bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Republicanism
Authors: Murphy Peter
Published: September 2017

Republicanism presents an idealized version of a republic. This is a state where no single person (such as a monarch) rules. Usually, this means a written or unwritten constitutional order that distributes the power of the state among different persons and offices, and then organizes those persons and offices into a functional whole. Republics ideally combine the power of the one, the few, and the many with the aim of minimizing personal rule. Republicanism seeks to replace the unchecked personal authority of an arbitrary or despotic ruler with the carefully balanced impersonal authority of a city‐state or federal‐legal system.
Residential Segregation
Authors: Iceland John
Published: September 2017

Residential segregation refers to the differential distribution of groups across space, and is usually thought of in terms of the degree to which various groups reside in different neighborhoods. People are residentially segregated across a number of dimensions, including age, socioeconomic status, and (the focus here) race and ethnicity. It is commonly thought that differences in residential patterns across racial and ethnic groups reflect social distance.
Resource Mobilization Theory
Authors: Edwards Bob
Published: September 2017

A renaissance of social movement research occurred in both North America and Europe during the 1970s as a then younger generation of scholars sought to understand the emergence, significance, and effects of the social movements of the 1960s (see Jenkins 1983; McAdam et al. 1988; Dalton et al. 1990). On neither side of the Atlantic did the received academic wisdom of the 1950s and 1960s view social movements in a favorable light. In the US, the most hospitable theories treated social movements as temporary disequilibria soon to be reintegrated into smoothly functioning social systems. In Europe, “new social movements” theory formed around the core problematic of explaining the origins, identity, and cultural significance of newly emerging social change constituencies (Melucci 1980). By contrast, resource mobilization theory tended to take the existence of such constituencies for granted in order to explain how they mobilized effectively to pursue desired social change. Both resource mobilization and new social movement theories are variants within the broader conflict paradigm in sociological theory. Resource mobilization predominated in the rapidly growing sociological subfield of social movement research (Gamson 1968, 1975; Oberschall 1973; Freeman 1975; McCarthy & Zald 1977; Tilly 1978; McAdam 1982; Morris 1984; Zald & McCarthy 1987; Staggenborg 1988; Tarrow 1994).
Riot Grrrls
Authors: Aronson Pamela
Published: September 2017

Riot Grrrls are participants in a social movement focused on a radical female youth culture. The movement was originally formed as a reaction to a male‐dominated punk rock music scene. With mostly male performers, girls often felt that the issues that concerned them were not reflected in their music. Before Riot Grrrl, girls who listened to this type of music were commonly perceived as connected to punk rock culture through their boyfriends rather than their own interests. The Riot Grrrl movement originated as punk rock feminism, which had two main goals: demarginalizing women in punk rock and providing a critique of patriarchy. Later in its history, the Riot Grrrl movement expanded to include participation in other cultural and political outlets. Ideas spread through the Internet and zines, which are inexpensive newsletters with individual reflection, and political and feminist commentary. Riot Grrrls themselves produced the zines and they were shared with other girls to raise awareness about feminist issues and help create a network of activists. Many women active in Riot Grrrl situate their activism within the “third wave” feminist movement.
Rite of Passage
Authors: Tzanelli Rodanthi
Published: September 2017

The term rite of passage was first used in anthropology to encapsulate rituals that symbolize the transition of an individual or a group from one status to another, or to denote the passage of calendrical time, but soon it was embraced in other disciplines. The concept was developed by the Durkheimian anthropologist Arnold Van Gennep in
Les Rites de passage
(1909), in which he explored the nature of ceremonies that mark personal or collective changes of identity (childbirth, puberty, marriage, motherhood, and death), as well as collective celebrations of seasonal change (Easter, harvest). Van Gennep identified three phases in these rites: (1) separation, when the individual or the group is distanced from their former identities; (2) liminality, the phase in between two conditions (the one from which the individual/group departs and the one which they will enter); and (3) reaggregation (or incorporation), the final stage in which the individual/group is readmitted to society as bearer of new status. Because rites of passage belong to sacred time (not the profane of everyday life), their performance is formalized. The initiate(s) are placed in a symbolically subordinate position vis‐à‐vis those who have been initiated (elders, married, mothers) and have to go through elaborate “trials” (isolation, humiliation, fasting) before they are accepted back into the community.
Rite/Ritual
Authors: Terrin Aldo Natale
Published: September 2017

The field of ritual studies has expanded dramatically over the past 20 years. Rituals are analyzed in anthropology, sociology of religion, religious studies, and theology, and also in the study of literature, philosophy, theater, political science, and education, especially from the perspective of performance theory (Schechner 1977). Many disciplines have taken different theoretical approaches to this broad and complex topic, and thus a great variety of definitions have been proposed, no single one of which is adequate. For present purposes ritual will be defined as a formal and symbolic behavior that leads to the creation or recreation of an emotion in order to obtain or maintain a correct balance between persons and the world.
Rosenberg, Morris (1922–1992)
Authors: Fazio Elena , Nguyen Kim
Published: September 2017

