Showing papers on "Social change published in 2003"

The culture of control: crime and social order in contemporary, society

Abstract: Nos últimos trinta trinta anos, houve profundas mudanças na forma como compreendemos o crime e a justiça criminal. O crime tornou-se um evento simbólico, um verdadeiro teste para a ordem social e para as políticas governamentais, um desafio para a sociedade civil, para a democracia e para os direitos humanos. Segundo David Garland, professor da Faculdade de Direito da New York University, um dos principais autores no campo da Sociologia da Punição e com artigo publicado na Revista de Sociologia e Política , número 13, na modernidade tardia houve uma verdadeira obsessão securitária, direcionando as políticas criminais para um maior rigor em relação às penas e maior intolerância com o criminoso. Há trinta anos, nos EUA e na Inglaterra essa tendência era insuspeita. O livro mostra que os dois países compartilham intrigantes similaridades em suas práticas criminais, a despeito da divisão racial, das desigualdades econômicas e da letalidade violenta que marcam fortemente o cenário americano. Segundo David Garland, encontram-se nos dois países os “mesmos tipos de riscos e inseguranças, a mesma percepção a respeito dos problemas de um controle social não-efetivo, as mesmas críticas da justiça criminal tradicional, e as mesmas ansiedades recorrentes sobre mudança e ordem sociais”1 (GARLAND, 2001, p. 2). O argumento principal da obra é o seguinte: a modernidade tardia, esse distintivo padrão de relações sociais, econômicas e culturais, trouxe consigo um conjunto de riscos, inseguranças e problemas de controle social que deram uma configuração específica às nossas respostas ao crime, ao garantir os altos custos das políticas criminais, o grau máximo de duração das penas e a excessivas taxas de encarceramento.

The female leadership advantage: An evaluation of the evidence

Abstract: Journalists and authors of trade books increasingly assert a female advantage in leadership, whereby women are more likely than men to lead in a style that is effective under contemporary conditions. Contrasting our analysis of these claims with Vecchio's [Leadersh. Q. 13 (2002) 643] analysis, we show that women have some advantages in typical leadership style but suffer some disadvantages from prejudicial evaluations of their competence as leaders, especially in masculine organizational contexts. Nonetheless, more women are rising into leadership roles at all levels, including elite executive roles. We suggest reasons for this rise and argue that organizations can capture the symbols of progressive social change and modernity by appointments of women in key positions.

Social indicators: the EU and social inclusion

Abstract: Social indicators are an important tool for evaluating a country's level of social development and for assessing the impact of policy. Such indicators are already in use in investigating poverty and social exclusion in several European countries and have begun to play a significant role in advancing the social dimension of the EU as a whole. The purpose of this book is to make a scientific contribution to the development of social indicators for the purposes of European policy‐making. It considers the principles underlying the construction of policy‐relevant indicators, the definition of indicators, and the issues that arise in their implementation, including that of the statistical data required. It seeks to bring together theoretical and methodological methods in the measurement of poverty/social exclusion with the empirical practice of social policy. The experience of member states is reviewed, including an assessment of the National Action Plans on Social Inclusion submitted for the first time in June 2001 by the 15 EU governments. The key areas covered by the book are poverty, including its intensity and persistence, income inequality, non‐monetary deprivation, low educational attainment, unemployment, joblessness, poor health, poor housing and homelessness, functional illiteracy and innumeracy, and restricted social participation. In each case, the book assesses the strengths and weaknesses of different indicators relevant to social inclusion in the EU, and makes recommendations for the indicators to be employed. The book is based on a report prepared at the request of the Belgian government, as part of the Belgian presidency of the Council of the EU in the second half of 2001, and presented at a conference on ‘Indicators for Social Inclusion: Making Common EU Objectives Work’ held at Antwerp on 14–15 Sept 2001.

