bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
L
ukács,
G
eorg
Authors: Kellner Douglas
Published: December 2017

Georg Lukács (1885–1971) gained renown as a philosopher, literary critic and historian, and Marxist theorist. With Karl Korsch, Lukács was seen as the founder of Western Marxism, which broke with the dominant Marxist orthodoxies of the day and which presented a more dialectical and critical model of Marxism. His texts became popular in the West with the rise of the New Left and popularization of Marxism in the 1960s and 1970s, which valorized Lukács as one of the major proponents of Western Marxism.
History and Class Consciousness
was interpreted as a classic in Marxian theory, and Lukács's works in literary studies were seen as important studies of literature, history, and society.
Nanotechnology
Authors: Harthorn Barbara Herr
Published: December 2017

The science and engineering field of nanotechnology develops new materials at the molecular scale (1 nanometer equals 1 billionth of a meter) where they display novel exploitable physical, chemical, and/or optical properties. Development programs for these materials, devices, and systems are in progress in over 70 countries worldwide. Nanotechnology has attracted social theoretical attention as both an object and a field. Nanotechnologies have drawn fascinated attention as nascent risk objects, and their promised utility for human cognitive and physical enhancement in particular has accelerated societal debate about cryonics, cyborgs, and technological implications for aging. This entry traces the main contemporary social theory entanglements in nanotechnology studies, asking how they revise the understanding of a field, the social study of the future more broadly, and cyborg and aging futures specifically, along with risk and public participation.
New Racism
Authors: Hudson Sa‐kiera T. J. , Kimel Sasha Y.
Published: December 2017

New racism is an umbrella term used to characterize the dramatic departure from blatant racism after the civil rights era of the 1960s to more subtle forms. New racism specifically marked a shift in supporting cultural rather than biological justifications of the racial inferiority of ethnic minorities as well as the embedding of racism into social institutions and policies using race‐neutral language.
Prejudice
Authors: Issa Rula , Mueller Jennifer C.
Published: December 2017

Prejudice has long occupied a place of central concern among social theorists in the traditions of psychology, sociology, and most notably their juncture – social psychology. This entry traces the historical origins and central figures involved in shaping theoretical models of prejudice, as well as transitions in theory and research over time. Core assumptions undergirding various theoretical traditions – concerning the nature and source of prejudice in human behavior – are also discussed.
Primogeniture
Authors: Bertocchi Graziella
Published: December 2017

Primogeniture is an inheritance rule that assigns the entire family estate to the first son. In Europe primogeniture emerged in the thirteenth century and kept spreading up to the eighteenth century. It was most common among the feudal nobility and whenever land represented the primary source of wealth. It predominated in England, Scandinavia, and parts of France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. Outside Europe, it was adopted in Japan and the southern American colonies, while partition prevailed in sub‐Saharan Africa and Islamic regions. The French revolution abolished primogeniture and during the nineteenth century most European countries followed suit. In the present day equal partition is the norm. A prominent theory explains primogeniture with indivisibility of property caused by increasing returns to scale. The latter can emerge for political, economic, or anthropological reasons.
Race and Ethnicity
Authors: Broman Clifford L.
Published: December 2017

This entry discusses the definition, meaning, and significance of race and ethnicity, along with some issues in the measurement of the construct. The nature of the definition of race and ethnicity as a social construct is illustrated through examples of measurement error. We end with a discussion of some of the implications of these measurement errors and some continuing issues for the study of race and ethnicity.
Sexuality and the Law
Authors: Zylan Yvonne
Published: December 2017

Theoretical scholarship on law and sexuality has increased dramatically over the past several decades, in part due to an increase in litigation pursued by social movements representing sexuality‐based interests and identities. Much of this recent scholarship adopts an instrumental view of law, examining doctrinal framing strategies, especially rights‐based claims. Critiques based in critical race theory, critical legal studies, feminism and feminist legal studies, queer theory, postmodern and poststructural theory, and postcolonial theory complicate narratives emphasizing progressive change in the law's understanding of sexuality and identify its constitutive power to shape sexuality's place and meaning in social life.
Social Representations
Authors: Obradovic Sandra , Howarth Caroline
Published: December 2017

The theory of social representations is a theory of how knowledge is created, shared, and renegotiated through the interchange between the individual and the social. This entry gives a brief introduction to the theoretical frameworks, its applications, and interdisiciplinary developments, highlighting how social representations theory accounts for how we make sense of the world as well as how we change it.
Taxation
Authors: Smith Ken
Published: December 2017