An American social psychologist, Morris (Manny) Rosenberg was a leading scholar in the study of the self‐concept and a significant contributor to the intellectual and scientific advancement of the broader discipline of sociological social psychology. Over the course of his long and prolific career, Manny advanced sociological inquiry theoretically, methodologically, and substantively by critically addressing a host of social psychological issues; pioneering methodological practices with the use of large‐scale samples and codifying the logic of survey data analysis; and carrying out an impressive range of research efforts. While his scholarly interests spanned a wide spectrum of sociological concerns, including political ideology and behavior, occupations and values, class stratification, social distance, and mass communication, it would ultimately be his intellectual engagement with self‐concept research – particularly the dimension of self‐esteem – for which he would become best known.
Rural Aging
Authors: McCulloch B. Jan
Published: September 2017

Rural aging is an area of scholarship focusing on issues affecting quality of life for older persons living in areas of low population density. Rural versus urban (or metropolitan versus non‐metropolitan) conceptualizations are rooted in characteristics of folk or traditional societies versus contemporary or urban societies. Elders living in rural areas are portrayed as valuing independence and self‐sufficiency, having strong family and religious ties, mistrusting “outsiders,” and giving and receiving help through informal networks of families and neighbors (Shenk 1998; Lawrence & McCulloch 2001).
Sanskritization
Authors: Sinha Vineeta
Published: September 2017

It is crucial to make a distinction between the word Sanskritization and its conceptualization as a tool of sociological analysis. The word itself, having been derived from the root “Sanskrit,” labeled the sacred language of Hindus and Hinduism, together with related terminology such as “Sanskritic,” “Sanskritized,” and “Sanskritizing,” is already present in nineteenth‐ and twentieth‐century European Indological literature. These terms are used variously, but predominantly describe either elite‐based, Brahmanic, “Hindu” culture or note its influence on the diverse, non‐Brahmanic, non‐Hindu elements of Indian society. As a point of historical interest, it is notable that although the conceptualization of the term is rightly attributed to the late eminent Indian social anthropologist M. N. Srinivas, it (and associated descriptions) was already in use by sociologist, historian, and economist Benoy Kumar Sarkar in the 1930s and by linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterjee in 1950.
Sarkar, Benoy Kumar (1887–1949)
Authors: Sinha Vineeta
Published: September 2017

Benoy Kumar Sarkar was born in the district of Malda in the then Indian part of Bengal. At the young age of 13, he distinguished himself by coming top of the entrance exam for Calcutta University. He was educated at the Presidency College in Calcutta, where in 1905 he topped the undergraduate cohort with a double honors degree in history and English, and completed a master's degree in 1906. Apart from his solid academic credentials, he was a prominent public figure and well regarded in Bengali academic and intellectual circles. Sarkar was committed to nationalist, socialist, and social service agendas, embedded in the patriotic stance of securing for India political freedom from British colonial rule. To this end, Sarkar was active in both the Swadeshi (self‐rule) and the National Education movements in Bengal.
Sartre, Jean‐Paul (1905–1980)
Authors: Margolis Eric
Published: September 2017

The introduction to Sartre's monumental
Critique of Dialectical Reason
(1960) was published in English as
Search for a Method
(1963). Sartre saw the social sciences as in deep crisis arising from a basic contradiction: “We are not only knowers, in the triumph of intellectual self‐consciousness, we appear as the known” (Sartre 1963: 9). Sociologists also remarked upon the discipline's state of arrested development. For instance, at the time Sartre was writing, C. Wright Mills (1959) had characterized sociology as split between an “abstracted empiricism” and “grand theory.” This is a similar notion to the Sartrian criticism of sociology and Marxism as an unprincipled empiricism on one side and pure fixed knowledge on the other.
Search for a Method
is a critical comparison of Marxism and sociology by the existential philosopher who defined his goal as “revisionism,” the ongoing process in any living philosophy which takes place in thought but is also part of the “movement of society” (Sartre 1963: 7). Sartre is critical of sociology for being “an idealistic static knowing, the sole function of which is to conceal history,” and a “practical empiricism in the hands of the capitalists which supports human engineering” (pp. 67–8); and critical of Marxism for no longer knowing anything: “Its concepts are dictates; its goal is no longer to increase what it knows but to be itself constituted a priori as an absolute knowledge” (p. 28). Sartre castigated “lazy” Marxists who, “stand(ing) in their own light,” transformed Marxism into determinism through the a priori application of Marx's theory (pp. 38–3), and the mechanical materialism of sociology that reduced persons‐in‐the‐world to a system of objects linked by universal relations (see Sartre 1955: 200).
Schooling, Home
Authors: Stevens Mitchell L.
Published: September 2017