Multicultural Competence, Social Justice, and Counseling Psychology: Expanding Our Roles

Abstract: The construct of multicultural competence has gained much currency in the counseling psychology literature. This article provides a critique of the multicultural counseling competencies and argues that counseling psychology's operationalization of multicultural competence must be grounded in a commitment to social justice. Such a commitment necessitates an expansion of our professional activities beyond counseling and psychotherapy. While counseling is one way to provide services to clients from oppressed groups, it is limited in its ability to foster social change. Engaging in advocacy, prevention, and outreach is critical to social justice efforts, as is grounding teaching and research in collaborative and social action processes.

Why is son preference so persistent in East and South Asia? a cross-country study of China, India, and the Republic of Korea

Abstract: Son preference has persisted in the face of sweeping economic and social changes in China, India, and the Republic of Korea. The authors attribute this to their similar family systems, which generate strong disincentives to raise daughters while valuing adult women's contributions to the household. Urbanization, female education, and employment can only slowly change these incentives without more direct efforts by the state and civil society to increase the flexibility of the kinship system such that daughters and sons can be perceived as being more equally valuable. Much can be done to this end through social movements, legislation, and the mass media.

Social movements, field frames and industry emergence: a cultural–political perspective on US recycling

Abstract: This article examines how social movements contribute to institutional change and the creation of new industries. We build on current efforts to bridge institutional and social movement perspectives in sociology and develop the concept of field frame to study how industries are shaped by social structures of meanings and resources that underpin and stabilize practices and social organization. Drawing on the case of how non-profit recyclers and the recycling social movement enabled the rise of a for-profit recycling industry, we show that movements can help to transform extant socioeconomic practices and enable new kinds of industry development by engaging in efforts that lead to the deinstitutionalization of field frames.

International Principles For Social Impact Assessment

Abstract: The “International Principles for Social Impact Assessment” is a statement of the core values of the SIA community together with a set of principles to guide SIA practice and the consideration of ‘the social’ in environmental impact assessment generally. It is a discussion document for the impact assessment community to be used as the basis for developing sector and national guidelines. In the process of being developed explicitly for an international context, increasing pressure was placed on the conventional understanding of SIA and a new definition, with official imprimatur of an international professional body, has been formalised. “Social Impact Assessment includes the processes of analysing, monitoring and managing the intended and unintended social consequences, both positive and negative, of planned interventions (policies, programs, plans, projects) and any social change processes invoked by those interventions. Its primary purpose is to bring about a more sustainable and equitable biophysical an...

Towards a Sociology of Forced Migration and Social Transformation

Abstract: Forced migration - including refugee flows, asylum seekers, internal displacement and development-induced displacement - has increased considerably in volume and political significance since the end of the Cold War. It has become an integral part of North-South relationships and is closely linked to current processes of global social transformation. This makes it as important for sociologists to develop empirical research and analysis on forced migration as it is to include it in their theoretical understandings of contemporary society. The study of forced migration is linked to research on economic migration, but has its own specific research topics, methodological problems and conceptual issues. Forced migration needs to be analysed as a social process in which human agency and social networks play a major part. It gives rise to fears of loss of state control, especially in the context of recent concerns about migration and security. In this context, it is essential to question earlier sociological appr...

Older adults' use of information and communications technology in everyday life

Abstract: Social commentators in countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States are beginning to recognise that encouraging older adults' use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is essential for the creation of bona fide information societies. To date, however, few studies have examined in detail older adults' access to and use of ICTs. This important aspect of the interaction between population ageing and societal change is more complex than the published literature's portrayal of a dichotomy between ‘successful users’ and ‘unsuccessful non-users’. The paper examines the extent and nature of ICT access and use by older adults in their everyday lives. Information was collected from a sub-sample of 352 adults aged 60 or more years taken from a large household survey of ICT use in England and Wales among 1,001 people. The findings suggest that using a computer is not only a minority activity amongst older adults but also highly stratified by gender, age, marital status and educational background. Conversely, non-use of computers can be attributed to their low relevance and ‘relative advantage’ to older people. The paper concludes by considering how political and academic assumptions about older people and ICTs might be refocused, away from trying to ‘change’ older adults, and towards involving them in changing ICT.

