bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Smoking
Authors: Hughes Jason
Published: September 2017

The word smoking has widely come to mean “consuming tobacco,” and yet throughout history other substances – such as opium, cannabis, phencyclidine (PCP), and crack cocaine – have been smoked as a principal mode of their consumption. Equally, tobacco has been consumed in a multitude of ways other than through smoking. For example, prior to contact with Columbus, indigenous peoples of the Americas had variously chewed, snuffed (tobacco powder up the nostrils), drunk (tobacco juice), licked (applying tobacco resin to the gums and teeth), topically applied (to the skin), ocularly absorbed, and anally injected tobacco (Wilbert 1987). What we refer to as smoking should be understood first and foremost as a historically diverse set of practices surrounding the use of a range of drugs which, at various stages, did not necessarily involve the practice of smoking itself. That said, smoking today, as in pre‐Columbian America, is by far the most widespread mode of consuming tobacco: the term refers to a phenomenon that has come to have enormous social, cultural, and economic significance. What follows is a broad and brief account of the sociocultural development of smoking divided into three main “stages”: pre‐Columbian smoking; modern smoking; and contemporary smoking. This focus on developments at the most general level serves to highlight the emergence of key themes in cultural uses and associations relating to the practice: a transition from understandings and uses of smoking as a practice to “lose control” and “escape normality” toward those in which smoking increasingly came to be used as a means of self‐control and to return to “normality.”
Social Change: The Contributions of S. N. Eisenstadt
Authors: Ben‐Rafael Eliezer , Sternberg Yitzhak
Published: September 2017

Social change is a major focus of S. N. Eisenstadt's sociological work. It runs as a thread that binds together many of his works, from his earliest studies on absorption of immigrants (1952) and empires (1963), through his explorations in Axial civilizations (see, e.g., 1986), up to his later works about multiple modernities (among others, 2003). A recurring theme in Eisenstadt's work is his emphasis on endemic factors – in‐built tensions, contradictions, conflicts, and antinomies – as accounting for changes in, and transformations of, the social reality. In early formulations of this perspective, he already states that innovation and change are not external to institutional systems. They are aspects of the process of institutionalization and the working of social institutions (Eisenstadt 1965, 1968, 1970). He carries on this principle of dialectical transformation to his analyses of the dynamics of civilizations and modernity, which indeed once led Robert Bellah to describe Eisenstadt as a “non‐Marxist Marxist.”
Social Disorganization Theory
Authors: Warner Barbara D.
Published: September 2017

Social disorganization theory provides an explanation of the variation in crime rates among neighborhoods. It assumes that the basis of criminal behavior lies largely within the structural and cultural conditions of the neighborhood. Socially disorganized neighborhoods are defined as those not having the capacity to regulate behaviors and activities that are inconsistent with neighborhood values. This capacity to regulate behaviors is referred to as the level of social control. Recent social disorganization theory has particularly emphasized neighborhood levels of informal social control.
Social Embeddedness of Economic Action
Authors: Mingione Enzo , Ghezzi Simone
Published: September 2017

The concept of embeddedness expresses the notion that social actors exist within relational, institutional, and cultural contexts and cannot be seen as atomized decision‐makers maximizing their own utilities. Embeddedness approaches prioritize the different conditions within which social action takes place. They challenge the utilitarian, “undersocialized,” neoclassical position, and the functional “oversocialized” position (where social conditions exist a priori to behaviors). The concept of embeddedness is based on several assumptions about society: the actor is not an atomized individual; immediate utility cannot explain the full meaning of social relations; logics underlying the formation of institutions and their norms of behavior cannot be removed from the contexts of social interaction within which these institutions exist; convergent trends of transformation result in diverse processes of adaptation, which evolve from specific social, cultural, and cognitive configurations.
Social Fact
Authors: Herzog Patricia Snell
Published: September 2017

A social fact consists of collective thoughts and shared expectations that influence individual actions. Examples of social facts include social roles, norms, laws, values, beliefs, rituals, and customs. Violating social facts confirms their existence because people who act against social facts are typically sanctioned. Sociology is one of the primary disciplines in which social facts are studied.
Social Identity Theory
Authors: Callero Peter L.
Published: September 2017

