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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > General
This book presents a critical analysis of the relation between sociological theory and recent debates in cultural studies. A distinctive sociological perspective is developed based on the work of Marx, Weber, Bourdieu and Bakhtin. The book examines the problems of theorising issues such as modernity, mass culture and postmodernity by advocating a historical and context-based approach.
What is meant by the concept of civil society? Why do some equate it with liberal democracy, while others think it simply a guise for a market economy? Who benefits from globalization and who loses out? Can civil society prosper in an era of globalization? Can global civil society restrain some of the negative consequences of economic globalization? Through a series of unique case studies and theoretical inquiries, this volume aims to provide a set of concrete answers to questions such as these.
Providing a cross-cultural perspective on the social construction of AIDS in Brazil, this book presents research by authors who have a decade's experience in AIDS activism and social research. The final section offers a powerful portrayal of problems faced by a person living with AIDS.
Here is the most comprehensive empirical study ever published about male prostitutes and their clients. Written by one of the most distinguished international scholars in psychiatry and criminal justice, this book provides a carefully designed presentation of in-depth interviews with several hundred London "rent boys." The interviews included a large sample of one-to-one conversations in a private room tape-recorded with the consent of the interviewees. Dr. West and his colleague, Mr. de Villiers, bring you squarely into the everyday lives of male prostitutes and cover little known details of their lives, such as: the drift into homelessness sexual orientation entry into prostitution sexual orientation threats of blackmail, violence, and murder by male prostitutes or their clients attitudes and intentions of the male prostitutes post-prostitution careers, legal and criminology issues personal fears, desires, and interests of male prostitutesEncyclopedic in scope and depth, Male Prostitution never strays from combining high-level research presented in a readily understandable and often entertaining style and incisive insights and issues critical for both the informed layperson and researchers in human sexuality. Dr. West and his colleague provide is a source of unbiased, detailed information on the male sex industry and their clients which is unavailable in any other book published to date.
Organizational Culture, Rule-Governed Behavior and Organizational Behavior Management is an introduction to concepts that link organizational behavior management (OBM) with the fields of organizational ecology, cultural anthropology, organizational development, and organizational behavior. This important book can help OBM researchers and managers more precisely analyze complex work environments to develop more comprehensive yet highly focused interventions to improve individual and organizational effectiveness. Organizational Culture, Rule-Governed Behavior and Organizational Behavior Management includes theoretical accounts of rule-governed behavior and cultural practices that expand the OBM's boundaries to include more comprehensive analyses and intervention designs that can lead to more effective and larger scale interventions.Although OBM researchers have long recognized that the relationships between an organization and its environment are important for survival, they have not made organization-environment relations a primary focus of their interventions. In addition, most descriptions of OBM interventions have not included a precise account of how the components of the interventions bring about ultimate performance changes they produce. With this book, OBM researchers will learn how to identify organizational behavior/performance targets that can be changed and adapted to constantly changing competitive environments to improve an organization's chances of survival. It also outlines two theories of rule-governed behavior. These theories characterize and explain how rules and their descriptions work to change or maintain effects of delayed rewards on current behavior/performance relationships. In so doing, they fill in the missing links required to achieve more valid and precise analyses of work environments that can be expected to result in more precise and effective OBM interventions.In Organizational Culture, Rule-Governed Behavior and Organizational Behavior Management, OBM researchers will learn how organizational cultural practices, organizational effectiveness, and rule-governed behaviors in organizations interact in complex ways to determine, in part, the adaptability and long-term survival of organizations. Reading this book will help academics, researchers, and practitioners better understand and predict how people in organizations will react to OBM interventions. All OBM managers including high-level managers, members of boards of directors and their consultants who are attempting to develop more effective organizations, will benefit from these discussions of organizational adaptation changing competitive environments. This essential volume presents organizational culture concepts cast in OBM terms that can be understood by all OBM researchers and practitioners and will be useful to anyone interested in organizational development on a large scale. Professors teaching OBM courses will find this presentation of rule-governed behavior an essential ingredient to every course in OBM.
This book focuses on justice and its demands in the way of providing people with medical care. Building on recent insights on the nature of moral perceptions and motivations from the neurosciences, it makes a case for the traditional medical ethic and examines its financial feasibility. The book starts out by giving an account of the concept of justice and tracing it back to the practices and tenets of Hippocrates and his followers, while taking into account findings from the neurosciences. Next, it considers whether the claim that it is just to limit medical care for everyone to some basic minimum is justifiable. The book then addresses finances and expenditures of the US health care system and shows that the growth of expenditures and the percentage of the gross national product spent on health care make for an unsustainable trajectory. In light of the question what should be changed, the book suggests that overdiagnosis and medicalizing normal behavior lead to harmful, costly and unnecessary interventions and are the result of unethical behavior on the part of the pharmaceutical industry and extensive ethical failures of the FDA. The book ends with suggestions about what can be done to put the U.S. health care system on the path to sustainability, better medical care, and compliance with the demands of justice.
