Showing papers on "Social system published in 1987"

Doing Time: Dynamics of Imprisonment in the Reformist State

Abstract: Most explanations of official social control point either toward reform movements or the imperatives of the social system as dominantly influencing imprisonment rates, with little attempt to integrate these distinct casual processes. This study aims to disentangle these effects by arguing that the strategic behavior of official state actors plays an intervening role in the punishment process that determines the relative salience of reform and systems effects. The empirical analysis focuses on the expansion of prisons and jails in the American states between 1880 and the early 1920s. Treating reform in terms of the adoption of probation, parole, and indeterminate sentencing legislation, and treating the social system as a store of resources likely to affect institutional expansion, the analysis pursues a series of dynamic additive and interactive models. The findings support the argument that reforms introduced discretion into the social control system and allowed official actors greater freedom to adjust their behavior to shifting bureaucratic and political constraints.

Higher Education and Social Stratification: An International Comparative Study.

Abstract: Higher education and social stratification: an international comparative study , Higher education and social stratification: an international comparative study , مرکز فناوری اطلاعات و اطلاع رسانی کشاورزی

Modelling the world : the social constructions of systems analysts

Abstract: This dissertation is concerned with a case study of system dynamics, a well-known simulation modelling methodology, and its implicit theory of social system behaviour. System dynamics is policy oriented and is directed towards the control and management of social systems. It originally evolved in the context of military systems and then the application of systems engineering to the problems of corporate management, but was later expanded to tackle the problems of urban decay, population growth, and environmental collapse. It is therefore now aimed at large scale social engineering. The aim of the dissertation is to take tools drawn largely from the sociology of knowledge in order t o provide a perspective on the development of this particular strand of the systems movement. We investigate the status of system dynamics as a cultural artefact which is both a product of social structures and a resource for mediating and reinforcing such structures. The dissertation is addressed to the systems community, but must also meet the academic standards of the sociology of knowledge. There are seven chapters. The first two deal with the background to system dynamics and with methodological aspects of the perspective adopted in our approach. The following two chapters examine system dynamics as a social construction: firstly, with special emphasis on the social development of the cultural context in which it evolved; and secondly, on the social experience and cosmology of the System Dynamics Group at MIT. The next two chapters deal with the social effects of system dynamics, particularly its role as a 'binding agent' in negotiating social consensus. The seventh and final chapter discusses our conclusions.

The Social System of Mathematics and National Socialism: A Survey*

Abstract: This paper offers an historical survey of problems arising in German mathematics during the rise and rule of National Socialism. Underlying this effort is the goal of developing a theoretical understanding of the social history of scientific disciplines in modern societies. The first part of the paper gives a brief description of the social system of mathematics and the characteristics of National Socialism. Second, an analysis of the background and structure of the attempt to construct a “German” mathematics related to Nazi-ideology is given. This appears as an anti-modemist movement prompted by the rise of mathematical formalism. The basic relations between mathematical and political thought are analyzed and the reasons for the failure of the “German” movement discussed. The third section examines the integration of mathematics into Nazi-German society, focusing on the twin processes of adaptation and resistance by professional societies. It is argued that social differentiation within the system of mathematics, as well as its modern cognitive and social universality, were preconditions of adaptation.

Human Systems, Communication and Educational Psychology

Abstract: The concepts of systems theory and cybernetics have played a fascinating role in the development of contemporary biology and social science. In the decades of the 40s, 50s and 60s, there was much resistance to some of the more grandiose claims concerning the aims and aspirations of the emerging disciplines: that here, indeed, were new paradigms that brought order and unity to interand intra-disciplinary conceptual confusion. What tended to happen was that useful concepts were borrowed by specialists working within particular disciplines and their origins obscured or forgotten. In some cases, the borrowing was curiously partial. In psychology for example, 'information processing' approaches, have deployed cybernetic concepts of feedback, control, information storage and retrieval, but have neglected or ignored the systemic properties of selforganisation. The problem with such partial borrowing is that the baby may be lost with the bath water. A new trend or fashion arises without proper foundations only to be superseded by some other. In recent years, concepts from systems theory have been introduced into the practice of educational psychology. In this essay, I attempt to give some proper grounding for these concepts. In particular, in section 2 I look at what is meant by a social system, arguing that the systemic properties of social institutions, such as families and schools, arise out of the particular nature of persons as social beings and their forms of communication and interaction. In this way, I trust I avoid facile analogising based on the truism that 'the whole is more than the sum of its parts' and leave intact the psychologist's traditional concern with the individual. From the perspective developed, I hope it is clear that, whether he sees it that way or not, the psychologist is always influenced by, and influencing, the systems around him. As a preliminary, in section 1 I briefly overview the chief tenets of systems theory and cybernetics. In section 3, albeit briefly and partially, I examine the implications for the practice of educational psychology as revealed by the systems perspective.

An Accounting Scheme for Designing Science Impact Indicators The Knowledge System Perspective

Abstract: The social system of knowledge—or knowledge system, for short—is an accounting scheme that helps organize the search for social impact of science (SIS) indicators. The accounting scheme specifies six related knowledge functions (production, structuring, storage, distribution, utilization, and mandating) that are performed in different domains (industry, agriculture, education, and so forth) by many institutions and organizations that vary in size, autonomy, specialization, and complexity. By mediating relations between science and society, these institutions and organizations facilitate and retard the impact of science on the larger society. The knowledge systems accounting scheme also helps identify aspects of science impacts on society (e.g., scientific evidence), aspects of society on which science impacts (e.g., the economy, polity, and culture), and structures by which social impacts of science are mediated (e.g., technical communities). The knowledge system provides a conceptual base for the future ...