Social identity theory offers a social psychological explanation of intergroup prejudice, discrimination, and conflict. Its origins lie in the work of Henri Tajfel (Tajfel & Turner 1979) and his associates who have been instrumental in the development of a distinctly European approach to psychology. This approach is broadly concerned with the relationship between self and society. For Tajfel, the key to understanding prejudice, discrimination, and intergroup conflict is found in an individual's social identity as defined by group membership. Social identity theory rejects explanations based on individual defects of physiology, personality, or attitude. In this regard, it represents a challenge to more traditional psychological theories and has generated nascent interest among sociologists. Tajfel's experimental findings on group affiliation and personal bias were first published in the 1960s and, since then, social identity theory has generated an immense body of empirical research in support of its basic hypotheses. Over the years, social identity theory has been elaborated and extended to encompass issues of group leadership, organizational psychology, deviance, and political action. Today, social identity theory stands as one of the most influential theoretical perspectives within psychological social psychology.
Social Influence
Authors: Walker Lisa Slattery
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 Integration and Inclusion
Authors: Strobl Rainer
Published: September 2017

Social integration refers to the interrelation of elements in a social system. The term social system is used in a broad sense here. It describes a social unit with a relatively stable order that establishes a border between itself and its environment. In this sense groups, organizations, or even whole nation‐states are examples of social systems. Traditionally, actors who are members of a social unit are regarded as the elements of a social system. However, in sociological works like Luhmann's
Social Systems
(1995) the elements are conceived more abstractly as actions or communications. This theoretical development reflects a social development of increasing functional differentiation and individualization with more demanding conditions for the coordination of the elements in a social system. In tribal societies the interrelation of elements is quasi‐natural. It is granted by clear expectations in strict kinship systems. But already feudal societies need elaborate catalogues of rights and duties, albeit these are conceived as God‐given and the individual is confronted with a clear set of norms in his social environment. With increasing functional differentiation in modern societies there is a decreasing involvement of actors as whole persons with all their abilities and social and psychological needs in a single social system. As a result, social integration is no longer self‐evident and becomes both a social and a theoretical problem.
Social Integration and Inclusion
Authors: Strobl Rainer
Published: September 2017

Social integration refers to the inter‐relation of elements in a social system. The term “social system” is used in a broad sense here. It describes a social unit with a relatively stable order that establishes a border between itself and its environment. In this sense groups, organizations, or even whole nation‐states are examples of social systems. Traditionally, actors who are members of a social unit are regarded as the elements of a social system. However, in sociological works like Luhmann's
Social Systems
(1995) the elements are conceived more abstractly as actions or communications. This theoretical development reflects a social development of increasing functional differentiation and individualization with more demanding conditions for the coordination of the elements in a social system. In tribal societies the inter‐relation of elements is quasi natural. It is granted by clear expectations in strict kinship systems. But already feudal societies need elaborate catalogs of rights and duties, albeit these are conceived as God‐given and the individual is confronted with a clear set of norms in his/her social environment. With increasing functional differentiation in modern societies there is a decreasing involvement of actors as whole persons with all their abilities and social and psychological needs in a single social system. As a result, social integration is no longer self‐evident and becomes both a social and a theoretical problem.
Social Learning Theory
Authors: Auf der Heide Laura
Published: September 2017

Social learning theory was developed in the 1950s by Albert Bandura as a direct response to strict behaviorism as a means for explaining how individuals learn about their social worlds. Instead of solely examining the result of the outside environment on individual behavior, social learning theory is concerned with the reciprocal influence of environmental cues on an individual's behavior and the impact of the individual's behavior on the environment. In addition, social learning theory places an emphasis on individuals’ cognitive processes as they decide upon future courses of action. Thus, social learning theory takes a middle ground position between social psychological theories that stress either environmental or internal cognitive processes as the sole component of learning.
Social Movements, Biographical Consequences of
Authors: Roth Silke
Published: September 2017

Personal and biographical effects belong to the unintended consequences of social movements. Participation in social movements changes people's lives, while social movements aim at social change (or its prevention), and even affect the lives of those who did not get involved in movements and countermovements. A biographical perspective on social movements makes clear that social change and personal change are inextricably linked.
Social Movements, Biographical Consequences of
Authors: Roth Silke
Published: September 2017