Taxation is normally defined in terms of any contribution to revenue, normally raised by a state, on persons or property or both. However, this entry argues that taxation should be carefully distinguished from other ways in which the state can raise revenue, for example tribute or import duties, since not all forms of state revenue have the same implications for citizenship rights and obligations and that, in particular, it is necessary to carefully distinguish direct taxation, for example income tax – and the rights and duties that are found with this – from taxes to indirect taxation, for example on consumption, and the citizenship rights that accompany this. It is hypothesized that universal human rights are closely associated with income taxation though what form this association takes is not known.
Gender Diversity
Authors: Nanda Serena
Published: December 2017

The binary opposites of male and female, man and woman, is a basic, perhaps even universal, pattern in human societies. Sex/gender roles that transcend this binary opposition exist in many societies, however, emphasizing that both sex and gender are culturally constructed. Gender ideologies are influenced by specific histories, cultural patterns, social structures, and political contexts.
W
alras,
L
eon
Authors: Zafirovski Milan
Published: December 2017

Leon Walras (1834–1910) was an early and influential neoclassical French economist. He is credited with inventing the marginal utility theory of value, and the marginal productivity conception of income distribution, along with William Jevons in England and Carl Menger in Austria during the early 1870s. Walras is hence regarded as one of the key figures of marginalism and its revolution in economics, specifically in the theory of prices and distribution. Walras is also widely known for his conception of perfect competition and general market equilibrium theory.
Community Studies
Authors: Baxamusa Murtaza H.
Published: December 2017

Community studies is an interdisciplinary field that studies the shared attributes of a set of social relationships. The field is both descriptive, in identifying the attributes of a community, and prescriptive, in demonstrating how the community adapts to social change. Research methodologies from sociology, public policy, urban planning, economics, anthropology, technology, and communication are used to study the formal and informal institutions that build a community and solve problems on a community‐wide scale.
E
ngels,
F
riedrich
Authors: Carver Terrell
Published: December 2017

Friedrich Engels worked closely with Karl Marx and coined the phrase the “materialist interpretation of history” as a summary of the latter's achievement in social theory. Engels's early book,
The Condition of the Working Class in England
(1845), represents a theoretically informed study of early industrialization and working‐class poverty, prefiguring spatial studies in urban geography. His manuscript drafts of 1845–1846, composed together with Marx, were published in the twentieth century as
The German Ideology
and circulated as foundational to Marxism. Another joint work, the
Communist Manifesto
, was anonymously published in 1848, and is always in print as a theorization of social history and political change.
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
(1884) theorized women as an oppressed class and so generated a wide variety of critical feminist responses.
Feminisms
Authors: Lorber Judith
Published: December 2017

Feminisms are political movements and theories of the origins and persistence of gender inequality. Feminist theories promulgate and bolster the goals of feminist political action. Feminist movements have arisen throughout the world during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with sometimes similar and often different political goals and with diverse theories of gender inequality. Underlying concepts tend to reflect similar principles about the differences between gender, sex, and sexuality and the societal, structural, and interactional aspects of gender and patriarchy. The entry describes first‐wave feminism, second‐wave feminism, third‐wave feminism, liberal feminism, radical feminism, lesbian feminism, psychoanalytic feminism, French feminism, multinational feminism, African American feminism, Chicana feminism, feminist studies of men, postmodern feminism, and queer theory.
Gender
Authors: Frazer Elizabeth
Published: December 2017

Gender refers to the social expression of sex difference or sex categorization. It is controversial how much gender distinctions derive from biological distinctions between male and female, how much from social norms and rules, and how much from technologically enforced differentiation. The naturalness of the male‐masculine/female‐feminine dichotomy is put into question by social phenomena such as cross‐dressing, and transgender or transsexual identifications. It is also put into question by the observation of the historical specificity of established two‐sex/gender social systems, and by aspects of the relationship between social/sexual gender and grammatical gender.
Gender Segregation in Everyday Life
Authors: Kolker Abigail F.
Published: December 2017