Towards holistic social work practice in general medical settings.

Abstract: This paper describes the development by field educators and social work students of a generalist model of practice related to work with general medical practitioners. The model developed outlines the values, knowledge and skills required to respond to the problems presented by intervening in a wide range of social systems. Effective social work practice is related to successful collaboration with the doctors. This is facilitated when there are close administrative links and when both groups are aware of the different perceptions on client/patient care. Conflict resolution is facilitated when the social worker encourages a focus on what it best for the client/patient and can articulate and demonstrate a practice perspective that links interactions among social, economic, political and health factors in people's lives.

Adult Education and Social Policy

Abstract: For far too long, adult education has been an under-resourced area of provision. Although there is substantial evidence from throughout the world that governments are increasingly intervening in adult education, particularly in the context of development, adult education has too often lost out in status, prestige-and resource allocation-in comparison with other sectors of education. This tendency can be readily rationalised. Adult education is alleged to be a movement rather than a service. It is readily identified with the MOPIC syndrome: marginality, uncertainty of objectives, inadequacy of performance indicators and competitive provision. For the United Kingdom, it has been too readily equated with the 'liberal' education of adults, a definition which ignores the bulk of provision in the public sector. Yet notwithstanding these and other perceptions, adult education has always been an instrument of social purpose. To some, it has been a means of changing a redundant social system; to others, it is an agent for change which enables those on the periphery of society to gain access to the centre. Adult education has educated those whose work maintains a society in being; it has also served to facilitate cohesion and integration. In short, adult education has always been an object of social policy and the instigator of that policy. It is with the analysis of this relationship that Colin Griffin is concerned. He starts from the premise that whilst neither social policy nor adult education readily lend themselves to precise definition, there can be little doubt that adult education is an object of social policy or that the policies of adult education are indeed social. On this basis, he examines the relationship of the state and social policy, particularly in the context of the welfare state in Western society, before developing a three-fold analytical typology. These social policy models are identified as the market models, the progressive-liberal-welfare models, and social control models. Each is also conceptualised as an adult education model. This forms Part One of a well-written book. The models which are derived from those set out in social policy textbooks will not necessarily be familiar to adult educators. Griffin, however, clearly presents their main features using examples drawn from practice to amplify the theoretical framework, and although his discussion of broad models may be too simplistic for social policy theorists, he provides a most useful introduction for adult educationalists.

egalitarian structures in Iberian social systems: the contexts of turn‐taking in town and country

Abstract: Corporately organized, egalitarian systems of turn-taking and cost-sharing in local economic, administrative, and ceremonial life are found in Iberian communities of different sizes. Here their occurrence in the countryside is reviewed and analyzed together with new material, historical and modern, on the Spanish city of Soria, which gives perspective on the integration of egalitarian structures into the hierarchical wider society. Ideological aspects of the turn-taking systems are explored and the position of the “rotative community” vis-a-vis the wider social system, with their contrasting styles of interpersonal relations, is assessed, [social organization, economic institutions, ritual organization, urban social structure, urban history, Spain, Iberia]

Induced change and stability in psychological and social systems

Abstract: This research showed important new cyclical causal connections derived from prior knoweldge and extending it. The cyclical causal connections appeared between a paricular kind of training, negotiation skills (psychological), influence (social), self-esteem (psychological), and risk taking (social), and back to negotiaion skills (psychological) in a particular community action group, andperhaps in most community action groups in similar conditions. The theory explicates a theory of community empowerment, a cyclical series of pyschological and social forces that move in revolution and respond to shock with both change and restabilization. The findings provide an explication of the paradox of social change and stability in a community: Both the change (developmental or decremental) and the stability (sustaining or stifling) lie in the relationships between social and psychological variables, the very relationships that both propel and limit change in the levels of the variables, once the change is initiated.

Niklas Luhmann: His contribution to the sociology of religion

Abstract: This article examines the version of religion outlined by Niklas Luhmann. In line with the tradition represented by Durkheim, Luhmann argues that religion embodies social reality. Nonetheless, according to Luhmann, society is not an abstract system, but a reality based on a commonly held stock of knowledge. Thus religious activity is the process whereby a common referent for interaction is established, and not something that originates from an abstract system. Religion, in this sense, is social and grounded. In order to illustrate clearly this shift in understanding religion, Luhmann's and Parsons' work are compared.

Small Industry as a Social System

Abstract: Reference to 'systems' in the analysis of economy of society — historical or contemporary — indicate that even less formal economic arrangements constitute a system or a sub-system. Thus we have learnt about the manorial system, the domestic system and the factory system. Historically, the movement from one stage to another may be seen as one following a definite pattern of development of one system over the other. As for instance, the development of modern factory system has been, to a large extent, possible through the replacement of domestic system of production. Such historical course of events, however, is not uniform in character. The vast human experiences gathered from the vagaries of economic activities in developing societies reveal that several stages of economic functions coexist without any striking change in one by the other. The objectives of this paper are to investigate into the predominant industrial behaviour, especially the small scale industrial behaviour, and to identify the type of social system arising out of such behaviour. Such an attempt must start with the analysis of history and definitions of the economic behaviour concerned.