Biographical consequences of social movements can be observed at the micro, meso, and macro levels. The effects at the micro level concern the impact of movement participation on activists’ life courses, the individual level of participants in movement activities. As numerous studies show, activists tend to remain committed to social change goals they pursue in social movements and this commitment has significant effects in their work lives, political attitudes, and personal relationships (Evans 1979; Andrews 1991), although only a small proportion of activists are persisters (Corrigall‐Brown 2012). Based on research on participants of the New Left, Giugni (2004: 494) summarizes the effects as follows: the former activists continue to hold leftist attitudes, define themselves as “liberal” and “radical,” and remain active in social movements and other forms of political activity. They tend to be concentrated in teaching and other “helping” professions, have lower incomes than their age peers, and are more likely to have experienced an episodic or non‐traditional work history. Furthermore, they are more likely to have divorced, married later, or remained single than their age peers. Andrews (1991) found that lifelong commitment to socialism gave interviewees a purpose in life.
Social Movements, Participatory Democracy in
Authors: Polletta Francesca
Published: September 2017

Participatory democracy refers to an organizational form in which decision‐making is decentralized, non‐hierarchical, and consensus‐oriented. It can be contrasted with bureaucracy, in which decision‐making is centralized, hierarchical, and based on a formal division of labor, as well as with majority vote. Participatory democratic organizations have been a prominent feature of many progressive movements, including radical pacifism, the Civil Rights Movement, the new left, feminism, environmentalism, anti‐nuclear activism, and the anti‐corporate globalization movement.
Social Movements, Participatory Democracy in
Authors: Polletta Francesca
Published: September 2017

Participatory democracy is an organizational form in which decision‐making is decentralized, nonhierarchical, and consensus‐oriented. It can be contrasted with bureaucracy – in which decision‐making is centralized, hierarchical, and based on a formal division of labor – as well as with majority vote. Participatory democratic organizations have been a prominent feature of many progressive movements, for instance, radical pacifism, the Civil Rights Movement, the New Left, feminism, environmentalism, antinuclear activism, the global justice movement, and the Occupy Movement.
Social Movements, Political Consequences of
Authors: Amenta Edwin , Caren Neal
Published: September 2017

Scholars have increasingly turned their attention to the political or state‐related consequences of social movements. Making sense of the state‐related consequences raises specific and difficult conceptual and theoretical issues. Conceptually speaking, scholars have to address the meaning of “success” or “influence” for challengers. Theoretically, scholars need to address what, beyond some degree of mobilization and basically plausible claims‐making, matters in explaining the state‐related impacts of challengers. In comparison to mobilizing supporters, fashioning identities among them, or achieving recognition from targets, most macropolitical consequences of challengers are not as directly related to the efforts expended by challengers.
Social Movements, Recruitment to
Authors: Barkan Steven E. , Cohn Steven F.
Published: September 2017

Social movements have long been an important basis of political participation in democracies and have achieved major political, social, and cultural changes. Although the influence of social movements depends largely on their ability to recruit members, it is by no means obvious why people choose to participate in them.
Social Policy, Welfare State
Authors: Kaufmann Franz‐Xaver
Published: September 2017

“Welfare state” and “social policy” are generalizing concepts legitimizing political intervention to protect the weaker members of society, to reduce social inequalities, and to promote 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.
Social Structure of Victims
Authors: Hasegawa Koichi
Published: September 2017

Nobuko Iijima, a pioneer of environmental sociology both in Japan and internationally, applied her notion of the social structure of victims to the multidimensional and multi‐layered nature of the damage caused by pollution (Iijima 1976, 1979, 1984). The physical damage done to victims is relatively easy to discern, but this is only one aspect of pollution damage. Equally costly is the mental and social damage that occurs in the wake of the physical impact. Iijima attempted to describe comprehensively the complex structure of the suffering of victims, from physical suffering to worsening relationships between family members and neighbors who may be indifferent to the pollution problem or wish to keep it hidden. This approach reveals the flow‐on effect of the physical damage. In fact, Iijima demonstrated how such suffering affects every aspect of a family's daily life, including loss of income and an increase in medical expenses, and often leads to family breakdown or the destruction of a family's living conditions. Through her research on Minamata disease, mercury poisoning of Canadian Indians, and drug‐induced Subacute‐Myelo‐Optico‐Neuropathy (SMON) disease, Iijima discovered that the structure of victims was very similar whether the damage was caused by a labor accident, a drug‐induced disease, or an environmental hazard. The source of the pollution that caused Minamata disease was a factory already known as the site of numerous labor accidents. A systematic and institutional lack of care or consideration by industry and government for the safety of people's environment and the safety of working conditions nurtured the endemic problems that led to the Minamata outbreak.
Social Theory and Sport
Authors: Michael Clair Jeffrey , Wasserman Jason
Published: September 2017