Throughout the lifespan, much of everyday life is segregated by gender, including social networks and occupations. Gender segregation is propelled and perpetuated by various mechanisms on the individual, interactional, and institutional levels. Starting in early childhood, same‐sex friendships predominate due to behavioral compatibility and communication styles, which get reinforced over time through differential peer socialization. Differences in friendship styles persist into adulthood, leading to gendered social networks. At all ages, social norms regulate opposite‐sex friendships, with social sanctions for violations of socially acceptable relationships. Occupations are also segregated by gender, partially due to differential interests, skills, and norms resulting from gender socialization, dissimilar information made accessible through segregated social networks, disparate occupational aspirations due to unequal domestic responsibilities, and discriminatory employment practices.
M
osca,
G
aetano
Authors: Femia Joseph V.
Published: December 2017

Mosca (1858–1941) was a pioneering political sociologist, who also served in the Italian parliament. He was, arguably, the founder of elite theory, claiming that all societies are necessarily ruled by a small minority, no matter how democratic the constitution may be. By focusing on actual behavior, rather than on the myths and abstractions used to justify that behavior, Mosca helped to pave the way for modern political science.
Sex
Authors: Spencer‐Wood Suzanne M.
Published: December 2017

The word sex has multiple different meanings and theorizations that are discussed in this entry, from biological sex to sexual instinct, sex acts, sexuality, and psychological and social sex differences. Gender roles were considered biological “sex roles” until the feminist movement distinguished biological sex from social gender roles. However, sex and gender are interrelated. Biological sexes are socially and culturally constructed not only ideologically, but also physically. A variety of sexes have been constructed in different cultures and over time. Masculinist and feminist theories provide different explanations for biological sexes, sex acts, psychosexual development, female and male sexuality, and sexual social relationships.
Sex Work
Authors: Dewey Susan
Published: December 2017

Sex work is an umbrella term that refers to the continuum of behaviors and cultural practices surrounding the exchange of intimacy for money or something of value, and includes diverse forms of paid labor such as erotic dance or other sexualized performances, pornography, and prostitution.
Simmel,Georg
Authors: Morris‐Reich Amos
Published: December 2017

Georg Simmel is considered to be one of the four founders of the academic discipline of sociology, the first to have established a notion of society that is not derived from any biological or collective substratum, and the first true sociologist of modernity. Using controversies with contemporaries and his own close and sensitive observation of the dynamics and antinomies of modern culture and society, Simmel developed a conception of society that was strictly individualistic in its epistemology. In several major books and numerous seminal essays, Simmel elaborated on the relations between individuals and social forms, studied the intricate relations between individuality and the social process of typification, and observed the effects of the processes of modernization on alienation and the fragmentation of life and experience.
T
rotsky,
L
eon
Authors: Bideleux Robert
Published: December 2017

Trotsky (1879–1940) was a major thinker, orator, and prolific writer, who also displayed considerable talents for political and military leadership and organization. He was the chief organizer of the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917, the founder of the Soviet “Red Army,” and second only to Vladimir Lenin as a Bolshevik leader and Marxist theoretician. Between late 1917 and
c
.1923, however, Trotsky and the other co‐founders of the Soviet regime were jointly responsible for the execution of about 200,000 members of rival political and military movements (mostly supporters of rival socialist parties), for massive draconian food requisitioning and militarization of labor, and for plunging the former Russian Empire into a civil war which cost between 8 and 12 million lives. In these capacities and as the most prominent Jew in the Bolshevik regime, Trotsky aroused widespread (often anti‐Semitic) loathing. Nevertheless, during the 1920s and 1930s Trotsky became one of the most coherent and pragmatic advocates of a mixed Soviet economy, conciliatory policies toward independent peasant farmers and small private businesses, partial economic planning, and maximizing the benefits to be obtained from exporting primary commodities (primarily oil, grain, and timber products) to finance imports of the machinery, equipment, investment, and technological know‐how needed to rapidly modernize the Soviet economy. He also became the most incisive and influential Marxist critic of the brutal, coercive, and autarkic industrialization and rural collectivization policies and the increasingly deformed, bureaucratic, hierarchical, and totalitarian police state presided over by his arch‐rival Jozef Stalin, who exiled Trotsky to Turkey in 1929 and had him murdered in Mexico in 1940. Numerous members of Trotsky's family were also murdered by Stalin's regime.
Urban Quality of Life/Livability
Authors: Quastel Noah
Published: December 2017

Livability refers to quality of life in cities. However, it has been widely interpreted and includes both the promotion of, as well as opposition to, industrial development and infrastructure projects. While it was linked in the 1960s to new social movements, by the 1970s it had become enshrined in official government policy. Livability is now linked to efforts to make cities more sustainable through promoting compact walkable communities as well as serving as a basis for global competition between cities. Despite these many uses, the term points to the need for governance to not simply foster economic development but include concerns about how cities are places for people and nature.
Women's Rights
Authors: Vojdik Valorie K.
Published: December 2017

