Social change

About: Social change is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 61197 publications have been published within this topic receiving 1797013 citations.

Interpreting Outcomes of Social Skills Training for Students with High-Incidence Disabilities:

Abstract: Social competence is particularly salient for students who are classified into one of the high-incidence disability groups such as specific learning disabilities, mental retardation, emotional disturbance, or attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Among the most popular of the instructional approaches for these students has been social skills training (SST). Various meta-analyses of the literature suggest that SST has not produced large, socially important, long-term, or generalized changes in social competence of students with high-incidence disabilities. Probable explanations for the weak effects in some meta-analyses are discussed and specific recommendations are offered for designing and producing more effective SST interventions.

The Impact of Family Formation Change on the Cognitive, Social, and Emotional Well-Being of the Next Generation

Abstract: Summary How have recent changes in U.S. family structure affected the cognitive, social, and emotional well-being of the nation’s children? Paul Amato examines the effects of family formation on children and evaluates whether current marriage-promotion programs are likely to meet children’s needs. Amato begins by investigating how children in households with both biological parents differ from children in households with only one biological parent. He shows that children growing up with two continuously married parents are less likely to experience a wide range of cognitive, emotional, and social problems, not only during childhood but also in adulthood. Although it is not possible to demonstrate that family structure causes these differences, studies using a variety of sophisticated statistical methods suggest that this is the case. Amato then asks what accounts for the differences between these two groups of children. He shows that compared with other children, those who grow up in stable, two-parent families have a higher standard of living, receive more effective parenting, experience more cooperative co-parenting, are emotionally closer to both parents, and are subjected to fewer stressful events and circumstances. Finally, Amato assesses how current marriage-promotion policies will affect the well-being of children. He finds that interventions that increase the share of children who grow up with both parents would improve the overall well-being of U.S. children only modestly, because children’s social or emotional problems have many causes, of which family structure is but one. But interventions that lower only modestly the overall share of U.S. children experiencing various problems could nevertheless lower substantially the number of children experiencing them. Even a small decline in percentages, when multiplied by the many children in the population, is a substantial social benefit.

Manufacturing hope and despair : the school and kin support networks of U.S.-Mexican youth

Abstract: Relying on ethnographic and statistical data, this volume documents the many constraints and social forces that prevent Mexican-origin adolescents from constructing social networks, and thus social support. The role of social networks in shaping young people's chances is illuminated.

Activist Challenges to Deliberative Democracy

Abstract: It seems there is an insuperable contradiction between two conceptions of social change : one rooted in collective action and critique by activists, the other based on the construction of a collective agreement after a fair deliberation, as argued by deliberative democrats. Through a dialogue between these two positions, this essay casts a new light on certain limitations of deliberative democratic norms, especially in a context of wide structural inequalities, making public discussion hardly ever equitable. In so doing this essay emphasizes the democratic virtues of non-deliberative and contentious political practices. It is only by opening deliberation to non-argumentative and critical forms of expression that it can achieve its ideal of inclusion and social change.

New Social Movements: Challenging the Boundaries of Institutional Politics (1985)

Abstract: Political sociologists and political scientists who analyze Western European politics have made it a commonplace since the 1970s to emphasize the fusion of political and nonpolitical spheres of social life. They have seriously questioned the usefulness of the conventional dichotomy of “state” and “civil society.” Processes of fusion are evident not only on the level of global sociopolitical arrangements, but also among citizens as elementary political actors. The delineation between “political” and “private” (in other words, moral or economic concerns and modes of action) is becoming blurred.