Despite acknowledgments of sport as a legitimate focus of sociological analysis from early thinkers such as Spencer, Simmel, Weber, Scheler, and Mead (Luschen 1980), the lack of theoretical development in sport studies has been well documented (Frey & Eitzen 1991), although there appears to be increased movement toward the generation and integration of more theoretically driven work.
Social Theory and Sport
Authors: Clair Jeffrey Michael , Adam Wasserman Jason , Milner Adrienne
Published: September 2017

Although sociologists have examined the institution of sport in relation to other social institutions and analyzed inequality in sport empirically, theoretical work in the field of the sociology of sport is limited. Examples of theoretical contributions include utilizing Bourdieu's perspective to discuss sport within a framework that takes into account history, social class, and prevailing economic systems. Sociologists have also applied feminist theory, critical race theory, Marxist theory, and social learning theory to understand inequities in sport. However, there are several substantative areas of theoretical thought that could improve the way sport is understood. Specifically, the political nature of sport, sport as art, and the moral assumptions embedded in sport should be examined. The political nature of sport includes understanding the intersection of sport and global politics and the similarities between sport and war. Sport as art includes understanding the creativity, competancy, spontaneity, and emotional qualities of sport. Moral assumptions embedded in sport include understanding how sport embodies and impresses assumptions about human nature and moral order. In order to fully understand the relationship of sport and society, a greater development in these areas and further application of dominant social theories to the field is necessary.
Social Work: History and Institutions
Authors: Hering Sabine
Published: September 2017

From the beginning of the nineteenth century industrialization and the rise of civil society created a new framework for human welfare: the fact that poverty caused by nature was replaced by poverty caused by social deprivation brought up the need for appropriate ideas and solutions that expanded the range of regional or national welfare strategies into an international perspective. “Social welfare” is not only the old‐fashioned term for social work, but is also the more general term: social welfare continues to include in most parts of the world programs that promote the general welfare (e.g., social security) and involves other professions as well as social work. This entry details the main changes in the field of social welfare through the development and discussions of its international organizations.
Social Work: Theory and Methods
Authors: Staub‐Bernasconi Silvia
Published: September 2017

Theory construction in social work which tries to bind together theory and methods and to introduce the notion of social work as discipline and profession departs from an “open triangle” consisting of theory as an interrelated conceptual system, research, and practice, or applied social science plus social work values and skills linked in a dynamic way (Lovelock et al. 2004: 3). Thus it is a basic scientific undertaking to connect the following elements: a theory of the individual as a biological, psychic, and social being and as a member of different social systems; a theory of society and culture and the interaction between the individual and society/culture; a policy or program as a scheme for changing problematic situations; and a set of people, among them professionals, in different forms of social organization (social services, social movements, networks, etc.) committed to carrying this change through with the help of specific methods.
Social Worlds
Authors: Clarke Adele E.
Published: September 2017

The term “social worlds” is used in the social sciences in two main ways: as a generic reference to a situation or social context or as explicit social worlds/arenas theory within the theoretical tradition of symbolic interactionism, the main focus here.
Socialism
Authors: Cox Lloyd
Published: September 2017

Socialism refers to doctrines and practices sharing a pattern of family resemblances centered on collective property, social equality, cooperation, and communal forms of economic and political association. Beyond these shared attributes, socialism as doctrine and practice is characterized by immense diversity and competing claims to authenticity, which belie the frequent eliding of socialism with Marxism. This internal diversity was already present when the term was first used in English in the 1820s and in French and German in the 1830s, as well as in earlier political and religious movements that anticipated future socialist practices.
Socialist Feminism
Authors: Cronin Ann
Published: September 2017

Socialist feminism, which draws on aspects of Marxist feminism and radical feminism, emerged in the 1970s as a possible solution to the limitations of existing feminist theory. While Marxist feminism cites capitalism as the cause of women's oppression, radical feminism argues women are oppressed through the system of patriarchy. Marxist feminism has been criticized for its inability to explain women's oppression outside of the logic of capitalism; radical feminism for producing a universalistic, biologically based account of women's oppression, which pays insufficient attention to patterned differences between women. Socialist feminism attempts to overcome these problems through the production of historically situated accounts of women's oppression that focus on both capitalism and patriarchy.
Socialization
Authors: Zerilli Sal
Published: September 2017