“Women's rights” refers to the legal rights and entitlements that provide and promote nondiscrimination on the basis of sex and social, political, and economic equality of women with men in society. Women's rights have been codified under national and international law. In most societies, the achievement of women's rights has required organized struggles against patriarchal political and social organizations and states. While international law mandates nondiscrimination on the basis of sex, the nature and extent of women's rights vary considerably depending on social and national location.
Art and Aesthetics
Authors: Agassi Joseph , Jarvie Ian
Published: December 2017

Art and aesthetics are found in all societies. Some art is concrete (paintings, sculptures, buildings, books), some is not (performances, musical works, poetry). Such social theories as classical economics, dialectical materialism, evolutionism, and functionalism all try to demystify art and aesthetics by reducing artistic value and the assessment of artistic value to their favored social models. Yet none of these is satisfactory. Artistic value is a socially constructed category that defies efforts to reduce it.
Authoritarianism
Authors: Worrell Mark P.
Published: December 2017

Authoritarianism as a psychological type, attitude, worldview, and political constellation is examined. The core substance that connects these four analytic domains is made up of the propensity to divide the world into “us versus them” (the good, pure in‐group opposed to morally corrupt and dangerous out‐groups), fear as a primary drive, adoration of power and force, hatred of weakness, submission to leaders who are viewed as legitimate, and valorization of “traditional” values, especially those rooted in fundamentalist religious ideologies.
B
ernstein,
B
asil
Authors: Mutch Alistair
Published: December 2017

Basil Bernstein, a British sociologist of education, explored the connections between social structure, notably social class, and pedagogy. He elaborated ways of analyzing the influence of power on the content and pacing of education, thus shaping and reproducing broader inequalities.
Bias (and Heuristics)
Authors: Navarro María G.
Published: December 2017

A cognitive bias is a pattern of deviation in our judgment or our processing of what we perceive. Its
raison d'être
is the evolutionary need to produce immediate judgments in order to adopt a position quickly in response to stimuli, problems, or situations that catch our attention for some reason. They have a social dimension because they are present in the interactions and decision‐making processes of ordinary life. They can be understood to be an adaptive response to human inability to process all of the available information that we receive and selectively filter through biased reasoning or through procedures and heuristic rules.
Complexity
Authors: Uprichard Emma
Published: December 2017

Complexity has been applied across the social sciences and in many fields of sociology. To assume the social world is complex is an ontological statement about how the world is and the kinds of patterns of change and continuity that we might expect to observe at a general level. Nonlinearity is one among many features that complex systems share and it is also one of the key reasons why a growing number of authors argue that a radical shift in the epistemological and methodological approach to studying the social is required. In particular, the emphasis of this methodological shift is on the methods that prioritize the case (rather than the variable) as well as notions of agency through time and space.
Convergence Culture
Authors: Toews David
Published: December 2017

Convergence culture is a concept coined by Henry Jenkins that describes popular cultural norms that have emerged in response to media convergence. Such cultural norms are concentrated around the affirmation of the practice of combining various forms of communication. Convergence culture is made possible by digital media. It refers to attitudes on the part of ordinary people of active engagement with, as well as resistance to, the ways in which powerful media industry actors have attempted to control media convergence.
Credentialism
Authors: Nasir Kamaludeen Mohamed
Published: December 2017

Credentialism refers to the emphasis placed on academic qualifications in the hiring and promotion of workers in the labor force. It assumes the value of meritocracy but ignores the inequalities within social class, cultural norms, and the education system. Critiques of credentialism galvanize around issues relating to stratification and discrimination that are aggravated by the diversity of today's societies.
Cultural Capital
Authors: Silva Elizabeth B.
Published: December 2017

Cultural capital is a rich concept to explore the workings of culture in patterns of social differentiation. It was developed by Bourdieu in the mid‐1960s, in the context of investigations of what, beyond economic assets, was needed to explain educational attainment. The chief finding was that dispositions inherited from family are fundamental to school success. As standards of assessment favor higher classes, better‐off children perform higher. Educational studies and cultural policies to mitigate class reproduction effects have applied the concept. It has also been salient in social stratification research and feminist theory. Recent explorations show the need to attend to various forms of cultural capital evident in contemporary social life. The key argument is that there is no absolute standard of cultural value on which cultural capital is based, its value being defined according to dynamically changing, and contested, hierarchies that shape the concept as context dependent and relational.
Deferential Worker
Authors: Smith David Norman
Published: December 2017