Home schooling, the practice of educating one's own children, has seen dramatic growth in the last three decades, and has transformed from a peculiarly American innovation to a truly global movement. An estimated 15,000 US children were home schooled in the late 1970s; by 2003 the number was over a million, and the practice had won adherents throughout the industrialized world (National Center for Education Statistics 2004; Stevens 2003). Parent‐directed education was almost entirely eclipsed with the accomplishment of universal compulsory schooling in the early twentieth century. But as part of the “anti‐Establishment” cultural ferment of the 1960s and 1970s home schooling reemerged as a social movement, championed by advocates across a wide ideological spectrum.
Schools, Single‐Sex
Authors: Riordan Cornelius
Published: September 2017

The phrase “single‐sex schools” refers to a system of education at the elementary, secondary, or post‐secondary level in which males and females attend school exclusively with members of their own sex. Alternatively, males and females may attend all classes separately, even though they may be housed in the same building and share the same facilities – a phenomenon referred to as a dual academy. A related, though different phenomenon is that of single‐sex classes, whereby schools that are otherwise coeducational provide separate classes for males and females in selected subjects.
Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1883–1950)
Authors: Shionoya Yuichi
Published: September 2017

Joseph Alois Schumpeter is generally acknowledged as one of the first‐rank economists of the twentieth century, along with John Maynard Keynes. Schumpeter was born in Třešt, a small Moravian town in the Austro‐Hungarian Empire. (The town, once called by the Germans Triesch, today belongs to the Czech Republic.) His father, a textile manufacturer, died when Schumpeter was 4 years old. Blessed with opportunities owing to his mother's remarriage to a high‐ranking army officer, Schumpeter was able to enter the high society of the empire and was educated at the Theresianum in Vienna and at the University of Vienna.
Schütz, Alfred (1899–1959)
Authors: Hall John R.
Published: September 2017

Alfred Schutz (1899–1959) is best known for his work on the sociological approach known asphenomenology. His first book provided a critique of Max Weber's interpretive sociology of meaningful action. He subsequently wrote a series of phenomenologically inspired essays as well a second book,Structures of the Lifeworld, with Thomas Luckmann. Over the years of his life and beyond, Schutz influenced diverse sociologists. Social phenomenology remains an important stream of sociology per se, and Schutz's insights and the analysis that he advanced have percolated through wider currents. The discipline as a whole has become more “phenomenological” as a result, most notably through the social constructionist approach and emphases on the concepts of lived action, embodiment, and cognition.
Science
Authors: Varcoe Ian
Published: September 2017

Sociological frameworks used in the study of science move between two epistemological extremes. First, it is held that nature is recorded by science provided that the latter is in a fit state as a social institution to do so. Second, it is held that science is a social construction and in this sense in principle no different than any other part of culture.
Science, Commercialization of
Authors: Lee Kleinman Daniel
Published: September 2017

Neither science‐based industry nor university involvement in commercially relevant science is a new phenomenon. In certain sectors, US firms employed scientists in the late nineteenth century, and examples of university‐industry collaboration in the United States can be found in the early twentieth century. That said, the advent of the biotechnology industry in the late 1970s and 1980s prompted sustained policy and scholarly attention to the place of science in the economy.
Science and the Precautionary Principle
Authors: Halfon Saul
Published: September 2017

The precautionary principle is a regulatory approach, under conditions of scientific
uncertainty
, requiring that a new chemical or technology be regulated or banned until it is proven safe. This principle was developed in opposition to the dominant regulatory standard, which requires affirmative evidence of harm before regulatory action can be taken. These two approaches designate a central conflict in environmental and food regulation, particularly related to chemical release and use of genetically modified organisms.
Scientific Knowledge, Sociology of
Authors: Eriksson Lena
Published: September 2017

The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) is a field of sociology that started to take form in the early 1970s. Sociologists, historians, and philosophers who shared a common interest in studying the social underpinnings of science took as a joint focus the very
content
of scientific knowledge. Previously, a division of labor had existed between philosophy and sociology. Philosophers’ role was to analyze and define norms of science, discussing and drawing up demarcation criteria between science and non‐science. Sociologists were to study the structure of scientific institutions and provide explanations when science went wrong. Thus, the only type of knowledge qualifying for sociological attention was knowledge perceived to be somehow faulty. SSK, however, approached all scientific knowledge claims – regardless of whether they were held to be true or false – as material for sociological investigation (Bloor 1991 [1976]).
Scientific Networks and Invisible Colleges
Authors: (Hans) Bakker J.I.
Published: September 2017

