations. 4. The Dialectics of Discourse. 5. Historical Agency and the Loci of Social Change. Part II: The Nature of Environment. Prologue. 6. The Domination of Nature and its Discontents. 7. Valuing Nature. 8. The Dialectics of Social and Environmental Change. Part III: Space, Time and Place. Prologue. 9. The Social Construction of Space and Time. 10. The Currency of Space-Time. 11. From Space to Place and Back Again. Part IV: Justice, Difference and Politics. Prologue. 12. Class Relations, Social Justice and the Political Geography of Difference. 13. The Environment of Justice. 14. Possible Urban Worlds. Thoughts for an Epilogue. Bibliography. Index.

Translating social ecological theory into guidelines for community health promotion.

Abstract: Health promotion programs often lack a clearly specified theoretical foundation or are based on narrowly conceived conceptual models. For example, lifestyle modification programs typically emphasize individually focused behavior change strategies, while neglecting the environmental underpinnings of health and illness. This article compares three distinct, yet complementary, theoretical perspectives on health promotion: behavioral change, environmental enhancement, and social ecological models. Key strengths and limitations of each perspective are examined, and core principles of social ecological theory are used to derive practical guidelines for designing and evaluating community health promotion programs. Directions for future health promotion research are discussed, including studies examining the role of intermediaries (e.g., corporate decision-makers, legislators) in promoting the well-being of others, and those evaluating the duration and scope of intervention outcomes.

The university in ruins

Abstract: Foreword by Diane Elam Acknowledgments 1. Introduction 2. The Idea of Excellence 3. The Decline of the Nation-State 4. The University within the Limits of Reason 5. The University and the Idea of Culture 6. Literary Culture 7. Culture Wars and Cultural Studies 8. The Posthistorical University 9. The Time of Study: 1968 10. The Scene of Teaching 11. Dwelling in the Ruins 12. The Community of Dissensus Notes Index

The death of the social? Re-figuring the territory of government

Abstract: The social, as a plane of thought and action, has been central to political thought and political programmes since the mid-nineteenth century. This paper argues that, while themes of society and concerns with social cohesion and social justice are still significant in political argument, the social is no longer a key zone, traget and objective of strategies of government. The rise of the language of globalization indicates that economic relations are no longer easily understood as organized across a single bounded national economy. Community has become a new spatialization of government: heterogeneous, plural, linking individuals, families and others into contesting cultrual assemblies of identities and allegiances. Divisions among the subjects of government are coded in new ways; neither included nor excluded are governed as social citizens. Non-political strategies are deployed for the management of expert authority. Anti-political motifs such as associationism and communitarianism which do not seek to ...

India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity

Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. Economic Development through Social Opportunity 3. India in Comparative Perspective 4. China and India 5. Public Action and Social Inequality 6. Basic Education as a Political Issue 7. Gender Inequality and Women's Agency 8. Well Beyond Liberalization Statistical Appendix

The social development model: A theory of antisocial behavior.

Abstract: This chapter presents a theory of antisocial behavior, the social development model, which organizes the results of research on risk and protec· tive factors for delinquency, crime, and substance abuse into hypQtheses regarding the development of antisocial and prosocial behavior. The social development model is grounded in tests of prior criminological theory. It hypothesizes similar general processes leading to prosocial and antisocial development, and specifies submodels for four specific periods during ch ildhood and adolescent development. Theoretical Considerations The social development model seeks to explain a broad range of distinct behaviors ranging from the use of illegal drugs to homicide. Crime, including violent and nonviolent offending and drug abuse, is viewed as a constellation of behaviors subject to the general principles incorporated in the model. .By considering evidence from research on the etiology .of both delinquency and drug abuse, it is possible to identify general constructs that predict both types of behavior and to use this knowledge in specifying predictive relationships in the development of antisocial behavior. ~ used here, the terms delinquency and drug use refer to behaviors. All behaviors are subject to influence from a variety of forces. The same principles, factors, or processes that influence one behavior should predict other behaviors. At the least, this suggests that a theory of antisocial behavior should be able to predict both drug use and criminal behavior, whether committed by children or adults. More ambitiously, it suggests a search for universal factors, mechanisms, or processes that predict all behavior. This implies a general theory. Gottfredson and Hirschi ( 1990), for example, have proposed "A General Theory of Crime," which attributes all criminal Preparation of this chapter was supported in part by grants from the National Insti· tute on Drug Abuse.