Only a few attempts have been made to study working‐class conservatism in a sustained, textured, and many‐handed way. One of those attempts, in England in the decades from 1958 to 1977, sought to explain Tory voting by manual workers in terms of “deference” to wealth and rank. The results of that inquiry remain among the most thought‐provoking sources of insight into this enduringly pertinent issue.
Digital Democracy
Authors: Martin Greg
Published: December 2017

During the 1980s, hackers expressed concern over informational freedom. In the 1990s, “hacktivists” used hacking techniques to speak out on political matters, targeting governments and corporations that try to censor and restrict access to information. Wikileaks is a hacktivist organization also involved in practicing “counter‐surveillance” designed to disrupt surveillance hierarchies and institutional power symmetries. Like Wikileaks, ordinary citizen‐users are also able increasingly to challenge state surveillance, monitoring, and censorship via new information and communication technologies, and social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. “Citizen journalists” have intervened to expose abuses of power by state actors, such as the police, and to overthrow repressive regimes, such as during the Arab Spring. While these technological developments provide opportunities for digital democracy, a “digital divide” has also emerged, reflecting differential Internet access across territories, social classes, and groups with varying degrees of political interest. State actors too have begun to experiment with digital forms of political participation, seeking public engagement on strategic policymaking issues, such as intergenerational injustice.
Indigenous Movements
Authors: Altamirano‐Jiménez Isabel
Published: December 2017

This entry discusses the concept of indigenous movements and distinguishes it from other types of social movements. It illustrates how contemporary indigenous movements' claims are the continuation of historical resistance struggles that address new contexts to pursue centuries‐old concerns. This entry also shows how indigenous women have contributed to the configuration of contemporary indigenous movements.
Methodological Nationalism
Authors: Chernilo Daniel
Published: December 2017

This entry explains the rise and main features of the so‐called debate on methodological nationalism, which is defined as the equation between the historical formation of nation‐states and the social sciences' conceptualization of society. It focuses on the three ways of this debate inside twentieth‐century sociology: a first moment, in the mid‐1970s, which coincided with the definitive expansion of nation‐states throughout the world; a second moment, the turn of the new century, which echoed claims on the definitive decline of nation‐states on the back of globalization, and a third, contemporary, moment that reassesses the transformations of nation‐states in a post‐global era.
Paradigm
Authors: Kindi Vasso
Published: December 2017

Paradigms are mostly associated with the work of Thomas S. Kuhn and mean both concrete scientific achievements (exemplars) and scientific traditions which, in paradigm shifts, are overthrown and replaced by new ones. Paradigms account for the cohesion of scientific communities drawing attention to training in practice rather than theoretical education and to convergent rather than divergent thinking. Substituting paradigms for theories gave rise to criticism of irrationalism, relativism, and idealism in science.
Policing
Authors: Asquith Nicole L.
Published: December 2017

Since the early formation of policing organizations in the nineteenth century, the role of the police – and more recently, the extended police family – has been framed consistently in terms of its function in maintaining social order. In its third wave of theorizing, police studies is beginning to grapple with the consequences of the pluralization of policing agents, the links between legitimacy and procedural justice, and the privatization and coproduction of personal safety. Each of these transformations in the policing landscape have deepened the social order imperatives adhered to conventional theories of policing, while also offering new opportunities for reimagining the role of police in contemporary society.
Pragmatism
Authors: Scalambrino Frank
Published: December 2017

Pragmatism, often considered the quintessential American contribution to the history of philosophy, may be described as a school of thought, as an attitude, as a method, or as a theory of meaning, and this is despite Arthur O. Lovejoy's helpful observation that there may be “at least thirteen pragmatisms: a baker's dozen of contentions which are separate not merely in the sense of being discriminable, but in the sense of being logically independent.” As a school of thought, pragmatism developed out of the work of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), William James (1842–1910), and John Dewey (1859–1952). Whereas C. S. Peirce is considered the progenitor of pragmatism, James and Dewey are considered its disseminators and popularizers. This entry focuses on Peirce.
Public Opinion
Authors: West Mark Douglas
Published: December 2017