The sociological study of science by early pioneers like De Solla Price and Merton has given way to science and technology in society (STS). Latour and Woolgar have studied the social construction of empirical findings in lab work. Sociological studies of Nobel Prize‐winners in science indicate that those who study with Nobel Prize‐winners are themselves the most likely recipients of the Nobel Prize, presumably because they have firsthand information about the cutting‐edge topics and techniques. In hermeneutics the idea of a “hermeneutic circle” or “spiral” in science is associated with “interaction between agents” and close ties between theorists and empirical researchers. In semiotics the notion of an interpretive community or network has been postulated as an aspect of C.S. Peirce's more abstract notion of a recursive “interpretant.” Collins has stressed the general importance of networks. His theory holds that there is a “law of small numbers” and that the half a dozen or so major “philosophers” in any particular time and place are very likely to know one another. Each thinker searches for a niche. Full comprehension of the theory requires an understanding of the network.
Scientific Norms/Counternorms
Authors: Turner Stephen
Published: September 2017

The classic sociological formulation of the “norms of science” was given by Robert K. Merton, in an article originally published as “A Note on Science and Democracy” (1942) and reprinted as “Science and Democratic Social Structure” in hisSocial Theory and Social Structure(1968 [1949, 1957]) and as “The Normative Structure of Science” inThe Sociology of Science(1973). The formulation is sometimes known by its initials, CUDOS, which stands for the four norms: communism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism. Merton's representation of the normative character of science has proved to be one of the most enduring of all sociological analyses. It has been discussed at length by both critics, who proposed the concept of counternorms, and sympathizers, and in the late 1960s and early 1970s became emblematic of the “Mertonian” approach to the social study of science. Nor has it remained static. “Replication” is sometimes called the fifth norm. John Ziman suggested that “originality” be added as a norm, and in many recent explanations of the acronym CUDOS the O is used for originality.
Scientology
Authors: Andersen Peter B.
Published: September 2017

Scientology, or the Church of Scientology, was founded in 1954. It was a development of the Dianetics movement which was based on L. Ron Hubbard's book on the therapeutic system Dianetics, published in 1950. Both Dianetics and Scientology are based on Hubbard's utilitarian philosophy which has led to a number of social organizations for the betterment of human living. Dianetics and Scientology therapy are in severe disagreement with psychology and psychiatry, both of which Scientology consequently fights and tries to expose in various ways. The Church of Scientology has faced many conflicts with individuals and states in individual
US
states, but was recognized in the United States in 1993. The church is currently striving for consolidation and recognition in the states where it works.
Scientometrics
Authors: Gómez‐Morales Yuri Jack
Published: September 2017

Scientometrics is a methodological discipline and an administrative practice. In the first case, its major concern has been the identification of patterns of communication among scientists supporting theoretical models of cognitive and institutional development of science. In the second case, its concern is the identification of patterns in science and technology activities conceived as an input/output productive system. In both cases the identification of patterns is quantitative oriented and the interpretation of data has relied heavily on economic and sociological models and in recent times, on informational models, too.
Seikatsu
/
Seikatsusha
Authors: Seifert Wolfgang
Published: September 2017

The word
seikatsusha
, coined for the first time in 1917, is today an omnipresent “verbal talisman” in Japan, used by political parties, associations, and companies in their respective advertising strategies. By contrast, in Japan
seikatsusha
is also a concept, used by new social movements in an emphatic sense. Whereas this word is a commonplace term for some, for others it is strongly connected to a specific kind of thought: it describes someone who shapes his or her life independently and actively; he or she is not predominantly a consumer (
shōshisha
). This integrating view of the individual, characterized as “active,” was developed in philosophy and later had an effect on the social sciences. As a word and as a sociological term,
seikatsusha
, which defies translation into western languages, invites us to reflect on how members of a society might be grasped sociologically, as individuals within all their spheres of activity and voluntary social relations.
Seken
Authors: Kurihara Tomoko
Published: September 2017

The Japanese script for
seken
combines the two Chinese characters meaning “world” (pronounced as either
yo
or
se
) with “space‐between” (pronounced as either
aida
,
ma
,
kan
, or
ken
). The core features of the concept are as follows.
Seken
refers to the appearance of the total network of social relations that surround an individual. It conveys the corresponding cultural norms and values that function to regulate social behavior, and hints at how such relations and behavior are maintained.
Seken
is thought to be a concept native to Japan that has existed since the seventh century. It corresponds roughly to
shakai
, the translated word for “society,” derived from the West, which came into circulation in the Meiji period (1898–1920) as western concepts, ideals, and values became popularized by politicians and intellectuals. “The public” is at times used as
seken
's English equivalent. However, the two terms are by no means synonymous; a conceptual lacuna exists between “the public,” with its universalistic connotations, and
seken
, which, by comparison, when referring to one of its meanings – network – points rather more specifically to a social context or
aidagara
. Hamaguchi (1985) discerns how interrelations that constitute
aidagara
include encounters which are functional as well as unintentional and non‐transactional. Thus
seken
can be described as the sum of interrelations as a result of the accumulation of subnetworks of
aidagara
.
Self‐Fulfilling Prophecy
Authors: Nomi Takako
Published: September 2017