This book bridges an important gap between two major approaches to
mass communication -- historical and social scientific. To do so,
it employs a theory of communication that unifies social, cultural
and technological concerns into a systematic and formal framework
that is then used to examine the impact of print within the larger
socio-cultural context and across multiple historical contexts. The
authors integrate historical studies and more abstract formal
representations, achieving a set of logically coherent and
well-delimited hypotheses that invite further exploration, both
historically and experimentally.
This volume provides a detailed description of the situation of women in employment today, and considers how sociological and economic theories of labor markets illuminate the gap in pay between the sexes. "amust reading for anyone interested in economic policy, equal opportunity, and women's studies. No one else has interwoven the various strands of legal thought, economic and sociological theory, and feminist theory as applied to the concept of comparable into a single volume; the depth and breadth are remarkable." --Mary Corcoran, Institute for Public Policy, University of Michigan
The present work is an elaboration of the author's previous efforts in "Emile Durkheim and the Reformation of Sociology" (1988) and "The Coming Fin de Sicle" (1991) to demonstrate Durkheim's neglected relevance to the postmodern discourse. The aims include finding affinities between our fin de sicle and Durkheim's fin de sicle, and connecting the contemporary themes of rebellion against Enlightenment narratives found in postmodern culture with similar concerns found in Durkheim's sociology as well as in his fin de sicle culture, contributing to Durkheimian scholarship as well as to the postmodern discourse. The distinctive aspects of the present study flow from the focus on culture, communication, and the feminine voice in culture. Durkheim is approached as a fin de sicle student of culture, and his insights applied to our fin de sicle culture. Furthermore, because Durkheim claimed that culture is comprised primarily of collective representations, he was a forerunner of the current, postmodern concerns with communication. Because Durkheim shall be read in the context of his fin de sicle, this book shall lead to the conclusion that Durkheim was a kind of psychoanalyst such that society is the patient, culture comprises the symptoms, and the sociologist must decipher, decode, and even "deconstruct" collective representations. Yet, the Durkheimian deconstruction proposed here is unlike the postmodern deconstructions, which criticize and tear apart a text without substituting a better meaning or interpretation. Postmodern discourse has made respectable again the synthesis of multidisciplinary insights that was fashionable in Durkheim's fin de sicle. In following this postmodern strategy, this book is more than a book about Durkheim. It is also a book about his contemporaries, among them, Carl Justav Jung, Thorstein Veblen, Henry Adams, Georg Simmel, and Max Weber. The author does not follow the postmodern strategy completely, because he finds common strands that bind these and other thinkers and their theories. "Stjepan G. Meutrovic" was born in Zagreb, Croatia, and is professor of sociology at Texas A & M University. Widely published in scholarly journals, he is the author of "Emile Durkheim and the Reformation of Sociology" (1988), "The Coming Fin de Sicle," and "Genocide After Emotion: The Postemotional Balkan War."
The past two decades have witnessed a revival of the concept of 'civil society'. From East Central Europe to Latin America and East Asia to the recent calls for a 'European civil society' and a 'global civil society', the concept signifies the need for national and supra-national forms of civic commitment against both unjustified state domination and neo-liberal marketization. Reviewing the long history of the concept, its use in various regional contexts and its place in critical political theory, this book takes comprehensive stock of these debates and asks about the potential of the concept of civil society in guiding political transformations towards fuller understandings of liberty and democracy. Peter Wagner is Professor of Social and Political Theory at the European University Institute, Florence, and Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick. His publications in social and political philosophy and historical and political sociology include A Sociology of Modernity (1994), Theorizing Modernity (2001), A History and Theory of the Social Sciences (2001), and The Political Constitution of Modern Capitalism (co-editor, forthcoming 2005).
What is space? And why are questions of space important to social
theory? "Society, Action and Space" is the first English
translation of a book which has been widely recognized in Europe as
a major contribution to the interface between geography and social
theory.
In contemporary shopping sites new modes of subjectivity, inter-personal relationships and models of social totality are being "tried on", "taken off" and "displayed" in much the same way that one might shop for clothes. These are not the modernist spaces of goal-directed individuals and utopian projects. Rather it is a space of carnivalesque inversions of the present order of things. The multiple masks of the postmodern person "who wears many hats" in different groups and surroundings form a veritable "dramatis personae". In such masks of the individual and the social world may be found a new spatialization and new intuitive perceptions of time and space. This representation of contemporary social life grows out of the work of Henri Lefebvre, Michel Maffesoli, Walter Benjamin and Mikhail Bakhtin. It is an attempt to take seriously the idea that we live in a postmodern consumer culture and to follow through the implications and possibilities of this idea. Cases are drawn from Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and Singapore to illustrate the new intersections between people, mass culture and consumption.
