Showing papers on "Social theory published in 2020"

Religion in the Age of Social Distancing: How COVID-19 Presents New Directions for Research

Abstract: In this brief note written during a global pandemic, we consider some of the important ways this historical moment is altering the religious landscape, aiming our investigative lens at how religious institutions, congregations, and individuals are affected by the social changes produced by COVID-19. This unprecedented time prompts scholars of religion to reflect on how to strategically approach the study of religion in the time of "social distancing," as well as moving forward. Particularly important considerations include developing heuristic, innovative approaches for revealing ongoing changes to religion, as well as how religion continues to structure social life across a wide range of contexts, from the most intimate and personal to the most public and global. Although our note can only be indicative rather than exhaustive, we do suggest that the initial groundwork for reconsiderations might productively focus on several key analytical themes, including: Epidemiology, Ideology, Religious Practice, Religious Organizations and Institutions, as well as Epistemology and Methodology. In offering these considerations as a starting point, we remain aware (and hopeful) that inventive and unanticipated approaches will also emerge.

The political economy of socialism : a Marxist social theory

Abstract: This book is an exploration into the uncharted territory of social reality. It explores social relations and politics, presenting a critique of contemporary socioeconomic systems and discussions on the Marxist Doctrine of Transition. The book is intended to meet Robert Heilbroner's request.

Applying intersectionality theory in health promotion research and practice.

Abstract: Health promotion researchers and practitioners are grappling with how to address growing health inequalities for population groups. In particular, critiques of dominant behaviour change approaches draw attention to the need to engage with social theories to better understand the social and relational drivers of health. Public health researchers are increasingly acknowledging intersectionality as an important theoretical approach, providing a framework for investigating health inequalities by highlighting intersections of individuals' multiple identities within social systems of power that compound and exacerbate experiences of ill health. This article provides an overview of the diverse ways public health researchers and practitioners have applied intersectionality theory to better understand and address health inequalities. We map three key applications of intersectionality theory in public health: as an epistemological approach, as a methodological approach, and as a tool for action and intervention. Drawing on this work, we argue that health promotion researchers and practitioners can enhance engagement with intersectionality theory to address important challenges within the field. Through this article, we aim to inspire the continued exploration of intersectionality and offer some insights into opportunities and challenges for doing so in health promotion.

Challenges and opportunities for re-framing resource use policy with practice theories: The Change Points approach

Abstract: Concerns about the climate crisis and the escalating pace of global consumption are accelerating the pressure on governments to moderate public demand for resources like water, food and energy. Notwithstanding their increasing sophistication, standard behavioural change approaches continue to be criticised for a narrow understanding of what shapes behaviour. One alternative theoretical position comes from practice theories, which draw on interpretive and relational understandings to focus on practices rather than people's behaviour, and hence highlight the complex and distributed set of factors shaping resource use. While practice theories have gained considerable interest from policy institutions within and beyond the UK they so far have had limited impact upon policy. It has even been argued that there are insurmountable challenges in reconciling the ontological commitments of practice theories with the realities of policy processes. This article advances academic and policy debates about the practical implications of practice theories. It works with evidence from transdisciplinary research intended to establish whether and how key distinctive insights from social practice research can usefully be brought to bear on policy. We pursued this through co-productive research with four key UK national policy partners, focusing on effective communication of social practice research evidence on agreed issues. A key outcome of collaboratively negotiating challenging social theory to usefully influence policy processes is the ‘Change Points’ approach, which our partners identified as offering new thinking on initiatives promoting reductions in people's use and disposal of resources. The Change Points approach was developed to enable policy processes to confront the complexities of everyday action, transforming both how problems are framed and how practical initiatives for effecting change are developed. We discuss the case of food waste reduction in order to demonstrate the potential of Change Points to reframe behaviour change policy. We end the paper by addressing the potential and limitations of informing policy with insights from practice theories based upon the successes as well as the challenges we have met. This discussion has broader implications beyond practice theories to other fields of social theory, and to debates on the relations between academic research and policy more broadly. We argue that, through a co-productive approach with policy professionals, and so engagement with the practices of policy making, it is possible to provide a partial and pragmatic but nevertheless effective translation of key distinctive insights from practice theories and related research, to reframe policy problems and hence to identify spaces for effecting change for sustainability.