The self‐fulfilling prophecy is the process by which one's expectations of other persons or groups lead those persons or groups to behave in ways that confirm those expectations. An influential and controversial idea in education, the concept of the self‐fulfilling prophecy is used to illuminate the ways that teacher expectations influence students’ behavioral and achievement outcomes. The self‐fulfilling prophecy predicts that positive teacher expectations lead to positive student outcomes, while negative expectations lead to negative student outcomes.
Separatism
Authors: Dennis Rutledge M.
Published: September 2017

The concept of separatism refers to the idea that racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, political, and linguistic differences, when accompanied by a legacy of oppression, exclusion, persecution, and discrimination, are justifications for groups to terminate their political and legal ties to other groups. Generally, the ultimate aim of the termination is the establishment or reestablishment of control over a specific territory in order to establish or reestablish sovereign control. The separatist claim is accompanied by intense feelings of rage, anger, hurt, and humiliation which often fuel the flames of revolts and revolutions. Above all, the claims of separatists are premised on a desire to erect an impenetrable social distance and barrier between themselves and the people, state, or territory against which they have grievances. We may distinguish between two general types of separatism: external separatism and internal separatism.
Sexual Citizenship
Authors: Evans David T.
Published: September 2017

All sociological analyses of human sexualities contain implications of differential social exclusion, and social movements such as Gay Liberation, feminism, and Queer activism fight for sexual “rights” employing the rhetoric of equality. However, only in the last decade have such issues been explicitly theorized and researched under the rubric of sexual citizenship, focusing on the political, legal, and economic construction of sexualities through the institutionalized principles and processes of heteronormative liberal democratic citizenship, though precisely how has remained open to considerable disagreement.
Sexual Cultures in Africa
Authors: Leclerc‐Madlala Suzanne
Published: September 2017

Sexual cultures throughout the world are comprised of the socially and culturally created experience of human sexuality, including shared norms, values, beliefs, attitudes, and knowledges that shape and give meaning to behaviors related to sex. In Africa, a continent that is exceedingly diverse, patterns of sexual culture can be expected to exhibit considerable variation. In terms of religion, language, culture, topography, climate, economy, and governance, Africa presents a rich tapestry of distinctive ways of life. While Islamic cultures predominate in the semi‐tropical and desert regions north of the Sahara, extending southwards along both the east and west coasts, Christianity pervades in much of the forest and savannah regions south of the Sahara. Life in most all African societies today resonates with an infusion of traditions derived from these major religions plus more indigenous aspects of culture such as animism and matrilineal descent (western and central Africa), or ancestor honoring and patrilineal descent (eastern and southern Africa). The large cattle‐keeping pastoral societies of the east and south such as the Masai, Buganda, Shona, and Zulu present a stark contrast to the much smaller agricultural and foraging societies that inhabit the central rainforest belt. Africa is also home to the San people (often termed Bushmen), one of the world's longest surviving hunter‐gathering groups. Perhaps what is most common to all these societies is their rapid integration into national cash economies and global networks of trade and industry. Modern scholarship on African sexual cultures gives recognition to the great diversity of Africa and seeks to accurately reflect this diversity through empirically grounded studies of people's experiences of sexuality.
Sexual Deviance
Authors: Tewksbury Richard
Published: September 2017

Sexual deviance, and what is defined as sexually deviant, is culturally and historically specific. This concept refers to behaviors that involve individuals seeking erotic gratification through means that are considered odd, different, or unacceptable to either most or influential persons in one's community. As with most forms of deviance, sexual deviance is something that is defined differently by persons of different backgrounds, beliefs, morals, and locations. However, sexual deviance is also an idea about which most persons hold very strong views, and react in stigmatizing and ostracizing ways.
Sexual Politics
Authors: Waites Matthew
Published: September 2017

“Sexual politics” refers to the contestation of power relations with respect to sex, gender, and sexuality. The concept originates in the second‐wave feminist movement which emerged in the late 1960s and 1970s in western societies. Its definitive textual origin is Kate Millett's
Sexual Politics
, first published in 1970, one of the founding works of the emerging women's liberation movement which provided a social and political analysis of “patriarchy” – the social system of rule by men. For Millett, “sexual politics” expressed the idea that “sex is a status category with political implications,” and this implied challenging the distinction between public and private which reproduced inequality between men and women by consigning concerns about sex and sexuality to a non‐political private realm. The concept is now widely used in academia and in popular culture to refer to a range of struggles over sex, gender, and sexuality, although the scope and implications of sexual politics remain highly contested.
Sexuality and the Law
Authors: Moran Leslie J.
Published: September 2017

