Topic
Social system
About: Social system is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2974 publications have been published within this topic receiving 92395 citations.
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TL;DR: The authors explored the possibilities for research embedded in the theoretical, ethical and methodological overlaps between participatory action research and critical race theory, using the Echoes project as a case study, a participatory collective of intentionally diverse youth from New York and New Jersey brought together in the long shadow of Brown, to document and perform educational injustice in their schools.
Abstract: Drawing on the intersections of a justice oriented participatory action research and critical race theory, this essay explores the possibilities for research embedded in the theoretical, ethical and methodological overlaps between the two. Using the Echoes project as a case study, a participatory collective of intentionally diverse youth from New York and New Jersey brought together in the long shadow of Brown, to document and perform educational injustice in their schools, the essay asks social scientists what it means to engage research that takes seriously the idea of mutual implication, or what Anzaldua (Borderlands/La Frontera, The New Mestiza, 1999) calls nos-otras—whereby research is designed to seek knowledge at the nexus of everyday lived experience and intricate social systems; to ask questions that allow individuals to hold multiple, even opposing, identities; to provoke analyses that requires historical re-memory; to destabilize naturalized power hierarchies. Research that calls for socially engaged questions that demand to be answered collectively through research and action.
147 citations
TL;DR: The enduring relevance of Tinbergen's seminal paper ‘On aims and methods in ethology’, with its advocacy of an integrative, four-pronged approach to studying behaviour becomes apparent: an exceptionally fitting tribute on the 50th anniversary of its publication.
Abstract: This paper introduces a Theme Issue presenting the latest developments in research on the interplay between flexibility and constraint in social behaviour, using comparative datasets, long-term field studies and experimental data from both field and laboratory studies of mammals. We first explain our focus on mammals and outline the main components of their social systems, focusing on variation within- and among-species in numerous aspects of social organization, mating system and social structure. We then review the current state of primarily ultimate explanations of this diversity in social behaviour. We approach the question of how and why the balance between behavioural flexibility and continuity is achieved by discussing the genetic, developmental, ecological and social constraints on hypothetically unlimited behavioural flexibility. We introduce the other contributions to this Theme Issue against this background and conclude that constraints are often crucial to the evolution and expression of behavioural flexibility. In exploring these issues, the enduring relevance of Tinbergen's seminal paper ‘On aims and methods in ethology’, with its advocacy of an integrative, four-pronged approach to studying behaviour becomes apparent: an exceptionally fitting tribute on the 50th anniversary of its publication.
147 citations
TL;DR: The conformist approach as mentioned in this paper is based on the assumption that uniformities of individual behavior in a given society can best be understood in terms of certain commonly accepted social values, which most members of the society tend to internalize during their socialization process.
Abstract: After a virtual neglect for several decades, in the last twenty years renewed interest has been shown in a general theory of social behavior. Most of this theoretical work has depended on two main postulates. One is the functionalist (sometimes called structural-functional) approach to the explanation of social institutions, based on the assumption that the social institutions of a given society can best be understood in terms of their social functions, that is, in terms of the contributions they make to the maintenance of social systems as a whole. For lack of an established technical term, we shall call the other postulate the conformist approach to the explanation of individual behavior, it is based on the assumption that uniformities of individual behavior in a given society can best be understood in terms of certain commonly accepted social values, which most members of the society tend to internalize during their socialization process.
146 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a framework that focuses on barriers presented by such social configurations, by motivational factors and by cognitive/background asymmetries, and analyse the contributions and impediments to innovation, and the dilemmas that may arise when innovating in Living Labs.
Abstract: Since their official launch in 2006, over one hundred Living Labs have been established and networked to tackle Europe’s declining economic competitiveness and societal challenges. The innovative potential of Living Labs is based on new social configurations for organising innovation. Applying a framework that focuses on barriers presented by such social configurations, by motivational factors and by cognitive/background asymmetries, our paper analyses the contributions and impediments to innovation, and the dilemmas that may arise when innovating in Living Labs. The first contribution of the paper is to demonstrate the framework’s analytical power to uncover and articulate contributions and challenges inherent to the social dimension of innovation. The second contribution of this explorative study is to pinpoint and examine a number of contributions of and challenges for Living Labs. On the basis of a literature re- view, we untangle and describe the three main facets of the concept: in vivo experimentation on social systems, innovation and product development approaches involving users, or innovation systems. We conclude by gathering crucial questions facing contemporary Living Labs.
146 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a performative theory of systems is proposed to account for social coherence and stratified relations of power through creative forms of social practice alone, rather than depending on sociostructural concepts such as ideology, hegemony, and normative space.
Abstract: Studies of resistance challenge overly structural conceptions of social systems by emphasizing the various forms of creative practice operating within hegemonic space. Yet, by illustrating the different ways that agents respond to a dominant system, resistance theory inadvertently establishes that system as a preestablished entity. Thus, although resistance theory endeavours to recognize the ongoing deconstructs of systems, it simultaneously reifies the system as primary. In response, I argue that this problem is not indicative of a flaw in resistance theory per se, but rather of a flaw in the conception of systems it operates with. Drawing upon Butler's work on performativity, I develop an alternative theory of systems that accounts for social coherence and stratified relations of power through creative forms of social practice alone. Rather than depending on sociostructural concepts such as ideology, hegemony, and normative space, a performative theory of systems situates creative social practice as the...
144 citations