From norms to normative configurations: A pragmatist and relational approach to theorizing normativity in IR

Abstract: Normativity matters in international politics, but IR scholarship will benefit from de-reifying ‘norms’ as units into a relational, configurational alternative. The alternative I propose here is the ‘normative configuration’: an arrangement of ongoing, interacting practices establishing action-specific regulation, value-orientation, and avenues of contestation. This responds to recent constructivist scholarship, particularly from relational sociology and practice theory, that implies the need for ontological and analytical alternatives to ‘norms’ as central concepts responsible for establishing rules, institutions, and values in social life. I offer a way of conceptualizing and analyzing normativity consistent with these alternative approaches. Namely, I have brought together a pragmatist theory of action with the social theories of a number of key relational social theorists and philosophers, oriented around a reading of what norms-talk actually does for social enquiry. I then outline a three stage process – de-reification, attributing agency, and tracing transactions – that allows scholars to study transformations in normative configurations. Finally, I discuss what this contributes to the recent turns toward practices and relations, as the latest direction in constructivist scholarship within the discipline.

Contemporary Trends Of Deliberative Research: Synthesizing A New Study Agenda

Abstract: Deliberation is among the most widely acknowledged figures of thought in social theory. Taking the growing interest in the research conducted around deliberative democracy as an initial position, this paper seeks to provide an overview of recent predispositions and paradigm shifts of approaches taken towards the analysis of real-world discourses. Therefore, as a first step three different – nevertheless correlating – trends of deliberative research are identified: (1) an “empirical turn” and an effort to test and “falsify” assumptions of deliberative theories, (2) the consideration of certain epistemic dimensions of deliberative democracy and (3) the conceptual opening towards not fully rationalizable modes of communication. Based on those trends, the task is to make suggestions of how to incorporate those predispositions and paradigm shifts fruitfully into future research designs.

Moving Beyond a Culture of Niceness in Faculty Hiring to Advance Racial Equity

Abstract: This study applies cultural historical activity theory to examine the experiences of 17 professors at a religiously affiliated private university who participated in a 10-month, inquiry-based inter...

Structural competency and global health education

Abstract: Structural competency is a new curricular framework for training health professionals to recognise and respond to disease and its unequal distribution as the outcome of social structures, such as economic and legal systems, healthcare and taxation policies, and international institutions. While extensive global health research has linked social structures to the disproportionate burden of disease in the Global South, formal attempts to incorporate the structural competency framework into US-based global health education have not been described in the literature. This paper fills this gap by articulating five sub-competencies for structurally competent global health instruction. Authors drew on their experiences developing global health and structural competency curricula-and consulted relevant structural competency, global health, social science, social theory, and social determinants of health literatures. The five sub-competencies include: (1) Describe the role of social structures in producing and maintaining health inequities globally, (2) Identify the ways that structural inequalities are naturalised within the field of global health, (3) Discuss the impact of structures on the practice of global health, (4) Recognise structural interventions for addressing global health inequities, and (5) Apply the concept of structural humility in the context of global health.

Theory In, Theory Out: The Uses of Social Theory in Machine Learning for Social Science

Abstract: Research at the intersection of machine learning and the social sciences has provided critical new insights into social behavior. At the same time, a variety of issues have been identified with the machine learning models used to analyze social data. These issues range from technical problems with the data used and features constructed, to problematic modeling assumptions, to limited interpretability, to the models' contributions to bias and inequality. Computational researchers have sought out technical solutions to these problems. The primary contribution of the present work is to argue that there is a limit to these technical solutions. At this limit, we must instead turn to social theory. We show how social theory can be used to answer basic methodological and interpretive questions that technical solutions cannot when building machine learning models, and when assessing, comparing, and using those models. In both cases, we draw on related existing critiques, provide examples of how social theory has already been used constructively in existing work, and discuss where other existing work may have benefited from the use of specific social theories. We believe this paper can act as a guide for computer and social scientists alike to navigate the substantive questions involved in applying the tools of machine learning to social data.