Reference to sexuality in the day‐to‐day operation of the law is coterminous with the emergence of sexuality as a category in the wider society. However, its explicit appearance in the official texts of law such as constitutions, codes of law, and statutes is relatively recent. For example, some of the most familiar legal terms associated with sexuality (e.g., buggery, sodomy, and indecency), phrases such as age of consent, or other key legal terms (e.g., justice, equity, marriage, spouse, parent, contract, libel, slander, property interest, and the right to privacy) make no explicit reference to sexuality. Sexuality is read into these legal concepts. An example of the emergence of sexuality as a legal term of art is the phrase sexual orientation. This phrase made its first formal appearance in the official texts of law in 1973.
Sexuality, Masculinity and
Authors: Plante Rebecca F. , Kimmel Michael S.
Published: September 2017

Nowhere in our intimate lives is there greater expression of gender difference than in our sexual relationships. “She” may make love “just like a woman,” as Bob Dylan famously sang, but “he” would make love just like a man. Though we often think that sexual orientation is the great dividing line in our sexual expression – that being gay or straight is all we need to know about a person's sexuality – the evidence points decisively the other way, towards an understanding that gender, not sexual orientation, is the dividing line along which sexual expression, desire, and experience is organized. Gay men and straight men think and act in sexually similar ways, as do lesbians and straight women. In that sense, sexually speaking, gay men and lesbians are
gender
conformists.
Sexuality Research: Ethics
Authors: Carmody Moira
Published: September 2017

Sexuality research and sex research differ in a number of important ways. Sex research focuses on the mechanics of sex and is dominated by biomedical discourses and most often framed from an “objective” stance. Sexuality research, on the other hand, recognizes power relations between women and men, between heterosexual and homosexual, and between cultures, and therefore is inherently political (Connell & Dowsett 1993). Sexuality and the research of sexuality are embedded in cultural and historical contexts. Both are embodied experiences that consider the complex dynamic meanings and activities, cultural signs, politics, and ethics that impact on its realization or repression.
Sexuality and Sport
Authors: Fusco Caroline
Published: September 2017

Michel Foucault (1978), one of the most influential historians of sexuality, argued that sex and sexuality became a pivot for the organization and control of life in the modern world, and that sex and sexuality are increasingly central to human affairs to the extent that much of contemporary life has been organized around these concepts.
Shariati, Ali (1933–1977)
Authors: Turner Bryan S.
Published: September 2017

Born in Mazinan, a desert village in the northeastern province of Iran, Ali Shariati was a leading Iranian sociologist and Muslim intellectual, who published a number of influential books and a great volume of lectures, talks, and occasional articles. He contributed to the sociology of religion, but apart from his
On the Sociology of Islam
(1980a), his work is not widely known in western social science.
Signs
Authors: (Hans) Bakker J. I.
Published: September 2017

The term “sign” is used in semiotics and hermeneutics as an umbrella (portmanteau) word covering all forms of gestures, ciphers, tokens, marks, indices, and symbols that convey human meaning. There have been many philosophical views expressed in the study of human meaning construction. Some thinkers trace the beginning of human cognition by the earliestHomo sapiensto the use of signs. The earliest religious thinkers emphasized some supernatural indicators of the true nature of reality; they understood “signs” in nature as messages. This led to necromancy and other forms of divination. The ChineseYi Chingwas initially based on the reading of tortoise shells. Victory in battle was often seen as a sign of the whim of the gods or of God's pleasure in ancient times. That which was not understood directly had to be fathomed on the basis of conjecture. Greek physicians utilized somatic signs to diagnose disease. They called this process semeiosis.
Simulation and Virtuality
Authors: Cubitt Sean
Published: September 2017

The termsimulationand its cognatesimulacrumhave a venerable history as the Latin translations of the Platoniceidolon. This is a copy of a copy, exemplified in Plato'sRepublicby a painting of a bed: the carpenter's bed is a copy of the Ideal; the painter's a copy of the carpenter's, and so at a distant remove from the reality of the Idea. The termvirtualis almost as ancient, traceable to the Aristotelian distinction between potential and actual: the future is a field of infinite potential until it is realized, at which point it trades its potentiality for actuality. Both terms have double usages in contemporary social science, as theoretical tools and as descriptions of specific methods, both associated with computer modeling.
Soccer
Authors: Giulianotti Richard , Malcolm Dominic
Published: September 2017

The game of association football, also known as soccer, involves two competing teams of 11 players. The players attempt to maneuver the football into the opposing team's goal, using any part of the body except the hands and arms. Only the goalkeeper is permitted to handle the ball, and then only within the penalty area surrounding the goal. The winning team scores most goals over a set time period, usually 90 minutes.
Soccer
Authors: Giulianotti Richard
Published: September 2017