Constructionism in Practice: Designing, Thinking, and Learning in A Digital World

Abstract: Contents: Y.B. Kafai, M. Resnick, Introduction. Part I:Perspectives in Constructionism. S. Papert, A Word for Learning. E. Ackermann, Perspective-Taking and Object Construction: Two Keys to Learning. A.A. Brandes, Elementary School Children's Images of Science. Part II:Learning Through Design. Y.B. Kafai, Learning Design by Making Games: Children's Development of Design Strategies in the Creation of a Complex Computational Artifact. Y.B. Kafai, Electronic Play Worlds: Gender Differences in Children's Constructions of Video Games. G. Gargarian, The Art of Design. R. Sargent, M. Resnick, F. Martin, B. Silverman, Building and Learning with Programmable Bricks. Part III:Learning in Communities. A. Shaw, Social Constructionism and the Inner City: Designing Environments for Social Development and Urban Renewal. A. Bruckman, M. Resnick, The MediaMOO Project: Constructionism and Professional Community. M. Evard, A Community of Designers: Learning Through Exchanging Questions and Answers. P.K. Hooper, "They Have Their Own Thoughts": A Story of Constructionist Learning in an Alternative African-Centered Community School. Part IV:Learning About Systems. M. Resnick, New Paradigms for Computing, New Paradigms for Thinking. U. Wilensky, Making Sense of Probability Through Paradox and Programming: A Case Study in a Connected Mathematics Framework. F.G. Martin, Ideal and Real Systems: A Study of Notions of Control in Undergraduates Who Design Robots.

Social Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social Change

Abstract: Can marketing concepts and techniques be effectively applied to the promotion of social objectives such as brotherhood, safe driving, and family planning? The applicability of marketing concepts to...

Writing at the margin : discourse between anthropology and medicine

Abstract: One of the most influential and creative scholars in medical anthropology takes stock of his recent intellectual odysseys in this collection of essays. Arthur Kleinman, an anthropologist and psychiatrist who has studied in Taiwan, China, and North America since 1968, draws upon his bicultural, multidisciplinary background to propose alternative strategies for thinking about how, in the postmodern world, the social and medical relate. Writing at the Margin explores the border between medical and social problems, the boundary between health and social change. Kleinman studies the body as the mediator between individual and collective experience, finding that many health problems--for example the trauma of violence or depression in the course of chronic pain--are less individual medical problems than interpersonal experiences of social suffering. He argues for an ethnographic approach to moral practice in medicine, one that embraces the infrapolitical context of illness, the responses to it, the social institutions relating to it, and the way it is configured in medical ethics. Previously published in various journals, these essays have been revised, updated, and brought together with an introduction, an essay on violence and the politics of post-traumatic stress disorder, and a new chapter that examines the contemporary ethnographic literature of medical anthropology.

Conceiving the new world order : the global politics of reproduction

Abstract: This groundbreaking volume provides a dramatic investigation of the dynamics of reproduction In an unusually broad spectrum of essays, a distinguished group of international feminist scholars and activists explores the complexity of contemporary sexual politics around the globe Using reproduction as an entry point in the study of social life and placing it at the center of social theory, the authors examine how cultures are produced, contested, and transformed as people imagine their collective future in the creation of the next generation The studies encompass a wide variety of subjects, from the impact of AIDS on reproduction in the United States to the aftereffects of Chernobyl on the Sami people in Norway and the impact of totalitarian abortion and birth control policies in Romania and China The contributors use historical and comparative perspectives to illuminate the multiple and intersecting forms of power and resistance through which reproduction is given cultural weight and social form They discuss the ways that seemingly distant influences shape and constrain local reproductive experiences such as the international flows of adoptive babies and childcare workers and the Victorian and imperial legacy of eugenics and family planning

Social Cognition: An Integrated Introduction

Abstract: Chapter 1: Introduction Defining social psychology The crisis in social psychology Social cognition Aims of this book Organization of this book Concluding comments PART I Chapter 2: Theoretical Foundations Introduction to social cognition models Introduction to social identity theory Introduction to social representations theory Introduction to discursive psychology A post-cognitive psychology? PART II Chapter 3: Social Perception Social cognition and social perception Social identity theory and social perception Social representations and social perception Discursive psychology and social perception Chapter 4: Attitudes What is an attitude? Social cognitive approaches to attitudes Attitudes and social identities Attitudes and social representations Discursive psychology and attitudes Chapter 5: Attributions Social cognition and attribution Social identity and attributions Social representations and attributions Discursive social psychology and attributions Chapter 6: Self and Identity Social-cognitive approaches to self and identity Functions of the self Social identity approaches to self and identity Social representations approaches to self and identity Discursive approaches to self and identity Chapter 7: Prejudice Social cognition and prejudice Social identity and prejudice Social representations and prejudice Discursive psychology and prejudice Chapter 8: Ideology Social cognition and ideology Social identity and ideology Social representations and ideology Discursive psychology and ideology PART III Chapter 9: Conclusion The individual and society Levels of analysis Realist vs constructivist epistemologies Social change

Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: States and opportunities: The political structuring of social movements

Abstract: In a 1991 article, John McCarthy, David Britt, and Mark Wolfson begin with an assertion that is often acknowledged in the social movement field but seldom receives the attention it deserves. They write: When people come together to pursue collective action in the context of the modern state they enter a complex and multifaceted social, political and economic environment. The elements of the environment have manifold direct and indirect consequences for people's common decisions about how to define their social change goals and how to organize and proceed in pursuing those goals. (1991: 46) Their observation reflects the findings of a loose archipelago of writings that has developed since the early 1970s around the theme of “political opportunity structure.” In his introduction to this part, Doug McAdam points out that, rather than focus on some supposedly universal cause of collective action, writers in this tradition examine political structures as incentives to the formation of social movements. But there are two major ways of specifying political structures in relation to collective action: as cross-sectional and static structures of opportunity and as intrasystemic and dynamic ones. This essay briefly discusses both but explores in much greater depth why – in my view – “dynamic” opportunities appear to impinge more directly on the decision-making of social movements and permit them to create their own opportunities. A TYPOLOGY OF OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURES As in any developing paradigm, there is a healthy and many-sided debate about how to conceptualize political opportunity structure. Some researchers have focused on large-scale structures, others on ones that are proximate to particular actors; some analyze cross-sectional variations in political opportunity, while others look at how changes in political conflict and alliances trigger, channel, and demobilize social movements.

The Search for Political Community: American Activists Reinventing Commitment

Abstract: This book challenges the myth that Americans' emphasis on personal fulfilment necessarily weakens commitment to the common good. Drawing on extensive participant-observation with a variety of environmentalist groups, Paul Lichterman argues that individualism sometimes enhances public, political commitment and that a shared respect for individual inspiration enables activists with diverse political backgrounds to work together. This personalised culture of commitment has sustained activists working long-term for social change. The book contrasts 'personalised politics' in mainly white environmental groups with a more traditional, community-centred culture of commitment in an African-American group. The untraditional, personalised politics of many recent social movements invites us to rethink common understandings of commitment, community, and individualism in a post-traditional world.

Rise of the Network Society

Abstract: From the Publisher: This ambitious book is an account of the economic and social dynamics of the new age of information. Based on research in the USA, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, it aims to formulate a systematic theory of the information society which takes account of the fundamental effects of information technology on the contemporary world. The global economy is now characterized by the almost instantaneous flow and exchange of information, capital and cultural communication. These flows order and condition both consumption and production. The networks themselves reflect and create distinctive cultures. Both they and the traffic they carry are largely outside national regulation. Our dependence on the new modes of informational flow gives enormous power to those in a position to control them to control us. The main political arena is now the media, and the media are not politically answerable. Manuel Castells describes the accelerating pace of innovation and application. He examines the processes of globalization that have marginalized and now threaten to make redundant whole countries and peoples excluded from informational networks. He investigates the culture, institutions and organizations of the network enterprise and the concomitant transformation of work and employment. He points out that in the advanced economies production is now concentrated on an educated section of the population aged between 25 and 40: many economies can do without a third or more of their people. He suggests that the effect of this accelerating trend may be less mass unemployment than the extreme flexibilization of work and individualization of labor, and, in consequence, a highly segmented socialstructure. The author concludes by examining the effects and implications of technological change on mass media culture ("the culture of real virtuality"), on urban life, global politics, and the nature of time and history. Written by one of the worlds leading social thinkers and researchers The Rise of the Network Society is the first of three linked investigations of contemporary global, economic, political and social change. It is a work of outstanding penetration, originality, and importance.

The Right to Learn and the Advancement of Teaching: Research, Policy, and Practice for Democratic Education

Abstract: Of all the civil rights for which the world has struggled and fought for 5,000 years, the right to learn is undoubt. edly the most fundamental.... The freedom to learn .. . has been bought by bitter sacrifice. And whatever we may think of the curtailment of other civil rights, we should fight to the last ditch to keep open the right to learn, the right to have examined in our schools not only what we believe, but what we do not believe; not only what our leaders say, but what the leaders of other groups and nations, and the leaders of other centuries have said. We must insist upon this to give our children the fairness of a start which will equip them with such an array of facts and such an attitude toward truth that they can have a real chance to judge what the world is and what its greater minds have thought it might be. (pp. 230-231)

A theory of poverty and social exclusion

Abstract: 1. Introduction: The Great Exclusion?. 2. Interdependency and Collective Action. 3. Missing Links. 4. Globalization and the Fragmentation of Welfare States. 5. Community, Polarization and Social Exclusion. 6. The Politics of Enforcement. 7. Conclusions: States and Social Policy. Bibliography and Sources. Index.

Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: The organizational structure of new social movements in a political context

Abstract: ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Organizational infrastructure of social movements Social movement organizations (SMOs) constitute crucial building blocks of the mobilizing structures of a social movement. But, as John McCarthy has pointed out in his introduction to Part II, they are by no means the only components of a movement's mobilizing structures. Other elements of these structures include kinship and friendship networks, informal networks among activists, movement communities, as well as a host of more formal organizations which contribute to the movement's cause without being directly engaged in the process of mobilization for collective action. In conceptualizing the more formal side of the mobilizing structure of a given movement, I would like to suggest that we distinguish between at least four types of formal organizations: SMOs, “supportive organizations,” “movement associations,” and “parties and interest groups.” SMOs are distinguished from the other types of formal organizations by two criteria: (1) they mobilize their constituency for collective action, and (2) they do so with a political goal, that is, to obtain some collective good (avoid some collective ill) from authorities. By contrast, supportive organizations are service organizations such as friendly media, churches, restaurants, print shops, or educational institutions, which contribute to the social organization of the constituency of a given movement without directly taking part in the mobilization for collective action.1 “Supportive organizations” may work on behalf of the movement, their personnel may sympathize with the movement, but their participation in the movement's mobilization for action is at best indirect or accidental.

Control, Interdependence and Power: Understanding Social Cognition in Its Social Context

Abstract: A theory of control in interdependence and power relations is supported by a program of laboratory research Control needs are basic and predict information-seeking in social relationships Those without social power typically seek the most diagnostic information, making individuation more likely Those who do have social power seek less diagnostic information about others and are vulnerable to stereotyping them Moreover, feelings of control not only reflect individual power positions but also group power positions Remaining challenges include the impact of outcome expectations on information-seeking and continuing to remedy the power lacuna in social psychology

Clothing Matters: Dress and Identity in India

Abstract: Winner of Coomaraswamy Prize 1998. In this path-breaking and entertaining study, the author concentrates on the problem of what to wear rather than describing what is worn. She demonstrates how different individuals and groups have used clothes to assert power, challenge authority, define or conceal identity, and instigate or prevent social change at various levels of Indian society from the village to the nation. Three main issues are addressed: questions of national identity as seen through the clothing controversies of the Indian elite in the late colonial period; questions of local identity as experienced by women in rural Gujarat; and the recent development of urban fashion trends which reappropriate regional styles. Emma Tarlo demonstrates the complexity of interaction between these different levels of sartorial change. Thus she combines ethnographic analysis of Gandhi's loincloth and village embroidery with a rich depiction of the importance of clothing in India. The work is amply illustrated with over 100 photographs, advertisements and cartoons.

Reconstructing self and society : Javanese Muslim women and the veil

Abstract: The growing trend among young educated Javanese women to wear Islamic clothing ("veiling") challenges both local customs and Western ideals of modernity. An examination of the personal narratives of 20 Javanese women from Yogyakarta and Solo who adopted this practice suggests that for some Javanese Muslims the veil represents both self-reconstruction and the reconstruction of society through individual and collective self-discipline. These young womens motivations for veiling were simultaneously personal religious and political. Veiling signifies a new historical consciousness that deliberately dissociates itself from the past. The new Islamic movement conceptualizes modernization as reinvesting the secular spheres of life with religious content. During a period of modernization and rapid social change filled with conflicting messages about female social behavior veiling provides women with a sense of identity self-mastery and purpose. The narratives indicate that the social reconstruction process represented by veiling was accompanied by self-reconstruction at the personal level. Each respondent indicated that the decision to wear Islamic clothing had profoundly changed her feelings about herself and was experienced as a spiritual and psychological rebirth. Rather than being a sign of womens lack of autonomy in patriarchal societies veiling represented taking individual responsibility for ones actions often in the face of strenuous opposition from family members and husbands. The act of veiling thus merges personal and collective politics as a step toward constructing a new society guided by Islam.