Contributions to realist social theory: an interview with Margaret S. Archer

Abstract: In this wide-ranging interview Professor Margaret Archer discusses a variety of aspects of her work, academic career and influences, beginning with the role the study of education systems played in...

Global trajectories: Power-geometries, cultural differences, and sociomateriality in school practices in two nations

Abstract: Globalisation is an all-encompassing and ubiquitous phenomenon—its consequential flows play an increasingly pervasive and profound role in most aspects of modern life in most societies across most of the world. Globalisation speeds up cultural transmission. Through vast and improved systems of transport and communication, an unprecedented migratory flow of people has increased the opportunities for different cultures to have more frequent interactions in local places like classrooms. Classrooms are now constituted by an ever-increasing array of cultural differences, as teachers and students move across once closed national boundaries to co-mingle with people unlike them. Teachers who stay in their home countries are no less affected as more and more of the world’s people migrate in response to displacement, opportunity and global markets. Other global flows, like educational policies and curricula, learning materials and ideas, accompany this people mobility into many classrooms across the world. This research is timely as much of the world in general, and education in particular, is uneasy about current global people flows that bring differences to local places like schools and classrooms. What goes on in classrooms, with respect to cultural differences, is the concern of this research. In the classrooms of the two geographically dispersed primary schools in Australia and United Arab Emirates, this research asks: How are cultural differences positioned in the lower primary classrooms in two different nations in the context of globalisation? This is explored through the following sub-questions, which are matched to the data sets: 1. In what ways do global flows of people and curriculum intersect with power-geometries in the social relations of each school and classroom? 2. What do teachers and school leaders say about how cultural differences are expressed and catered for in the schools and the classrooms? 3. How do cultural differences interplay with sociomateriality in book reading and learning centres in each classroom? Accordingly, this research studies teachers and students in two lower primary classrooms—one in Brisbane, Australia and the other in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. The research has been deliberately configured to study a world where cultural differences are increasingly growing, experienced and sometimes problematic. The methodology for this work is based on critical ethnography, following Carspecken, applied to generate new understandings of how cultural differences influence the typical and routine actions of teachers and students as they interface with systems, with each other, as well as materials in their classrooms. Utilising a multidimensional approach to data analysis this study combines discourse and pragmatic horizon analysis to analyse an array of data representative of the everyday social actions of teachers and students in each school and classroom. The research framework is situated in Massey’s theory of place, Giddens’ structuration theory and Fenwick’s theory of sociomateriality enables an examination of the linkages between schools and the broader sociocultural and material worlds in which each is contextualised, as well as the social interaction within. How these linkages, as global flows, work to structure the nature of social relations in each classroom is the essence of this inquiry. The analysis generated four important findings about cultural differences in each classroom. The first illuminates that global flows, of people and curriculum, work as geometries of power to construct and contrive the social relationships in each school and classroom in ways that privilege some and marginalise others; the second, that the catering for and expression of cultural differences happens differently at each school—such differences manifest through powerful structuring dimensions of the social system to dominate, signify and legitimate some cultural practices over others. A third finding highlights that access, ease and familiarity with the material worlds of lower primary classrooms, where there is a reliance on a sociomateriality for learning, appears to be influenced by cultural differences. The thesis overall, and fourth finding, is that in each school and classroom—contextualised in geographical and culturally distinct environs—white western educational ideologies dominate and position the cultural differences of class members. The intended contribution of this research is to report on the ways that cultural differences—a consequence of global flows which bring an increasing cultural dynamism to the classrooms of this study—is positioned in the social action of teachers and students, as they go about their normal school day. A further contribution stems from the harnessing of seldom used, but in this case productive, social theories in educational research. There is limited application of the theories of place, following Massey, and Giddens’ structuration theory to investigate classroom social action with respect to globalisation. Its significance lies in the fact that there a paucity of research about cultural differences in primary classrooms, particularly with respect to its interplay with sociomateriality. Given the current world unrest that plagues our media and everyday lives with mixed messages about refugee boats, defensive and exclusionary walls, Islam, and white supremacy this research will have important stories to relate with respect to educating children for active, safe and informed participation in a future unsettled world.