The game of association football, also known as soccer, involves two competing teams of 11 players. The players attempt to maneuver the football into the opposing team's goal, using any part of the body except the hands and arms. Only the goalkeeper is permitted to handle the ball, and then only within the penalty area surrounding the goal. The winning team scores most goals over a set time period, usually 90 minutes.
Social Accounting
Authors: Spence Crawford
Published: September 2017

Social accounting denotes the enhanced accountability of corporations vis‐à‐vis their social and environmental impact. It has grown significantly as an academic project in recent years, just as corporate social responsibility has become enshrined institutionally in the business world. A number of critiques of social accounting have been made from sociologically informed viewpoints.
Social Change
Authors: Sekulic Dusko
Published: September 2017

Change can be defined as a “succession of events which produce over time a modification or replacement of particular patterns or units by other novel ones.” Sociology as a discipline emerged in the middle of the nineteenth century as an attempt to explain not only the great waves of change sweeping Europe in the form of industrialization and democratization, but also the observed gap between European and colonized societies.
Social Change: the Contributions of S.N. Eisenstadt
Authors: Ben‐Rafael Eliezer , Sternberg Yitzhak
Published: September 2017

Social change is a major focus of Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt's sociological work. It runs as a thread that binds together many of his works, from his earliest studies on the absorption of immigrants and empires, through his explorations of Axial civilizations, up to his later works on multiple modernities. We highlight his major theoretical contributions to social change, including his discussions of the great revolutions. We also point out some substantive limitations that can be found in his works and formulate some suggestions and directions for further theorization in this area.
Social Control
Authors: Weinberg Darin
Published: September 2017

The concept of social control entered the lexicon of academic sociology in the early twentieth century. It was articulated first in the pioneering work of Edward A. Ross, and then, a short time later, by a handful of some of the most distinguished figures in the early history of American sociology, including Ernest Burgess, Charles Horton Cooley, Robert Park, and W. I. Thomas. These scholars took a rather expansive view of the matter, suggesting the study of social control covered the sum total of institutions and practices by which societies regulate themselves. Concerned as it was with the great variety of social mechanisms that maintain social order in the widest sense, the earliest sociological research on social control was sometimes difficult to distinguish from efforts to define modern society as such or to specify the proper subject matter of sociology as a whole. While this broadly encompassing view of the concept's reach has sometimes been criticized, these sociologists cannot be held solely responsible for having cast the concept so generally. For in formulating their arguments regarding the meaning and importance of the concept social control, these early American sociologists were responding to a much more established tradition of European social thought concerning the fundamental causes of social order in modern societies.
Social Epidemiology
Authors: House James
Published: September 2017

Social epidemiology lies at the intersection between the traditionally biomedical field of epidemiology, which is concerned with understanding the distribution, spread, and determinants of disease in populations, and the parts of sociology and other social sciences concerned with understanding the role of social factors, forces, and processes in the epidemiology of health and illness of individuals and populations (Syme 2001). As a field, social epidemiology has been largely created over the past half century by the combined efforts of persons trained in sociology and related social sciences to study the nature, etiology, and course of physical and mental health and illness in human populations. In some cases, they ended up more as epidemiologists than sociologists (e.g., Leonard Syme and Saxon Graham). There were also a number of pioneering physician epidemiologists, mostly from England and the British Commonwealth (e.g., John Cassel, Michael Marmot, and Mervyn Susser) who recognized the importance of incorporating psychosocial factors into the epidemiology of human health and illness.
Social Indicators
Authors: Land Kenneth C.
Published: September 2017

Social indicators are statistical time series “used to monitor the social system, helping to identify changes and to guide intervention to alter the course of social change” (Ferriss 1988: 601). Examples are unemployment rates, crime rates, estimates of life expectancy, health status indices such as the average number of “healthy” days (or days without activity limitations) in the past month for a specific population, school enrollment rates, average achievement scores on a standardized test, rates of voting in elections, and measures of subjective well‐being such as how satisfied individuals are with life as a whole. In addition to these specific indicators, recent work has led to the development of summary indices that combine a number of specific indicators into composite measures of the quality of life or well‐being for a society as a whole or for specific segments or subunits thereof.
Social Influence
Authors: Rashotte Lisa
Published: September 2017

Social influence is defined as change in an individual's thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or behaviors that results from interaction with another individual or a group. Social influence is distinct from conformity, power, and authority. Conformity occurs when an individual
expresses
a particular opinion or behavior in order to fit in to a given situation or to meet the expectations of a given other, though he does not necessarily hold that opinion or believe that the behavior is appropriate. Power is the ability to
force or coerce
someone to behave in a particular way by controlling her outcomes. Authority is power that is believed to be
legitimate
(rather than coercive) by those who are subjected to it.
Social Justice, Theories of
Authors: Hegtvedt Karen A.
Published: September 2017