Public opinion is commonly defined as the aggregated preferences of the populace, or some subset thereof, on a matter of social interest. The notion that public opinion is a process by which ideas and concerns come to be foregrounded within a public sphere of discourse derives from a modern view of how opinions are formed and measured, while a classical view holds that the public is ill informed and that public opinion polling may create, rather than measure, opinion.
Relativism
Authors: Sivado Akos
Published: December 2017

Dealing with foreign cultures and civilizations, both theoretical and practical social science has to account for seemingly inexplicable differences in the actions, beliefs, and attitudes various communities take to be appropriate, valid, or morally right. One way of coping with this multiplicity of possible ways of looking at the (natural and social) world is to hold that we are not in a distinguished position to judge something objectively real, valid, or right – and if a theory gives up knowledge claims of a universal nature, it can be said to be relativistic in some respect.
Social Simulation
Authors: Ylikoski Petri
Published: December 2017

Simulation is a particular type of modeling. In simulation the behavior of one system is studied to make inferences about the behavior of another system. Computer simulations can be classified as equation‐based and agent‐based simulations. In agent‐based simulations macro‐dynamics are emergent products of local individual interactions. Agent‐based simulations are very flexible with respect to the characteristics of the agents. Instead of assuming the hyper‐rational and all‐knowing agents of economic theory, the modeler can decide the cognitive architecture of the agents. The agents in agent‐based simulations are autonomous, interdependent, and heterogeneous, which makes it possible to model how macro social patterns are created and maintained as the intended and unintended outcomes of individual actions.
Sociology of Knowledge
Authors: Fuller Steve
Published: December 2017

The sociology of knowledge came into its own in the early twentieth century as the study of the existential conditions under which specific ways of knowing arise and are maintained. Unlike the critique of ideology which began in the late Enlightenment and was developed most fully by Marxism, the sociology of knowledge has tended to downplay the extent to which people are self‐deceived by their ways of knowing. Rather, the field has emphasized the functional and adaptive characteristics of ways of knowing. In this respect, the sociology of knowledge presupposed a more broadly “phenomenological” and even “ecological” approach to epistemology than ideology critique, which has been more concerned with the “correspondence” (or not) of ideas to reality.
Sustainable Development
Authors: Scerri Andy
Published: December 2017

Given concrete meaning only through international negotiations held in the 1980s, the concept “sustainable development” unites two once disparate ideas. On the one hand, industrial and postindustrial economic practices are depleting the ecosphere upon which society depends, and must be rendered “sustainable.” On the other hand, industrialization and postindustrialization are not subject to some universal law that sees the benefits of either or both automatically dispersed from core nations of the Global North to peripheral nations of the Global South, as if by virtue of some historical unfolding process. Rather, “sustainable development” encapsulates the idea that economic activity is guided and designed by humans, and can potentially be made fair and just as well as brought into harmony within the ecosphere.
Violence
Authors: Malešević Siniša
Published: December 2017

Violence is a social process through which one, intentionally or unintentionally, inflicts the coercively imposed behavioral change or whose actions result in the physical, mental, or emotional damage, injury, or death. The social theorists distinguish between the interpersonal and organized violence with the former involving face to face interaction and the latter entailing the presence of complex social organizations.
Youth Cultures
Authors: Lombard Kara‐Jane
Published: December 2017

As cultural practices or social identity formations associated with youth and adolescence, youth cultures incorporate a plurality of symbolic systems, values, norms, tastes, interests, social networks, behaviors, and lifestyles. While linked to adolescents or young adults, the age limits of those participating in youth cultures are not fixed nor are they rigidly defined in scholarly literature. Although the term “youth culture” was initially used, scholarship increasingly favors the use of “youth cultures,” recognizing that the concept of a single youth culture conceals a plurality of youth constellations.
Social Cognition
Authors: Eslinger Luke A. , Eslinger Paul J.
Published: December 2017

Social cognition refers to a set of mentalizing processes that provide the basis for healthy social interactions. It encompasses processes of theory of mind, social knowledge, and perception that underlie interpersonal sharing (empathy), transactions, and many forms of social interaction. Social cognition is impaired in many neurological, psychiatric, and developmental disorders. Expressions of social cognition are found in diverse animal species in the form of dominance hierarchies, coalitions, reconciliation, altruism, food sharing, perception of gaze and facial expressions, and vocalizations.
Darwinism
Authors: Gare Arran
Published: December 2017