The concept of socialization figures prominently in sociology, underlying many of the discipline's major claims about the nature of society and social relations. Sociologists have used socialization to examine the possibility of society, the nature of social order, the reproduction of social organization, the formation of personal identities, and mechanisms of social control and deviance. The concept has also played an important role in studies of families, schools, professions, organizations, peer groups, and subcultures. In general terms, socialization is a generic concept embracing the ways people acquire the general competencies required for participation in society. At the societal level, socialization helps explain how and the extent to which large numbers of individuals come successfully to cooperate and adapt to the demands of social life (Long & Hadden 1985). At the organizational level, it summarizes processes by which newcomers to social groups and organizations are transformed from outsiders to participating members. At the personal level, it refers to the social and cultural shaping and development of the mental, emotional, and behavioral abilities of individuals.
Socialization, Adult
Authors: Kotarba Joseph A.
Published: September 2017

Socialization refers to the process by which people learn and internalize the attitudes, values, beliefs, and norms of our culture and develop a sense of self. The concept of socialization is among the most important in sociology, because it attempts to illustrate and explain the tremendous impact living in society has on shaping the individual. The individual becomes a human being through socialization, and what it means to be an individual evolves over the life course.
Socialization, Agents of
Authors: Wunder Delores F.
Published: September 2017

Socialization is the process whereby individuals learn and internalize the attitudes, values, and behaviors appropriate to people living in any given society. Socialization ensures that an individual will develop a social identity (or self) and have the motivation and knowledge to perform the roles she may need throughout the course of her life.
Socialization and Sport
Authors: Coakley Jay
Published: September 2017

There is a long tradition of research on socialization and sport. Roots of this research are grounded in theories on play in child development, in progressive‐era notions that team sports constituted an environment in which valuable lessons could be learned, and in popular twentieth‐century assumptions that playing sports was an inherently character‐building experience.
Society
Authors: Ray Larry
Published: September 2017

The concept of society is both core to sociological analysis and subject to wide‐ranging dispute that is often informed by the theoretical disputes within the discipline. When in 1987 the British prime minister Margaret Thatcher said in an interview “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families,” many sociologists offered a robust defense of the concept. But one British sociologist subsequently stated: “Thatcher might have been right [in her claim] … or at least the riposte from the sociological community was not fully justified” (Urry 2000). This illustrates an uncertainty within the discipline as to the appropriateness of the concept, especially in a globalized age in which the idea of discrete societies bound by national borders has been widely questioned. Ironically, however, in the rest of her interview Thatcher went on to emphasize the importance of reciprocal social obligations and bonds between people – things that many sociologists would regard as central to the idea of society.
Sociology in Medicine
Authors: Usher Carey L.
Published: September 2017

Sociology in medicine is the label given to the collaborative work between sociologists and medical or health personnel within medical institutions or health care organizations. This distinction represents the applied work of medical sociologists in the pure versus applied dichotomy of the social sciences. In its most extreme form, sociology in medicine encompasses sociological work aimed at the provision of technical skills and problem solving for the medical community while neglecting contributions to the parent discipline.
Sombart, Werner (1863–1941)
Authors: Sica Alan
Published: September 2017

Werner Sombart was born on January 19, 1863 in the small Protestant town of Ermsleben (Harz region), and died on May 19, 1941 in Berlin, at the age of 78; the event was fully recorded in the
New York Times
, with an obituary and an editorial (May 20 and 22). Werner's father, Anton Ludwig Sombart, was of seventeenth‐century Huguenot stock and personified what Sombart's friend Max Weber would call in 1905 “the Protestant ethic” and what Sombart himself named “the bourgeois spirit.” The elder Sombart was elected Burgermeister of Ermsleben in 1848 and became rich as an industrialist and estate owner through the sugar trade. Not satisfied simply to enjoy his wealth, he cofounded the famous Verein für Sozialpolitik (Society for Social Politics), an influential organization of concerned citizens; the society sponsored social research that prescribed government policy, particularly pertaining to the liberation of agricultural workers from virtual serfdom on large estates. Bismarck invited Sombart to become minister of agriculture, but he declined on grounds of poor eyesight.
Sorokin, Pitirim A. (1889–1968)
Authors: Tiryakian Edward
Published: September 2017

By any objective criteria of contributions to macrosociology, Pitirim Aleksandrovich Sorokin ranks alongside such twentieth‐century figures as Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, and Talcott Parsons. His pioneering contributions in the comparative‐historical study of revolutions, social mobility, cultural sociology (considerably in advance of the “cultural turn” of sociology), rural‐urban sociology, and the sociology of altruism are lasting landmarks with a prime focus on the hows and whys of what he designated as sociocultural change.
Sovereignty
Authors: Krasner Stephen D.
Published: September 2017