Justice, in its many guises, is a fundamental principle ensuring order in social groups ranging from small, intimate circles of friends to large, diverse societies. Its counterpart, injustice, arises when expectations about distributions, procedures, or interactions are unmet. Such unmet expectations stimulate the potential for change, both trivial and profound.
Distributive justice
pertains to the fairness of the allocation of rewards or burdens to a circle of recipients.
Procedural justice
captures the fairness of the means by which distributions are made.
Interactional justice
refers to fairness in the treatment of individuals within a group. These formal definitions, however, beg the fact that what individuals perceive as fair is subjective. That subjectivity pervades the two general approaches of the sociological study of justice.
Social Movements
Authors: Jasper James M.
Published: September 2017

Common usage portrays social movements as sustained, intentional efforts to foster or retard social changes, primarily outside the normal institutional channels encouraged by authorities.Sustainedimplies that movements differ from single events such as riots or rallies, even though they may organize these events. Their persistence often allows them to develop formal organizations, but they may also operate through informal social networks.Intentionallinks movements to culture and strategy: People have ideas about what they want and how to get it, ideas that are filtered through culture as well as psychology. Movements have purposes, even when these have more to do with transforming members themselves (as in religious or self‐help movements) than the world outside the movement.Foster or retard: although many scholars view movements as progressive, dismissing regressive efforts as “countermovements,” this distinction seems arbitrary and unsustainable (not to mention having the unfortunate effect that different tools are then used to analyze the two types).Noninstitutionaldistinguishes movements from political parties and interest groups that are a more regular part of many political systems, even though movements frequently create these other entities and often maintain close relationships to them. Most movements today deploy some tactics within mainstream institutions – and “noninstitutional” protest is itself often quite institutionalized. Unsurprisingly, each of these claims about social movements has been subject to controversy and differences in emphasis.
Social Movements, Leadership in
Authors: Stepan‐Norris Judith , Lind Ben
Published: September 2017

Social movement leaders act and make decisions on the behalf of the movements they represent and therefore wield influence on the movement's trajectory. In this light, early scholarship addressed how leaders’ personal qualities affect the character and actions of their movements. Mills (1971) notably identified union leader characteristics as telling of the distinctions between the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Stepan‐Norris and Zeitlin (2003) extended this line of research by documenting the differential success of communist and non‐communist leaders in collective bargaining accomplishments, union democracy, and attention to minority and women's rights. Similarly, Ganz (2000) partially credited the successful unionization of California's farmworkers (1960s–1970s) to the personal biographies, networks, and repertoires of leaders in the United Farm Workers Union.
Social Order
Authors: Dandaneau Steven P.
Published: September 2017

Social order is synonymous with both society and social science. People do not regularly live in chaos, even when they are the denizens of postmodern societies that characteristically exacerbate the already chaotic tempo bequeathed by modernity. Regardless of whether it is edifying to accept, ritual and routine, not rebellion and revolution, absorb the lion's share of everyday energies. Likewise, apart from whether society is conceived theoretically as organism or system, language game or mode of production, interaction ritual or ethereal spectacle, the essential notion of “society” is scientifically and practically meaningful only when it refers to routinely observable phenomena about which lasting statements are possible. Without social order, social science would dissolve into the ephemeral study of ephemerality.
Social Policy, Welfare State
Authors: Kaufmann Franz‐Xaver , Leisering Lutz
Published: September 2017

“Welfare state” and “social policy” are generalizing concepts that legitimize political intervention in view of protecting the weaker members of society, reducing social inequalities, and promoting human capacities for action and self‐reliance. The contemporary welfare state is the institutional expression of a political system committing itself to human rights, including social rights. Social policy is the generic name for strategies to solve social problems by political intervention, as well as for an academic discipline dealing with such issues. These sociological definitions are more generalized than common descriptive definitions of welfare state and social policy or political economy approaches that center on labor market issues and “decommodification” (Esping‐Andersen, 1990).
Social Psychology, Applied
Authors: Mankowski Eric , O'Connor Emma
Published: September 2017

Applied social psychology develops and uses theories and research about how people influence others' thoughts, feelings, and behavior to address social and health problems caused by human behavior, such as racial, class, and gender discrimination, environmental pollution and natural resource depletion, interpersonal violence, and drug misuse. The field emphasizes an interdependent and cyclical relationship among theory development, research in social settings, and application of knowledge through action and intervention. A wide variety of experimental, quasi‐experimental, correlational, and longitudinal research designs and methods of data collection including surveys, observation, and qualitative interviews are employed. Knowledge from the field has contributed to successful interventions that decrease prejudice and discrimination, increase conservation of natural resources and recycling, improve jury decision‐making, and increase cooperation and reduce conflict between social groups. With the increasing complexity of social problems and systems, applied social psychology is needed more than ever to improve human well‐being.