This book argues for the importance of the theory of the culture industry in today's world. It begins by considering the neglect of the culture industry in the second and third generation of the Frankfurt School, presenting historical background information and criticisms on the theories of Habermas and Honneth. In our age, the culture industry is something quite different from what Adorno and Horkheimer described or could even imagine in the twentieth century. Today, the masses can not only access the media but can also respond to the messages they receive. A key question that arises, then, is why the masses, even after gaining access to their own media, still adhere to the values of the capitalist system? Why haven't they achieved a class consciousness? This work seeks to answer those questions. Drawing on Jean Baudrillard's work, it reveals the semiotic aspects of the culture industry and describes the industry in the age of simulation and hyperreality. The book argues that the culture industry has now entered the micro level of our everyday life through shopping centers, the image of profusion and more. Further, it explores new aspects of the culture industry, such as a passion for participating in the media, the consumed vertigo of catastrophe, and masking the absence of a profound reality. As such, the book will particularly appeal to graduates and researchers in sociology and sociological theory, and all those with an interest in the Frankfurt School and the works of Jean Baudrillard.

This book presents possible alternatives and interpretations to the well established notion in the mostly western discourse on public space. The discourse on public space as understood in the democratic-rationalist tradition, when applied to the Singaporean public space, would offer much criticism but would not be adequate in identifying alternative processes that allow for transformative potentials in public space. Thus said, the objectives of this book are: 1. To develop a conceptual frame of reference to construct the discourse on Singapore public space 2. To form a preliminary model of Singapore public space through analyzing case studies 3. To understand the modes, methods of production and representation of these public spaces within the rapidly changing urban context 4. To situate these constructions of public space and its possible trajectories within the larger discourse on public space, and to examine the viability of such a construction and interpretive model of public space

This engagingly written compendium is packed with humorous, dramatic, surprising, and inspiring facts about the past, present, and future of children and childhood. This extensively indexed reference work covers childhood from ancient times to the present day, including child development, family life, child rearing in different cultures, and children in mythology, folklore, and religion. Contemporary issues such as child abuse, poverty, and crime are also covered.

Current social and political theories, which tend to dismiss religious resurgence as a deviant occurrence in the broad sweep of history, do not provide an adequate framework for the study of the dramatic resurgence of religion as a worldwide political force. This book is the first to address the interplay of religion and politics systematically and on a global scale. Offering interpretive essays as well as quantitative comparative analyses, it develops a comprehensive theoretical framework and presents the most complete comparative account available of the realities of religious politics in the contemporary world. The first of the interpretive chapters focuses on the cultural factor as a means of clarifying the role of religion in the modern world system. The next two chapters examine the concept of the self in the context of globalization and the absence of solidarity as a unifying force in societal systems. The role of ultimate values in politics and the reasons for the emergence of militant religious movements in nation-states is also considered. A worldwide study of religious change between 1900 and 1980 gives a clear picture of contemporary global religious movements and formulates a tentative set of explanations of change based on data analysis. The statistical links between religious beliefs and political views, and between religion and democracy, are explored. The editor's concluding chapter looks at the implications of the authors' findings for general theory in the sociology of religion. The editor stresses the need for reconceptualizing basic theoretical constructs, particularly the concept of religion itself. An important contribution to our understanding of the religious and political forces that are shaping the modern world, this work will be of interest to academics, researchers, and students of world religions, sociology, and political science.

Bernhard Weicht provides a multi-layered analysis of how we understand and construct care in everyday life, the meanings it has for ourselves, our families, our relationships, identities and our sense of society and what is right and proper, making an original contribution to the discussion of the nature of care ethics and its political potential.

This book is the outcome of a study conducted in the eastern city of Kolkata in India in the mid-2000s. It is an ethnographic study that looks closely at women from the upper and middle classes who work with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that help empower women from all classes of society. Unlike many studies that focus on grassroots women who are the beneficiaries of NGO and developmental projects, this book looks at those women who, as volunteers and activists, help carry out these projects to the best of their abilities. These women are often overlooked from mainstream studies on women in developing nations. But their role is invaluable and crucial in defining the agendas and strategies used to enhance feminist consciousness and developing organizational structures. This book is significant because it offers awareness and alternative views to the challenges (and motivations) faced by middle and upper-class women volunteers and activists in building a career in the non-profit sector of NGOs in Kolkata. Through the testimonies of these women, it examines alternative processes of agency and change in order to define these challenges and motivations. Also revealed by the analysis, is useful information about the oppression and subordination of these women in contemporary gender-stratified civil society in India. But more importantly, this book examines the various ways urban, educated Indian women construct a feminist praxis in terms of their everyday lived experiences as volunteers and activists. In terms of their lived experiences, the women in this study reflect on the social challenges they encounter and motivations they experience as volunteers and activists, while also discussing their understanding of feminism and views on the image of a "feminist" in the postcolonial context. The results demonstrate the power of feminist standpoint theorizing and how it raises consciousness, empowers women and stimulates resistance to patriarchal oppression and injustices. Finally, this book produces new knowledge and research on the conception of feminism among women volunteers and activists in a non-western setting and how they construct the image of a feminist. It offers directions for research in transnational feminism, International Women's Movement, Womanism, and Social Inequality Studies.

Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways, and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary. This prescient book presents the intellectual terrain of shrinking cities while exploring the key research questions in each of the field?s sub-domains and reviewing the range of methodologies within these topics. The book begins with an introduction outlining what shrinking cities are and how they are researched, highlighting both the opportunities and challenges that arise in this field, including the big ideas any researcher must grapple with. The next six chapters are each devoted to a different sub-domain within shrinking cities, offering a quick overview of the topics, relevant problems, paradoxes and key research questions. The book concludes with a review of the major themes and, most importantly, looks toward the future, predicting and anticipating the most significant future research trends related to shrinking cities. This accessible and compelling Research Agenda will be of interest to researchers looking to move into this area, urban studies and planning instructors who are teaching research methods courses, and students studying or independently researching shrinking cities.

This book provides the first account of the rise of these most distinctive, widespread and powerful of social institutions in Georgian Britain: the British clubs and societies, thousands of which had swept the country by 1800. Looking at the complex mosaic of clubs and societies, ranging from freemasonry to bird-fancying, the author considers the reasons for their successful development, their export to America and the colonies, and examines their long term impact on British Society which continues up to the present day.

On Friday nights many parents want to have a little fun together--without the kids. But "getting a sitter"--especially a dependable one--rarely seems trouble-free. Will the kids be safe with "that girl"? It's a question that discomfited parents have been asking ever since the emergence of the modern American teenage girl nearly a century ago. In Babysitter, Miriam Forman-Brunell brings critical attention to the ubiquitous, yet long-overlooked babysitter in the popular imagination and American history.

Informed by her research on the history of teenage girls' culture, Forman-Brunell analyzes the babysitter, who has embodied adults' fundamental apprehensions about girls' pursuit of autonomy and empowerment. In fact, the grievances go both ways, as girls have been distressed by unsatisfactory working conditions. In her quest to gain a fuller picture of this largely unexamined cultural phenomenon, Forman-Brunell analyzes a wealth of diverse sources, such as The Baby-sitter's Club book series, horror movies like The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, urban legends, magazines, newspapers, television shows, pornography, and more.

Forman-Brunell shows that beyond the mundane, understandable apprehensions stirred by hiring a caretaker to "mind the children" in one's own home, babysitters became lightning rods for society's larger fears about gender and generational change. In the end, experts' efforts to tame teenage girls with training courses, handbooks, and other texts failed to prevent generations from turning their backs on babysitting.

This book examines theories and specific experiences of international migration and social transformation, with special reference to the effects of neo-liberal globalization on four societies with vastly different historical and cultural characteristics: South Korea, Australia, Turkey and Mexico.

Freemasonry has been around for a long time, and it has not yet been clearly explained until now. "Traveling East" brings Blue Lodge Masonry into the 21st Century. No longer will Young Masons not know what is expected of them, no longer will a young Mason not know how to bury a brother Mason. Through the years all the knowledge of Masonry was kept by the elders, they only told you what they wanted you to know, this kept you coming back for more, as Masons would say this kept you craving for more light. "Traveling East" explains it all, with very easy to learn terms, but no pictures, that is where the elders will come in. "Traveling East" has something for all Masons to learn, remember when you were told that you will never know it all well."Traveling East" will get you real close to the real truth about that which was lost, and never found, or was there ever anything lost? "Traveling East" takes you back to where it all started.

What makes a good neighborhood? Can one neighborhood be good for all people? Brower's study examines the variable image of the ideal residential area in contemporary and earlier writings, from utopian visions and popular media to historical records and the findings of social science research. Brower identifies four common ideal neighborhood types, each providing a distinct and specific residential experience that suits a particular way of life. He details the characteristics of each of these good neighborhoods, and argues that their coexistence in a single urban environment is not only possible, but desirable; it creates a healthy variety of residential areas that, together, suit the needs and desires of different urban dwellers. This absorbing and timely study will be of interest to scholars and professionals in urban studies, urban design and planning, environmental studies, environment psychology, and sociology.

This book enables readers to better understand, explain, and predict the future of the nation's overall economic health through its examination of the black working class-especially the experiences of black women and black working-class residents outside of urban areas. How have the experiences of black working-class women and men residing in urban, suburban, and rural settings impacted U.S. labor relations and the broader American society? This book asserts that a comprehensive and critical examination of the black working class can be used to forecast whether economic troubles are on the horizon. It documents how the increasing incidence of attacks on unions, the dwindling availability of working-class jobs, and the clamoring by the working class for a minimum wage hike is proof that the atmospheric pressure in America is rising, and that efforts to prepare for the approaching financial storm require attention to the individuals and households who are often overlooked: the black working class. Presenting information of great importance to sociologists, political scientists, and economists, the authors of this work explore the impact of the recent Great Recession on working-class African Americans and argue that the intersections of race and class for this particular group uncover the state of equity and justice in America. This book will also be of interest to public policymakers as well as students in graduate-level courses in the areas of African American studies, American society and labor, labor relations, labor and the Civil Rights Movement, and studies on race, class, and gender. Contributes new information and fresh perspectives on the ongoing debate regarding the significance of race versus class Suggests a number of lessons all Americans can learn from the black working class Provides a insightful critique of the first black American president's record on race and addressing socioeconomic class differences Supplies an unprecedented examination that simultaneously examines the diversity of the black working class as well as its historical impact on shaping and foreshadowing the U.S. economy over many generations