What is space? And why are questions of space important to social
theory? "Society, Action and Space" is the first English
translation of a book which has been widely recognized in Europe as
a major contribution to the interface between geography and social
theory.
This is the first autobiography to be published by The Haworth Press.This is the first autobiography to be published by Harrington Park Press.The place is New York City. The time is the decade before the plague of AIDS. Thousands of gay men were living a free-wheeling lifestyle of club hopping, "score" hunting, sex without fear, and upward mobility. To none did The Big Apple offer greater rewards than to those young men who had the envied "male model" look.Author James Melson belonged to this exclusive clique: he was tall, blond, muscular, and very "straight looking." He was a model at 19, and by 25, was a highly successful Wall Street banker. His good looks offered him immediate entry into exclusive clubs and onto the sexual fast track with actors, male models, and other members of the "Clique."The author brings you behind the scenes into the lifestyle of the handsome "Clique"--providing details of the vigorous and entertaining excitement of the times. He exposes--for one of the few times in print--the lesser-known attitudes of the "Clique" and their disdain for "ugly faggots," their obsession with strictly the chic and glamorous, and the fast lane life of partying and sex.For 200 pages, the reader is brought back to the era that for many older readers is just a memory, and for younger readers a time they never knew--when to be a "Golden Boy" was to be a prince, and sex was only fun and games.The Golden Boy autobiography ends when the author is diagnosed with AIDS, abandoned by a lover and friends, and left to look back on his life with a growing perspective.The role of "good looks" and people with AIDS is rarely talked about, particularly by gay survivors whose lesser appeal was once perhaps a curse but then ultimately their saving grace. This is not just another AIDS autobiography but a document dealing indirectly with this fact of life. The autobiography is introduced by Larry Mass, MD, an internationally recognized social historian/physician who examines the "Culture of Narcissism" in that era. Arnie Kantrowitz then presents an astonishingly frank and perhaps shocking Epilogue which will have many readers wanting to re-read the book.
Pierre Bourdieu is a distinguished French sociologist working today. This study is designed to make his dense and complicated thought easily accessible to a student audience. Written in a clear style, the author adopts a critical stance to Bourdieu, covering the full range of his work from the early Algerian fieldwork, to the massive surveys of French cultural consumption, to his most recent theoretical essays. Placing Pierre Bourdieu's sociological enterprise in its proper context - French intellectual life since the 1950s - Jenkins offers a critique which acknowledges Bourdieu's massive achievement while at the same time recognizing the shortcomings and problems of his work. All of the main substantive areas about which Bourdieu has written are discussed - culture, education, social stratification, language and the ethnography of the Kablyia - but the emphasis is upon his contributions to theory, methodology and epistemology.
Talcott Parsons (1904-79) is widely regarded as one of the most important sociologists of the twentieth century. His work has been influential both inside and outside America. He made major contributions to the history of sociology, the sociology of knowledge, medical sociology and sociology of social institutions. In addition his theoretical writing, although still the subject of much controversy, is recognized as reformulating the grounds of debate by giving a new direction to sociological enquiry. The articles assembled here are organized into 85 chapters, and cover each of the major theoretical debates in which Parsons was involved. The work is divided into a number of major sections; beginning with the intellectual background to Parsons' distinctive contribution to functionalism; and finishing with the work of the last 20 years of his life, in which his interests in expanding his theories across all domains of human action produced a wide range of important and influential ideas. These volumes provide an indispensable collection for Parsonian scholars and anyone seriously interested in 20th-century sociology. This book should be of interest to postgraduates and academics of so
This unique and comprehensive study provides the English-speaking
reader with the opportunity to hear what some of Japan's leading
social scientists and other commentators have to say about the
internationalization of their country and its impact overseas. As
the global community's demands on Japan call for a greater Japanese
contribution to international society and for changes in Japan to
facilitate foreign access, the topic of internationalization takes
on even greater significance.
View the Table of Contents. "Lee's book is a compelling and well-informed analysis of the
issues raised when courts confront questions of reasonableness in
high-profile, headline-grabbing cases." "Lee challenges readers to question the concept of
'reasonableness' and how it has been applied. . . Scholars,
students, professionals and the educated public will appreciate the
careful, well-documented argument and pertinent examples." "Ms. Lee offers an extended argument for reforming the
provocation doctrine by requiring judges and jurors to reflect more
carefully about the reasonableness of the defendant's
behavior." aEven readers who do not view Leeas recommendations through a
theoretical lens will be drawn to Leeas suggestions as practical
solutions to the complicated social norms problem she has
identified." "Provocative and persuasive. In this well-written and
meticulously documented book, Cynthia Lee demonstrates how the law
has defined 'reasonableness' in criminal law to favor men against
women, straight men against gay men, and whites against blacks.