Darwin's theory was an explanation of evolution with social, ethical, and political implications. To portray Darwinism as respectable objective science and social Darwinism as a pernicious political doctrine, only illicitly based on Darwinism, is wrong; Darwinism is social Darwinism. The influence of this doctrine has been pervasive, and because of this, beset with controversy. This entry is simultaneously a history of the development of Darwinism, of controversies over its validity, and of efforts to free social theory from distortions of Darwin's predictive evolutionary theory. Darwin defended competition for survival of races and individuals, and valorized “the winners.” However, Darwinists have sanitized his ideas, and disguised the imposition of “survivalist” norms and values onto scientific and social theories. However, freed from such historical distortions, important debates are revealed. It is shown how Darwinism and social Darwinism have been superseded by post‐Darwinist evolutionary theory, integrating Darwin's core insights into more complex theories. These imply a very different view of life, humanity, and society, with very different social, ethical, and political implications.
Enlightenment (Including Scottish)
Authors: West Robin
Published: December 2017

The Enlightenment is a period and process that defined Western culture and thought. It introduced revolutionary transformations to scientific ideas and cultural, social, and political formations throughout the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Its central tenets rested in the ascendancy of reason and the challenge to existing forms of power, placing faith not in metaphysical authority but rather in the intellectual courage of humanity.
Social Interaction
Authors: Mele Vincenzo
Published: December 2017

Social interaction is defined as the process by which people act and react in relation to each other. One fundamental aspect of the process of social interaction is that the individuals involved understand each other's underlying intentions and meanings. The human mind and the personal self can only develop through meaningful interaction with others. Over time, the individuals and groups interacting in a social system create concepts and mental representations of each other's action, and these concepts become crucial as they determine expectations and the reciprocal roles played by the actors. Knowledge and people's conceptions of what reality is can become embedded in society, creating what is called the social construction of reality.
Orientalism
Authors: O'leary Brendan
Published: December 2017

European social and political thought about Asia, the Middle East, and Islamic civilization has been called “orientalism” by its critics; it is seen as a subset of “Eurocentric” understandings of the world. One rejoinder to orientalism is to make counter‐accusations of “occidentalism.” These arguments are descendants of arguments about oriental despotism, oriental society, and the Asiatic mode of production, which were especially prominent during the Cold War because of the work of Karl August Wittfogel.
Development Theory
Authors: So Alvin Y.
Published: December 2017

The field of development studies emerged in the post‐World War II era. In the late 1950s, it was dominated by modernization theory (which emphasizes indigenous development). In the late 1960s, this theory was challenged by radical dependency theory (which emphasizes endogenous development). Over the past three decades, a new theory of the developmental state (or late development) rose up to offer an alternative perspective to explain the rapid economic development of East Asia. This entry is divided into three parts: on modernization theory, dependency theory, and developmental state (or late development) theory.
B
öckenförde
P
aradox
Authors: Turner Bryan S.
Published: December 2017

Ernst‐Wolfgang Böckenförde (b.1930) is one of Germany's leading jurisprudential philosophers and a former judge in the Constitutional Court. The so‐called Böckenförde dilemma or paradox is that the secular liberal state is based on prerequisites or values that it cannot guarantee itself.
Geis, Gilbert (1925–2012)
Authors: Dodge Mary
Published: December 2017

Gilbert Geis (1925–2012) was best known for his work in white collar crime. His prolific publications included a vast number of topics. In addition to books and articles on corporate and professional crime and deviance, he examined gangs, juvenile delinquency, victims, law, case study methodology, policing, prostitution, fraud, and gender. Geis received numerous awards during his career and served as the president of the American Society of Criminology. He received governmental grants to explore drug usage, rape, rehabilitation, and victims of crime. With over 500 articles and book chapters and 28 books, Geis's research and commentary represent one of the largest and varied body of works produced by a sociologist/criminologist.
Clinard, Marshall (1911–2010)
Authors: Yeager Peter Cleary
Published: December 2017

Marshall B. Clinard (1911–2010) became one of the world's leading research criminologists over a career that spanned five decades. Spending virtually his entire academic career at the University of Wisconsin‐Madison, he conducted research in both the United States and abroad and on both conventional and white collar crimes. In all, his scholarship produced ten books, ranging from the definitive text on deviancy that has seen its 15th edition published in 2015 to his last book – on corporate corruption – when he was nearly 80. These books included important conceptual and theoretical contributions as well as creative comparative analyses of crime in other nations. But Clinard became most identified with his stream of research on corporate crime, the subject on which he wrote his final books. In this he followed the inspiration of his beloved graduate school mentor, Edwin H. Sutherland, who had established white collar crime as an important area of criminological research. Clinard became the leading scholar of his generation in this subject area. By then, however, his professional reputation had already been well established. In 1971 he won criminology's highest academic honor, the Edwin H. Sutherland Award, some years prior to his launching his pathbreaking research on corporate crime.
Big Data
Authors: Mather Mark , Jarosz Beth
Published: December 2017