Colonial Capital Theory at Work: The Case of Jamaica contributes to our understanding of the emerging Caribbean and explains how some have intentionally used "sociological imagination," or the links between history and biography, to achieve prosperity. O. Alexander Miller examines how potential immigrants from the Caribbean employ sociological imagination and, by so doing, achieve sustained intergenerational financial prosperity even while living in relatively poor home societies. The book focuses on Jamaicans because they are one of the largest groups of black Caribbean immigrants in the United States and England. Furthermore, their home society illustrates how well sociological imagination works for those who employ it, even in a post-colonial society where there are historical disparities between the socially approved goals of society and the structural means for reaching those goals. Colonial Capital Theory at Work is written not only for scholars in sociology, migration studies and Caribbean studies, but also for members of immigrant communities, especially of African ancestry.

Identity and Belonging examines the interplay between self and society and in doing so explores the complex nature of 'who we are' and 'how we come to be' as individuals and as members of various social groups. Investigating issues of identity and belonging as they emerge in contemporary social life and under conditions of globalisation, the book focuses on continuity and change in the formation of identities and communities. Through a variety of examples and case studies, the chapters discuss how elements such as ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality intersect and are experienced both locally and transnationally. As a modern guide to some classic themes and key thinkers in the discipline of sociology, this accessible text can be used to introduce core topics of identity, social divisions and globalisation, as well as to investigate in detail more specific themes and issues such as migration, consumption and digital media. It is a useful and comprehensive resource for both undergraduate and postgraduate students of sociology and related disciplines.

Although women's rights, disarmament initiatives, and other contemporary social movements receive substantial critical attention, no new work on American reformism as a whole has been published since the late 1960s. In this wide-ranging history, David De Leon brings us up-to-date and offers fresh insights on the social transformations that continue to reshape our society. He traces the evolution of modern reform movements, analyzing their leadership, goals, and achievements, and presents selections from speeches and writings that vividly capture the reforming spirit.

This is the first book to comprehensively examine Latin America's literary response to the deadly HIV virus. Proposing a bio-political reading of AIDs in the neoliberal era, Lina Meruane examines how literary representations of AIDS enter into larger discussions of community, sexuality, nation, displacement and globalization.

Using the New Social History method and examining nearly every document produced over the years covered, this study examines the growth of communities in the Upper Pee Dee region of the South Carolina backcountry in the 18th century. The study considers the emergence of a landed elite, slavery, and a mobile population, plus the disestablishment of the Anglican Church. Inhabitants of the Cheraws District had access to a river that flowed to the coast, allowing them to transport their agricultural produce to the market at Georgetown. This ease of transportation enabled the district to become more developed than other regions of the South Carolina backcountry. In the 1770s, local inhabitants built a courthouse and a jail, and members of the rising planter class formed St. David's Society to educate parish youth. Records from two of the oldest Baptist churches in the South provide clues to communal cohesion and ethnicity. These accounts, combined with land and probate records, provide information concerning settlement, wealth, and slaveholding patterns in the region.

The Young Adolescent and the Middle School, will focus on issues related to the nature of young adolescence and the intersection of young adolescence with middle level schooling. Examples of topics related to young adolescence include: (a) the developmental characteristics (i.e., physical, emotional, cognitive, social, ethical/moral, psychological), (b) self esteem, (c) identity formation, (d) issues related to gender, race/ethnicity, and sexual orientation, (e) peer pressure (e.g., bullying, suicide, and at-risk behaviors). Possible chapters that focus on the intersection of the nature of young adolescence with middle level schools include: (a) appropriate structures, organizational arrangements, interventions, and practices that are developmentally appropriate; (b) curricular, instructional, and assessment issues as they relate to this developmental period; (c) the characteristics/qualities of teachers and administrators that are essential for effectively working with young adolescents; and (d) issues related to special education; and (e) the involvement of family in middle level schooling. Of particular interest to the editor are manuscripts that present the perspectives of students on various issues related to young adolescence and schooling. Please check with the editor if you have any questions regarding the appropriateness of a topic.

This reference summarizes and overviews current research on adolescence in 31 countries from around the world. The volume begins with a discussion of interdisciplinary and international perspectives on adolescence, with special attention to psychological and sociological approaches. Each of the chapters that follow considers adolescence in a particular country, and the chapters are arranged alphabetically for ease of use. To foster comparative research, each chapter shares a common format, with sections on the historical and sociodemographic background of adolescence since 1945, sociocultural patterns of rites of passage, psychological and social problem behaviors, and policy matters. Each chapter concludes with a list of current references, and the volume ends with a selected bibliography and an appendix of key researchers.