The term sovereignty has been used in many different ways. The most important and widely understood distinction is between internal (domestic) and external (international) sovereignty. Internal sovereignty refers to the existence of an authoritative decision‐making structure within a political entity, a structure that is both legitimated and effective. External sovereignty refers to the autonomy or independence of a political entity and its associated authority structure from external control or interference.
Space
Authors: Wasson Leslie
Published: September 2017

Space has many faces: the bubble of individual space, the private spaces we maintain for our personal lives, the situated space defined for social interactions, the public spaces of wider social activity, and space as a scarce distributed resource in the organization of human social life. A sociological examination of space might look at one or more of these aspects. Although some theorists use the terms space and place interchangeably, they are not the same concept. A place is a social organization of space to which we have attached a particular meaning, and in which certain activities are more likely to occur. Space is the physical distance among the elements of which that place is constituted.
Sport, alternative
Authors: Honea Joy Crissey
Published: September 2017

Many sports can be considered alternatives to dominant sport forms, but the term alternative sport has generally been used in sociology to refer to a group of activities that meet a particular set of organizational criteria. Alternative sports initially existed outside of formal sports organizations and participants were primarily young people who, for one reason or another, didn't fit into the world of traditional youth sports like baseball and football. Though they differ greatly from each other, Robert Rinehart (2000) suggests that alternative sports can be loosely defined as: (1) participant controlled and directed, rather than organized through a governing body or other official organization; (2) individually focused, emphasizing personal achievements; (3) focused less on competition than traditional sports; and (4) generally possessing an insider requirement. That is, they are more likely than traditional sports to encompass their own subculture – one that stands in opposition to the dominant culture. In other words, skateboarders, for example, are not just people who happen to ride skateboards, but are “skaters,” expected to participate in a lifestyle associated with involvement in the sport.
Sport and the Body
Authors: Markula Pirkko
Published: September 2017

Given the centrality of the body in sport performance, it might be assumed that the corporeality of athletes has been an essential facet of sport sociological analysis. Despite its vital role, however, the body has occupied “an absent presence” in this research and only since the late 1980s have sport sociologists expressed a growing interest in this topic.
Sport and the Environment
Authors: Weiss Otmar
Published: September 2017

Everything outside the boundaries of the subsystem
sport
is considered to be its environment, and this can be influenced and altered by sport or, conversely, can itself influence sport. Examples of the latter are to be observed, for instance, in the effects on athletic performance of certain climatic qualities of the environment of Mexico City (tropical uplands) during the Olympic Summer Games 1968, or of Lagos (humid tropical lowlands) during the Pan‐African Games in 1973. In the sociology of sport it is principally the first‐mentioned influence – sport on the environment – that is the subject of discussion and study, and in particular the integration of sport in ecosystem structures is at the centre of consideration.
Sport and Ethnicity
Authors: King C. Richard
Published: September 2017

Ethnicity has proven fundamental to sport. It has long determined who has played, what participation and performance has meant, treatment by fans, media representations, and presentation of self.
Sport and Race
Authors: Carrington Ben
Published: September 2017

Sport and race have been in complex articulation since the nineteenth century, yet a
critical
sociology of sport and race has only developed substantially since the 1990s. In the 1960s a few academic studies and journalistic accounts examined segregation and racial discrimination in sport, but these were largely descriptive. Two exceptions to this were C. L. R. James's critical reading of the role of cricket in shaping West Indian political identity in the anti‐colonial struggles of the 1950s and 1960s, and Harry Edwards's important account of the radicalization of the black athlete in the context of America's Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and black nationalist politics of the 1970s. In the 1970s and 1980s sport sociologists began to investigate continuing racial discrimination in sport with a liberal focus on issues of equity and opportunity, normally using quantitative methods to measure the degree of meritocracy in sports. More recently, scholars have used cultural studies approaches to examine questions of representation and ideology in sport media texts, and ethnographic methods to understand racial identity construction in sport and its intersections with class, nation, gender, and sexuality.
Sports and Religions
Authors: Magdalinski Tara
Published: September 2017

Sport and religion have a conflicted relationship. At times, sport has served the objectives of religious authorities and has been imbued with a morality and philosophy derived from religious doctrine. At others, it has been rejected for its secular, corporeal emphasis and its capacity to divert attention from godly activities. Sport has been utilized as a means to evangelize and to convert non‐believers, and yet it has also represented a threat to the social and moral order. As such, religion has had an indelible impact on modern sport, and sport has been both embraced and rejected by religious authorities across the centuries.
Sport and Social Capital
Authors: Harvey Jean
Published: September 2017