A Neo‐Gramscian Approach to Corporate Political Strategy: Conflict and Accommodation in the Climate Change Negotiations*

Abstract: A neo-Gramscian theoretical framework for corporate political strategy is developed drawing from Gramsci's analysis of the relations among capital, social forces, and the state, and from more contemporary theories. Gramsci's political theory recognizes the centrality of organizations and strategy, directs attention to the organizational, economic, and ideological pillars of power, while illuminating the processes of coalition building, conflict, and accommodation that drive social change. This approach addresses the structure-agency relationship and endogenous dynamics in a way that could enrich institutional theory. The framework suggests a strategic concept of power, which provides space for contestation by subordinate groups in complex dynamic social systems. We apply the framework to analyse the international negotiations to control emissions of greenhouse gases, focusing on the responses of firms in the US and European oil and automobile industries. The neo- Gramscian framework explains some specific features of corporate responses to challenges to their hegemonic position and points to the importance of political struggles within civil society The analysis suggests that the conventional demarcation between market and non-market strategies is untenable, given the embeddedness of markets in contested social and political structures and the political character of strategies directed toward defending and enhancing markets, technologies, corporate autonomy and legitimacy.

Social inequality and the reduction of ideological dissonance on behalf of the system: evidence of enhanced system justification among the disadvantaged

Abstract: According to system justification theory, people are motivated to preserve the belief that existing social arrangements are fair, legitimate, justifiable, and necessary. The strongest form of this hypothesis, which draws on the logic of cognitive dissonance theory, holds that people who are most disadvantaged by the status quo would have the greatest psychological need to reduce ideological dissonance and would therefore be most likely to support, defend, and justify existing social systems, authorities, and outcomes. Variations on this hypothesis were tested in five US national survey studies. We found that (a) low-income respondents and African Americans were more likely than others to support limitations on the rights of citizens and media representatives to criticize the government; (b) low-income Latinos were more likely to trust in US government officials and to believe that ‘the government is run for the benefit of all’ than were high-income Latinos; (c) low-income respondents were more likely than high-income respondents to believe that large differences in pay are necessary to foster motivation and effort; (d) Southerners in the USA were more likely to endorse meritocratic belief systems than were Northerners and poor and Southern African Americans were more likely to subscribe to meritocratic ideologies than were African Americans who were more affluent and from the North; (e) low-income respondents and African Americans were more likely than others to believe that economic inequality is legitimate and necessary; and (f) stronger endorsement of meritocratic ideology was associated with greater satisfaction with one's own economic situation. Taken together, these findings are consistent with the dissonance-based argument that people who suffer the most from a given state of affairs are paradoxically the least likely to question, challenge, reject, or change it. Implications for theories of system justification, cognitive dissonance, and social change are also discussed. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Social Networks and Political Participation: The Role of Social Interaction in Explaining Political Participation

Abstract: The argument advanced in this article is that interaction in social networks has a strong, though often over-looked, influence on the propensity to participate in politics. Specifically, I argue that social interaction creates opportunities for individuals to gather information about politics that allows them to live beyond personal resource constraints, thereby supporting the political activity of many people. Using relational data from the South Bend Election Study, this article provides evidence that the effect of social interaction on participation is contingent on the amount of political discussion that occurs in social networks. Additional analysis shows the substantive and theoretical importance of such interaction by explaining how it is distinct from the effect of social group memberships and how it enhances the effect of individual education on the probability of participation. This key contribution of this article is to show that models of political participation that do not account for informa...

Implementation, Sustainability, and Scaling up of Social-Emotional and Academic Innovations in Public Schools.

Abstract: Many attempts at bringing successful educational programs and products “to scale” as part of school reform, particularly in urban districts, have been disappointing Based on the experiences of the

Peer interaction and loneliness in high-functioning children with autism.