Interpretations of the journalistic field: A systematic analysis of how journalism scholarship appropriates Bourdieusian thought:

Abstract: Like many fields of communication research, journalism scholarship draws on theories from other disciplines and mostly applies social theories to make sense of journalistic practices. One theory th...

More than a buzzword: how intersectionality can advance social inequalities in health research

Abstract: Intersectionality is increasingly adopted in research to understand the complex ways that social inequalities shape health. Intersectional research thus explores how multiple forms of oppression in...

Social Avalanche : Crowds, Cities and Financial Markets

Abstract: Individuality and collectivity are central concepts in sociological inquiry. Incorporating cultural history, social theory, urban and economic sociology, Borch proposes an innovative rethinking of these key terms and their interconnections via the concept of the social avalanche. Drawing on classical sociology, he argues that while individuality embodies a tension between the collective and individual autonomy, certain situations, such as crowds and other moments of group behaviour, can subsume the individual entirely within the collective. These events, or social avalanches, produce an experience of being swept away suddenly and losing one's sense of self. Cities are often on the verge of social avalanches, their urban inhabitants torn between de-individualising external pressure and autonomous self-presentation. Similarly, Borch argues that present-day financial markets, dominated by computerised trading, abound with social avalanches and the tensional interplay of mimesis and autonomous decision-making. Borch argues that it is no longer humans but fully automated algorithms that avalanche in these markets.

After Practice? Material Semiotic Approaches to Consumption and Economy:

Abstract: The ‘turn’ to practice in social theory is proving influential in the sociological study of consumption (following Warde, 2005) This article joins current debates that appraise the contributions o

Enacting the utopia of eradicating homelessness: toward a new generation of activity-theoretical studies of learning

Abstract: Eradicating homelessness is one of the most pressing challenges for efforts aimed at equity and social justice in the world. Many people who experience homelessness have histories of violence, grow...

Thinking with a Feminist Political Ecology of Air-and-breathing-bodies:

Abstract: Social theory has paid little attention to air, despite its centrality to bodily existence and air pollution being named the world’s biggest public health crisis. Where attention to air is found, t...

Moral "foundations" as the product of motivated social cognition: Empathy and other psychological underpinnings of ideological divergence in "individualizing" and "binding" concerns

Abstract: According to moral foundations theory, there are five distinct sources of moral intuition on which political liberals and conservatives differ. The present research program seeks to contextualize this taxonomy within the broader research literature on political ideology as motivated social cognition, including the observation that conservative judgments often serve system-justifying functions. In two studies, a combination of regression and path modeling techniques were used to explore the motivational underpinnings of ideological differences in moral intuitions. Consistent with our integrative model, the "binding" foundations (in-group loyalty, respect for authority, and purity) were associated with epistemic and existential needs to reduce uncertainty and threat and system justification tendencies, whereas the so-called "individualizing" foundations (fairness and avoidance of harm) were generally unrelated to epistemic and existential motives and were instead linked to empathic motivation. Taken as a whole, these results are consistent with the position taken by Hatemi, Crabtree, and Smith that moral "foundations" are themselves the product of motivated social cognition.

Revisiting the Black Box Society by rethinking the political economy of big data

Abstract: The Black Box Society was one of first scholarly accounts to propose a social theory of the use of data in constructing personal reputations, new media audiences, and financial power, by illuminati...

The Imperative of Social Foundations to (Urban) Education Research and Practice.

Abstract: This conceptual article aims to clarify the important relationship between the fields of social foundations of education (SFE) and urban education (UE). We argue that SFE (a) enables more precise u...

The history and ideas of sociological functionalism: Talcott Parsons, modern sociological theory, and the relevance for OR

Abstract: During the first half of the 20th century Talcott Parsons developed his social theory of functionalism. His synthesis of the insights of Durkheim, Webber, and others provided the corner stone for h...

The production of leisure: understanding the social function of football development in China

Abstract: In this article, we utilize the social theories of Antonio Gramsci and Henri Lefebvre to explore the role that leisure activities such as football play within contemporary China in relation to issu...