The literature on sport and social capital is scarce and discussions are fragmented because there are disagreements about the definition of social capital, the role of sport in contributing to social capital, and the forms of social capital that may be generated in the sphere of sport.
Sport as Spectacle
Authors: Andrews David L.
Published: September 2017

The spectacle, in the form of an imposing public display, is not simply a benign cultural form, because it can seldom be separated from “non‐coercive strategies of power and persuasion” (Cary 2005) This is often overlooked when considering contemporaneous high‐profile sporting events staged for the entertainment of spectating publics (e.g., the NFL Super Bowl, Olympic Games, or FIFA World Cup), which, despite their celebratory sporting veneer, routinely communicate the values and ideologies of the dominant corporate capitalist order. The sport spectacle has, of course, long been a vehicle for the expression and/or performance of dominant cultural practices and sensibilities. This can, at least partially, be attributed to the fact that the visceral intensity of competition‐based physical culture possesses an almost unrivaled capacity to capture the interest and imagination of publics located within divergent historical and social contexts. Moreover, the very practice of bearing witness to (or spectating) particular displays of competitive physicality has played an important role in establishing the sociocultural import of some physical activities over others. Thus, the Olympic festivals of ancient Greece, the gladiatorial contests of ancient Rome, and even the folk football rituals of pre‐industrial Europe (such as the Florentine
calcio
) were only fully constituted as socially, culturally, and indeed politically significant practices through the presence and involvement of massed ranks of spectators, whose numbers dwarfed those of active participants.
Sportization
Authors: Maguire Joseph
Published: September 2017

The sportization process involved a shift towards the competitive, regularized, rationalized, and gendered bodily exertions of achievement sport that, in turn, connected to wider changes at the level of personality, body deportment, and social interaction. This process entailed regulating violence, developing formalized sets of rules and governing bodies, and shifting body habitus. Despite the existence of European rivals in the form of German and Swedish gymnastics, and although some older folk pastimes also survived, it was male achievement sport, emerging out of England, that was to affect people's body habitus on a global scale. Resistance to and reinterpretations of this body culture have been evident throughout the ongoing sportization process.
Sports Stadia
Authors: Bale John
Published: September 2017

Sports do not require stadia, but in their commodified form they have come to be seen as necessities. In contemporary discussions of the sports stadium two broad themes have attracted the attention of both sports scholarship and public opinion: (1) activity and organization within the stadium, and (2) extra‐stadium effects and implications. Academic approaches to these themes are considered in turn.
Stalking
Authors: Finch Emily
Published: September 2017

No single definition of stalking exists. This is probably because, despite certain commonalities, there is no prototypical case upon which a definition could be founded. Although some types of behavior are common in many stalking cases – silent/abusive telephone calls, unwanted gifts and letters, surveillance – each case involves an idiosyncratic combination of these and other diverse types of behavior that renders a definition based on the conduct involved somewhat nebulous. Other than this, definitions have isolated factors such as the relationship between the parties or the motivation behind the behavior, but again, these are so diverse and wide‐ranging that it is impossible to formulate a definition that captures the full spectrum of stalking cases. Although the various attempts at definition differ, a common theme exists that facilitates the identification of core characteristics: repeated and unwanted intrusions into the life of another that engender a negative reaction in the recipient.
Status
Authors: Kantzara Vasiliki
Published: September 2017

Status, originally a Latin word, means state of affairs, condition of a person as defined by law and in social sciences; it denotes standing in society. In sociology, the notion of status or social status designates location and position of collectivities – communities, groups, or strata – in the social hierarchy of honor and prestige. Positions are distinguished from one another in terms of differentiated duties and rights, immunities and privileges, and usually are associated with a lifestyle or a consumption pattern. In their turn, these distinguishing traits are attributed a hierarchical value that generally represents the scale of social worth in society.
Status Construction Theory
Authors: Ridgeway Cecilia L.
Published: September 2017