Abstract: Social interaction with peers and the understanding and feelings of loneliness were examined in 18 high-functioning children with autism and 17 typically developing children matched for IQ, chronological age, gender, and maternal education. Observations were conducted on children's spontaneous social initiations and responses to their peers in natural settings such as recess and snack time, and children reported on their understanding and feelings of loneliness and social interaction. Overall, children with autism revealed a good understanding of both social interaction and loneliness, and they demonstrated a high level of social initiation. However, they spent only half the time in social interactions with peers compared with their matched counterparts, and they interacted more often with a typically developing child than with another special education child. Despite the intergroup differences in frequency of interaction, a similar distribution of interactions emerged for both groups, who presented mostly positive social behaviors, fewer low-level behaviors, and very infrequent negative behaviors. Children with autism reported higher degrees of loneliness than their typical age-mates, as well as a lower association between social interaction and loneliness, suggesting their poorer understanding of the relations between loneliness and social interaction. Research and practice implications of these findings are discussed.

Learning to Teach for Social Justice.

Abstract: In this skillfully crafted and engaging book, a group of student teachers - led by Linda Darling-Hammond - share their candid questions, concerns, dilemmas, and lessons learned about how to teach for social justice and social change. This text provides powerful examples of how Darling-Hammond and her students thoughtfully integrated diversity within a teacher education program - an excellent model for educators who are seeking ways to transform their teacher education programs to better prepare teachers to work effectively in multicultural classrooms. The honest reflections, case studies, lessons, and projects described offer valuable tools to help teachers: - Engage in productive dialogues about both the inequities and the possibilities for social reconstruction within the communities where they will be teaching. - Apply the concepts they are learning in a university classroom to teaching for social justice in their own classrooms. - Find ways to use their insights about diversity to intervene on behalf of victimized and marginalized students.

Fathers’ influences on children’s development: The evidence from two-parent families

Abstract: Although it is often assumed that men have an important influence on their children’s development, the supportive evidence can be difficult to locate and summarize. In this paper, we analyse the evidence with respect to four emergent themes. First, men often appear to interact with their children less sensitively than mothers do, and many children thus appear to form closer attachments to their mothers than to their fathers. Second, the data also indicate that fathers may play specific and important roles, with men in some cultures having clearly defined roles as playmates to their children. Third, paternal play styles predict later socio-emotional development while paternal involvement seems to predict adult adjustment better than maternal involvement does. Such evidence suggests, fourth, that we need appropriate measures of fatherhood that are not simply borrowed from the study of motherhood.

Transforming Leadership: A New Pursuit of Happiness

Abstract: This work looks at how leaders interact with society, and thus how they shape the course of society. It examines how deal makers become the real agents of major social change and illuminates the evolution of leadership structures.

Is Social Capital the Key to Inequalities in Health

Abstract: There has been vigorous debate between the “social capital” and “neomaterialist” interpretations of the epidemiological evidence regarding socioeconomic determinants of health. We argue that levels of income inequality, social capital, and health in a community may all be consequences of more macrolevel social and economic processes that influence health across the life course. We discuss the many reasons for the prominence of social capital theory, and the potential drawbacks to making social capital a major focus of social policy. Intervening in communities to increase their levels of social capital may be ineffective, create resentment, and overload community resources, and to take such an approach may be to “blame the victim” at the community level while ignoring the health effects of macrolevel social and economic policies.

Social Economics: Market Behavior in a Social Environment

Abstract: Acknowledgments Part I The Effect of Social Capital on Market Behavior 1. The Importance of Social Interactions 2. Social Forces, Preferences, and Complementarity 3. Are Choices "Rational" When Social Capital Is Important? Part II The Formation of Social Capital 4. Sorting by Marriage 5. Segregation and Integration in Neighborhoods 6. The Social Market for the Great Masters and Other Collectibles with William Landes 7. Social Markets and the Escalation of Quality: The World of Veblen Revisited with Edward Glaeser 8. Status and Inequality with Ivan Werning Part III Fads, Fashions, and Norms 9. Fads and Fashion 10. The Formation of Norms and Values References Author Index Subject Index

Social Theory and Religion

Abstract: Introduction 1. Religion: a social constructionist approach 2. Secularisation 3. The vagaries of religious pluralism 4. Globalisation and religion 5. Social theory and religious movements 6. Constructing religion, self and society.