Balancing Act: Motherhood, Marriage, and Employment Among American Women

Abstract: This study began as a revision of the authors 1986 study entitled American Women in Transition. "In recognition of the change in womens lives we begin this book with an overview of childbearing patterns among American women....Following that we turn to marital status and living arrangements....The middle chapters...review womens socioeconomic gains of the past decade: in education... in labor force and occupational status... in earnings... and in economic well-being and poverty....[The authors also] examine how women combine employment and family roles. The book is organized around the central roles that women occupy throughout their lives. The dominant theme is that most women now perform a variety of paid and unpaid tasks each day rather than specializing in motherhood at one stage of life and possibly employment at another. The strategies devised by individual women to address these simultaneous demands form the demographic patterns described in this book." Data are from a variety of sources both national and international. (EXCERPT)

An Introduction To The Philosophy Of Social Research

Abstract: This is an accessible introduction to the philosophy of social research which relates philosophical ideas to actual research practice. The book makes effective use of illustrations from the UK, US and Europe to examine specific problems and broader issues. The book is intended for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in social research methods within sociology, social policy, politics, social psychology, human geography; philosophy of social science and social theory courses; and as a personal reference for professional researchers.

spatializing culture: the social production and social construction of public space in Costa Rica

Abstract: In this article I explore how an integrated approach to the anthropological study of urban space would work ethnographically. I discuss four areas of spatial/cultural analysis—historical emergence, sociopolitical and economic structuring, patterns of social use, and experiential meanings—as a means of working out of the methodological implications of broader social construction theoretical perspectives. Two plazas in San Jose, Costa Rica, furnish ethnographic illustrations of the social mediating processes of spatial practices, symbolic meaning, and social control that provide insight into the conflicts that arise as different groups and sociopolitical forces struggle to claim and define these culturally significant public spaces. [urban space, ethnographic methods, plazas, Costa Rica, social production, social construction]

The Ontogeny of Social Information Gathering

Abstract: When facing the unknown, humans tend to consult others for guidance. This propensity to treat others as information sources has wide-ranging implications, being in part responsible for the breadth and depth of our world knowledge. As yet, little is known concerning when and how young children acquire this important skill. Social referencing and communicative abilities in infancy have been interpreted by many as reflecting precocious social information-seeking ability, but the evidence is far from compelling and equally compatible with an attachment regulation interpretation. While the evidence indicates that infants as young as 12 months are good consumers of social information, it falls well short of demonstrating that they are active seekers of that information. Moreover, genuine social information seeking requires an implicit conception of the knowledge-ignorance distinction, and existing research on children's theories of mind suggests that such a conception is most likely not available in infancy. For these reasons, we argue for a developmental account of social information-gathering ability, one that is consistent with the larger body of evidence concerning sociocognitive abilities in infants and young children.

Sociology: A Down-To-Earth Approach

Abstract: I. THE SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE1. Culture2. Socialization3. Social Structure and Social Interaction4. How Sociologists Do ResearchII. SOCIAL GROUPS AND SOCIAL CONTROL5. Societies to Social Networks6. Bureaucracy and Formal Organizations7. Deviance and Social ControlIII. SOCIAL INEQUALITY8. Social Stratification in Global Perspective9. Social Class in Contemporary Society10. Inequalities of Gender11. Inequalities of Race and Ethnicity 12. Inequalities of AgeIV. SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS13. The Economy: Money and Work in the Global Village14. Politics: Power and Authority15. The Family: Initiation into Society16. Education: Transferring Knowledge and Skills 17. Religion: Establishing Meaning18. Medicine: Health and IllnessV. SOCIAL CHANGE19. Population and Urbanization20. Collective Behavior and Social Movements21. Technology, Social Change, and the Environment

Human Capital or Cultural Capital?: Ethnicity and Poverty Groups in an Urban School District (Social Institutions and Social Change Series)

Abstract: This study seeks to reorient our understanding of the early educational determinants of social stratification outcomes. It focuses on the process and consequences of unequal cognitive skill attainment for ethnic and poverty groups within our nation's cities. It draws, theoretically, on the notion that experiences at home and school create a feedback loop by which the "cultural capital" of the students (their toolkit of skills, habits, and styles with which they construct strategies of action) evolves over time and largely determines differential success in mastering the teacher-assigned homework.

Social Networks and Social Influences in Adolescence

Abstract: List of tables and figures 1. Introduction. Adolescent Relations: Themes and Theories Part I. Social Relation Introduction 2. Peer Group Structures and Group Life 3. Friendship: The Core Relationship 4. Loneliness and Peer Rejection Part II. Social Influences Introduction 5. The Influence of the School on Social Relations 6. Peer Pressures on Health Risk Behaviour 7. Antisocial Behaviour in Groups and Crowds Part III. Social Support Introduction 8. Social Relations and Support in Adult-Organised Settings 9. Schools as Supportive Environments. References. Index.