Status construction theory focuses on the collective development of widely shared status beliefs about apparently nominal social differences among people such as sex or ethnicity (Ridgeway 1991; Webster & Hysom 1998; Ridgeway & Erickson 2000). Status beliefs associate greater respect and greater competence at socially valued tasks with people in one category of a social difference (e.g., men, whites) than with those in another category of that difference (women, people of color). A typical reaction to the recognition of social difference is for people in each category to assume that their own group is “better.” When status beliefs develop about a recognized social difference, however, they transform simple difference into an evaluative hierarchy so that the distinction becomes a status characteristic in society. The distinctive aspect of status beliefs is that those in the social category that is favored by the status beliefs and those in the less favored category both come to hold similar beliefs that “most people” view the favored group as better than the other group. Status construction theory describes one set of processes by which such beliefs could come to be accepted as a matter of social reality by those they disadvantage and by those they advantage. In this way, beliefs become roughly consensual in society. The theory claims that the processes it describes are sufficient to produce widely shared status beliefs but are not the only way such beliefs might develop in a society or collectivity.
Steering, Racial Real Estate
Authors: Squires Gregory D. , Chadwick Jan
Published: September 2017

Racial real estate steering occurs when homeseekers are guided by housing providers to communities where their race is already highly concentrated. So as racial minorities are channeled to integrated or predominantly non‐white neighborhoods and whites are shown homes primarily in white communities, steering contributes directly to the segregated housing patterns that have long persisted in urban communities and the many costs associated with that separation.
Stepfamilies
Authors: Coleman Marilyn , Ganong Lawrence H. , Chapman Ashton
Published: September 2017

Stepfamilies are common throughout the industrialized world. In the United States nearly everyone marries, and about half of the marriages include at least one previously married partner (US Census Bureau, 2000). Most divorced people in other western countries also either remarry or cohabit, but at lower rates than in the United States. About half of the remarriages involve adults who have children.
Stranger, the
Authors: LeMoyne Terri
Published: September 2017

Simmel defined the field of sociology as the study of social forms, or the assorted patterns that people impose upon social interaction to give it coherent meaning. Social forms are the structured features of interaction, and Simmel argued that the sociologist should ascertain these social forms because actors typically create them unconsciously. In addition, he maintained that “social types,” or general character traits, are based upon social forms and are dependent upon social interaction. Therefore, individualisms, or qualities that we oftentimes assume to be uniquely personal, are really rooted in social interaction. “The Stranger” (1971 [1908]) is but one illustration of a social type.
Stranger, The
Authors: LeMoyne Terri
Published: September 2017

Georg Simmel defined the field of sociology as the study of social forms, which are the unconscious and structured features of interaction. Because they are unconscious, Simmel argued that the task of the sociologist is to expose these social forms. General character traits, or social types are based upon these social forms and are dependent upon social interaction. Therefore, qualities that we oftentimes think of as uniquely individual and private are really rooted in social interaction. “The Stranger” (1971 [1908]) is one illustration of what Simmel means by a social type.
Strategic Management (Organizations)
Authors: Knights David
Published: September 2017

On being asked to define strategic management, the temptation is to respond by asking what is
not
strategic in management. In other words, as soon as the idea of management is addressed, it is necessary to see it as strategic, although clearly much of management is about managing organizational routines. Such a response begs the question of what is meant not only by strategy, but also by management. Some writers on strategy and management have seen the two as coincident, but others perceive the focus on strategy to be contemporary and linked to the emergence and development of large, often multisite and sometimes multinational corporations. Both terms are in need of definition, even though we know that their meanings are tied to the context of their use. Nowhere is this made more obvious than when consulting the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, where both terms are treated in terms of usage and would seem to share a similar genesis in activities concerned with battle or the military.
Stratification, Distinction and
Authors: Ultee Wout
Published: September 2017

Behind a lot of research on societal stratification lurks the idea that, if persons are given a choice between a large and a small pay packet, they will opt for the larger one. Yet people in general not only want to have more than they already have, they also want to be more than others around them, particularly others who have about as much as they themselves have. This is the subject of distinction within the field of stratification. It became important in sociology through studies by Thorstein Veblen on conspicuous consumption, Norbert Elias on changing standards about what counts as good manners, and Pierre Bourdieu on distinction through leisure activities. Also to be mentioned is work by the art historician E. H. Gombrich on “the logic of vanity fair.”
Stratification, Gender and
Authors: Hakim Catherine
Published: September 2017

The documentation, interpretation, and explanation of structured social inequality has always been a central focus of sociology. Although social stratification lies at the heart of macrosociology, and is the subject of extensive theoretical and empirical analysis, the study of gender and stratification is comparatively recent, and developed in the 1970s onwards as a result of the second wave of the feminist movement in modern western societies (Crompton & Mann 1986). The traditional sociological view was that the subordination and oppression of women could be adequately incorporated into class analysis. Feminist theory insisted that in modern societies the class structure, and the oppression of women within patriarchal systems (i.e., women's oppression by men), were separate but interacting social processes.