New Routes to Social Cohesion? Citizenship and the Social Investment State

Abstract: The notion of social cohesion appears when policy communities are engaged in discussing and redesigning citizenship regimes. One aspect of the citizenship regime with which reformers are concerned is the welfare architecture, and in particular the kind of state needed in the new knowl- edge economy. The main proposition of this paper is that a redesigned welfare structure, undertaken by policy communities concerned about social cohesion, is often one that envisages a social invest- ment state. To explore this hypothesis, the paper proceeds in three steps. First, it briefly documents the emergence in a number of settings of the discourse of "social investment." Second, it maps the differences between two citizenship regimes, the post-war one anchored in social rights and the one under construction now. The paper then turns to examine the consequences of this new regime for the design of social policy in the first decades of the 21st century.

Social Cognitive Theory for Personal and Social Change by Enabling Media

Abstract: Albert Bandura is a leading proponent of social cognitive theory, and his work has directly influenced the development of the entertainmenteducation strategy. After receiving his doctoral degree from the University of Iowa in 1953, he joined the faculty at Stanford University where he has spent his entire career. His initial research centered on the prominent role of social modeling in human thought, affect, and action. The extraordinary advances in the technology of communications have made modeling a key vehicle in the diffusion of ideas, values, and styles of behavior. Another major focus of Bandura’s work concerns the human capacity for self-directedness, which added to our understanding of how people exercise influence over their own motivation and behavior through self-regulative mechanisms. His most recent research is adding new insights on howpeople’s beliefs in their efficacy to exercise control over events that affect their lives contribute importantly to their attainments, resilience in the face of adversity, and psychological well-being. These different lines of research address fundamental issues concerning the nature of human agency.

Cultural economic geography and a relational and microspace approach to trusts, rationalities, networks, and change in collaborative workplaces

Abstract: This paper develops a relational, microspace framework to explain how social interaction (in and outside of workplaces) affects decision making, behavior, and performance in collaborative work. The transfer of critical intangible resources such as trust, across persons outside conventional loci of power in overlapping social networks, entails an evolution of different types of trust. Bridging networks informally on a bottom-up basis depends on complementary social relations and the transformation of trusts based on different rationalities formed in different places and social networks. Understanding collaboration can help as much in constructing positive change as in thwarting destructive, discriminatory work practices.

Migration and other Modes of Transnationalism: Towards Conceptual Cross‐Fertilization

Abstract: Sociological notions such as social network, social capital and embeddedness have proven valuable when adopted into a wide variety of social scientific fields. This has certainly been the case in the sociology of migration. Similarly, certain concepts drawn from studies on different modes of transnationalism - for instance, research and theory concerning the global activities of social movements and business networks - might serve as useful tools for understanding transnational social forms and practices among migrant groups.