Lee's synthesis of many seemingly different examples, with
thoughtful responses to the various objections that might be
raised, is legal scholarship that can make a difference in our
social practices. This is a serious and compelling book that should
lead to reform." A man murders his wife after she has admitted her infidelity; another man kills an openly gay teammate after receiving a massage; a third man, white, goes for a jog in a "bad" neighborhood, carrying a pistol, and shoots an African American teenager who had his hands in his pockets. When brought before the criminal justice system, all three men argue that they should be found "not guilty"; the first two use the defense of provocation, while the third argues he used his gun in self-defense. Drawing upon these and similar cases, Cynthia Lee shows how two well-established, traditional criminal law defenses--the doctrines of provocation and self-defense--enable majority-culture defendants to justify their acts of violence. While the reasonableness requirement, inherent in both defenses, is designed to allow community input and provide greater flexibility in legal decision-making, the requirement also allows majority-culture defendants to rely on dominant social norms, such as masculinity, heterosexuality, and race (i.e., racial stereotypes), to bolster their claims of reasonableness. At the same time, Lee examines other cases that demonstrate that the reasonableness requirement tends to exclude the perspectives of minorities, such as heterosexual women, gays and lesbians, and persons of color. Murder and the Reasonable Man not only shows how largely invisible social norms and beliefs influence the outcomes of certain criminal cases, but goes further, suggesting three tentative legal reforms to address problems of bias and undue leniency. Ultimately, Lee cautions that the true solution lies in a change in social attitudes.
'An alluvial goldfield of social theorists - nuggets lying around all over the place.'Bob ConnellWho's who in the social theory zoo? This book introduces some of the leading social theorists in short, lively entries by leading Australian scholars. Social Theory covers thinkers from Althusser to Williams, by locals from Alexander to Yeatman.For beginner and enthusiast alike, it gives a sense of the state of the art in classical and modern social theory. Social Theory is an indispensable reference for undergraduates, postgraduates, academics and anyone else interested in the ideas behind social and political theory and cultural studies today.
The essays gathered in this volume contain analyses based on the general action perspective of Chicago sociology and, in particular, on the contributions of Anselm L. Strauss, whose lengthy achievement this volume honors.
That family violence injures and kills its victims both physically and psychologically was established over two decades ago by early researchers in this field. Abused and Battered heralds the second generation of domestic abuse research: it examines the implications of the legal and social responses to both victims and offenders by systematically addressing the intended and unintended consequences of programs and procedures designed to ameliorate the effects of spousal and child abuse. Contributors to this multidisciplinary volume represent the leading perspectives in public health, law and criminal justice, psychology, and sociology. They provide new and sophisticated insights regarding the etiology of the multiple forms of family abuse and they suggest innovative strategies for mitigating the anguish resulting from physical and emotional violence against adults and children within households. The results of this research will be of interest to students and practitioners in sociology, public health, psychology and family studies, and to clinicians and therapists who treat victims or offenders.
Social change in the twenty-first century is shaped by both demographic changes associated with ageing societies and significant technological change and development. Outlining the basic principles of a new academic field, Socio-gerontechnology, this book explores common conceptual, theoretical and methodological ideas that become visible in the critical scholarship on ageing and technology at the intersection of Age Studies and Science and Technology Studies (STS). Comprised of 15 original chapters, three commentaries and an afterword, the book explores how ageing and technology are already interconnected and constantly being intertwined in Western societies. Topics addressed cover a broad variety of socio-material domains, including care robots, the use of social media, ageing-in-place technologies, the performativity of user involvement and public consultations, dementia care and many others. Together, they provide a unique understanding of ageing and technology from a social sciences and humanities perspective and contribute to the development of new ontologies, methodologies and theories that might serve as both critique of and inspiration for policy and design. International in scope, including contributions from the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Australia, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden, Socio-gerontechnology is an agenda-setting text that will provide an introduction for students and early career researchers as well as for more established scholars who are interested in ageing and technology.
"Bootstrapping" analyzes the genesis of personal computing from
both technological and social perspectives, through a close study
of the pathbreaking work of one researcher, Douglas Engelbart. In
his lab at the Stanford Research Institute in the 1960s, Engelbart,
along with a small team of researchers, developed some of the
cornerstones of personal computing as we know it, including the
mouse, the windowed user interface, and hypertext. Today, all these
technologies are well known, even taken for granted, but the
assumptions and motivations behind their invention are not.
"Bootstrapping" establishes Douglas Engelbart's contribution
through a detailed history of both the material and the symbolic
constitution of his system's human-computer interface in the
context of the computer research community in the United States in
the 1960s and 1970s. |
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