Deciphering Markets and Money: A Sociological Analysis of Economic Institutions

Abstract: Jukka Gronow’s book Deciphering Markets and Money solves the problem of the specific social conditions of an economic order based on money and the equal exchange of commodities. Gronow scrutinizes the relation of sociology to neoclassical economics and reflects on how sociology can contribute to the analyses of the major economic institutions. The question of the comparability and commensuration of economic objects runs through the chapters of the book. The author shows that due to the multidimensionality and principal quality uncertainty of products, markets would collapse without market devices that are either procedural, consisting of technical standards and measuring instruments, or aesthetic, relying on the judgements of taste, or both. In his book, Gronow demonstrates that in this respect, financial markets share the same problem as the markets of wines, movies, or PCs and mobile phones, and hence offer a highly actual case to study their social constitution in the process of coming into being. Jukka Gronow is professor emeritus of sociology at Uppsala University, Sweden, and docent at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He has published on sociology of consumption, history of sociology and social theory.

Theory In, Theory Out: The uses of social theory in machine learning for social science

Abstract: Research at the intersection of machine learning and the social sciences has provided critical new insights into social behavior. At the same time, a variety of critiques have been raised ranging from technical issues with the data used and features constructed, problematic assumptions built into models, their limited interpretability, and their contribution to bias and inequality. We argue such issues arise primarily because of the lack of social theory at various stages of the model building and analysis. In the first half of this paper, we walk through how social theory can be used to answer the basic methodological and interpretive questions that arise at each stage of the machine learning pipeline. In the second half, we show how theory can be used to assess and compare the quality of different social learning models, including interpreting, generalizing, and assessing the fairness of models. We believe this paper can act as a guide for computer and social scientists alike to navigate the substantive questions involved in applying the tools of machine learning to social data.

Excluding emotions: The performative function of populism

Abstract: Populists are often excluded from political life on the basis that they are too emotional. Both social movements as well as political parties who are labelled as populist are accused of using demagoguery and manipulation in order to attract support and new membership. Often, these critiques emanate from the political establishment, creating a division between emotional and rational actors in politics. In this article, I argue that instead of seeing populism as a nominal or ordinal category, we should look at how the term itself has performative properties. The article is interested in how populism as a concept is used as a tool for exclusion, and how being ‘too emotional’ is used as justification for excluding certain actors. This article first contends that this perspective is endemic to political and social theory, and has long been utilised to marginalise women, non-Europeans, or young people. Second, the article demonstrates how this perspective also pervades much of contemporary studies on populism, which do not sufficiently recognise the political implications of employing a strict divide between emotion and reason. Third, the article further contends that by using a Laclauian framework which sees politics as equal to hegemony as equal to populism, one can conclude that populist actors are no different from other political actors; emotions and affects are always central to any political identity. Instead, the division between emotional and rational in politics serves to sediments exclusionary practices against newcomers and challengers of the status quo. I conclude by using the Laclauian framework, focus can be turned to the performative function of populism, and its political implications.

The Listening Practices Of Secondary School Students Whilst They Are Studying

Abstract: This thesis discusses why and how fifteen to twenty-one year old students in formal education listen to music or religious scriptures during study. The fieldwork for this research was conducted in two educational institutes in London: a large further education college (FE) and a small fee-paying academy of Islamic faith. My study combines sociological and ethnographic approaches, most notably from sociology of education and ethnomusicology. The theoretical framework used merges Bourdieusian critical theory and Wengerian social theory to analyse student learning experiences, listening practices and personal contexts within a critical sociocultural frame. This involved analysing how students enact their agency within the parameters of educational, social, economic and cultural structures. A mixed-method ethnographic methodological approach was used, which consisted of short-term classroom observations, in-depth narrative interviews, and a mixed survey using both open- and closed-ended questions. Data collection resulted in a total of 30 surveys returned, 7 classroom observations, 5 teacher interviews, and 10 student interview transcripts from 20 student interviewees. Interviews were conducted face-to-face, at institutes and one-to-one or in groups. The data collected was analysed using narrative inquiry and thematic analysis. Findings showed that the practice of listening during study is connected to a student’s learning and personal contexts. In addition to this, students were found to use different listening strategies to manage different economic, social and cultural conditions, and to use their recordings to enact accommodative agency within each learning context. They adopted this strategy to fit in, and conform, rather than resist authority and rebel against commonly accepted institutional and societal educational aims and objectives.