Entertainment-education and social change : history, research, and practice

Abstract: Contents: Preface. Part I: History and Theory. A. Singhal, E.M. Rogers, The Status of Entertainment-Education Worldwide. D. Poindexter, A History of Entertainment-Education, 1958-2000. P.T. Poitrow, E. de Fossard, Entertainment-Education as a Public Health Intervention. M. Sabido, The Origins of Entertainment-Education. A. Bandura, Social Cognitive Theory for Personal and Social Change by Enabling Media. W.J. Brown, B.P. Fraser, Celebrity Identification in Entertainment-Education. S. Sood, T. Menard, K. Witte, The Theory Behind Entertainment-Education. Part II: Research and Implementation. S. Usdin, A. Singhal, T. Shongwe, S. Goldstein, A. Shabalala, No Short Cuts in Entertainment-Education: Designing Soul City Step-by-Step. W.N. Ryerson, N. Teffera, Organizing a Comprehensive National Plan for Entertainment-Education in Ethiopia. B.S. Greenberg, C.T. Salmon, D. Patel, V. Beck, G. Cole, Evolution of an E-E Research Agenda. V. Beck, Working With Daytime and Prime-Time Television Shows in the United States to Promote Health. M. Bouman, Entertainment-Education Television Drama in the Netherlands. M.J. Cody, S. Fernandes, H. Wilkin, Entertainment-Education Programs of the BBC and BBC World Service Trust. A.C. La Pastina, D.S. Patel, M. Schiavo, Social Merchandizing in Brazilian Telenovelas. E.M. Rogers, Delivering Entertainment-Education Health Messages Through the Internet to Hard-to-Reach U.S. Audiences in the Southwest. Part III: Entertainment-Education Interventions and Their Outcomes. R.A. Abdulla, Entertainment-Education in the Middle East: Lessons From the Egyptian Oral Rehydration Campaign. Y. Yaser, The Turkish Family Health and Planning Foundation's Entertainment-Education Campaign. N. McKee, M. Aghi, R. Carnegie, N. Shahzadi, Cartoons and Comic Books for Changing Social Norms: Meena, the South Asian Girl. A. Singhal, D. Sharma, M.J. Papa, K. Witte, Air Cover and Ground Mobilization: Integrating Entertainment-Education Broadcasts With Community Listening and Service Delivery in India. A. Singhal, Entertainment-Education Through Participatory Theater: Freirean Strategies for Empowering the Oppressed. T. Tufte, Soap Operas and Sense-Making: Mediations and Audience Ethnography. J.D. Storey, T.L. Jacobson, Entertainment-Education and Participation: Applying Habermas to a Population Program in Nepal. Epilogue.

Using Relationship-Focused Intervention to Enhance the Social- Emotional Functioning of Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Abstract: This study investigates the effectiveness of relationship-focused intervention on the social and emotional well-being of children with autism spectrum disorders. Relationship-focused intervention is a general approach to developmental intervention that encourages and supports parents to enhance their use of responsive interactive strategies during routine interactions with their children. The sample for this study consisted of 20 young children diagnosed with autism or pervasive developmental disorder and their parents. Parents and children received weekly intervention sessions for 8 to 14 months. These sessions focused on encouraging parents to use a Responsive Teaching curriculum to promote children's socioemotional development. Comparisons of pre- and postassessments indicated that the intervention was successful at encouraging mothers to engage in more responsive interactions with their children. Increases in mothers' responsiveness were associated with significant improvements in children's social in...

Oppression and Discrimination among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered People and Communities: A Challenge for Community Psychology

Abstract: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) people continue to experience various forms of oppression and discrimination in North America and throughout the world, despite the social, legal, and political advances that have been launched in an attempt to grant LGBT people basic human rights Even though LGBT people and communities have been actively engaged in community organizing and social action efforts since the early twentieth century, research on LGBT issues has been, for the most part, conspicuously absent within the very field of psychology that is explicitly focused on community research and action–Community Psychology The psychological and social impact of oppression, rejection, discrimination, harassment, and violence on LGBT people is reviewed, and recent advances in the areas of LGBT health, public policy, and research are detailed Recent advances within the field of Community Psychology with regard to LGBT research and action are highlighted, and a call to action is offered to integrate the knowledge and skills within LGBT communities with Community Psychology's models of intervention, prevention, and social change in order to build better theory and intervention for LGBT people and communities

Measuring social capital: Orthodoxies and continuing controversies

Abstract: Studying social capital is widely spread and the concept entered almost each and every field of the social sciences in the last decade. An overview of the available research strategies and empirical approaches of social capital is presented here. Surprisingly, the conceptual heterogenuity is much less reflected in operational and empirical heterogenuity than expected. The field is characterized by several orthodoxies, mainly related to the dominant position of polling methods and the use of straightforward survey questions. Available alternative approaches are limited to the use of official statistics as inverse indicators and to some experiments. The major pitfalls in empirical research on social capital are discussed. Urgently needed are multi-method and multi-level strategies in order to strengthen the role of empirical evidence in the debates on social capital, civil society, and citizenship.