Data available for social science research is expected to increase exponentially in the coming decades, along with new tools and procedures to analyze them. These new big data resources present many opportunities for social scientists but also pose significant challenges. Big data allow researchers to observe actual behavior rather than relying on self‐reported information – providing the basis for real‐time, data‐based decision‐making. However, big data can also suffer from problems such as respondent recall bias, reporting error, and data entry error. In the social sciences, big data can be used to monitor public opinion, track emerging health issues, analyze social networks, and develop models to help predict crime and other behaviors. Big data also provide opportunities to reach hard‐to‐reach populations – those who may be reluctant to respond to surveys but who use social media on a regular basis. Statisticians and social scientists can help infuse appropriate methods into the process of analyzing big data to ensure that conclusions are not overstated. Effective research will require collaboration with researchers in other disciplines, including computer scientists, to create a new generation of “computational social scientists” who can effectively use big data to answer questions about human behavior and forecast change.
Base and Superstructure
Authors: Beamish Rob
Published: December 2017

In the preface to the first published installment of his critique of political economy, Marx presented the classic statement of the base and superstructure metaphor. Sketching the “guiding thread” of his work, Marx noted that humankind enters determinate, necessary social relations of production appropriate to a determinate developmental stage of the material forces of production. These relations, comprised of real individuals, their activity, and the material conditions in which they live, constitute the “economic structure” – the real basis of the legal and political superstructure and determinate forms of social consciousness. The material infrastructure, Marx maintained, was the real locus of fundamental transformation – not new ideas or changes in the superstructure. The social relations of production – property relations – initially facilitate but later fetter the development of the material forces of production, leading to social change. The material forces of production consist of raw materials, machinery, technology, production facilities and labor power. The conscious, revolutionary subject – the proletariat – is one of the productive forces. Similarly, the social relations of production include workers' aggregation in increasingly larger factories which could influence class consciousness and fuel revolutionary enthusiasm. Read this way, Marx's position is not objectively (or structurally) deterministic.
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1868–1963)
Authors: Dennis Rutledge M. , Dennis Kimya N.
Published: December 2017

W.E.B. Du Bois (William Edward Burghardt Du Bois) (1868–1963) was a sociologist, historian, and philosopher, born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He attended Fisk University, where he received his BA in 1888, then received a second BA from Harvard University in 1890, from which he was also awarded an MA (1891) and PhD (1895) with the dissertation, “The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638–1870.” Between 1892 and 1894 Du Bois studied at the University of Berlin. This experience would have enduring consequences on both his personality and his scholarship, though, as he stated in his classicSouls of Black Folk, his experiences at both Fisk and Harvard, prior to his European experience, had already shaped much of his views on race, class, sociology, history, and philosophy. Du Bois's scientific and philosophical astuteness is clearly seen in his prophetic and prescient statement that “The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color‐line.”
Mediation
Authors: Nicholls Brett
Published: December 2017

The term “mediation” has historically functioned in four distinct ways. First of all, the concept has been employed as a third term in a triadic structure, mediating between one state of reality and another. Second, the concept refers to the technical means for transmitting messages, such as in mass media. In this second case, the relationship between the means and the message is examined. Third, the concept refers to the dominance of media in contemporary constructions of knowledge. Fourth, mediation refers to the process of linking nodal points in a network or an assembled structure, where reality is produced or performed. The first understanding has been the main focus of critical thought. The second developed in the context of industrial forms of mass media. And the third and fourth emerged as central aspects of contemporary techno‐capitalist society.
Middleman Minorities
Authors: Min Pyong Gap
Published: December 2017

Middleman minorities are characterized by their intermediate economic role, host hostility, and reactive solidarity. Their most important characteristic is their intermediary economic role (retail trade) between the producers of the dominant group and the consuming masses (minority customers), as we can see from the examples of the Chinese in Southeast Asian countries and Jews in medieval Europe. As a result of their intermediate economic role, they encounter prejudice and host hostility from both minority customers and producers of the ruling group. Middleman minorities' ethnic attachment helped them to establish and operate their businesses. Their experiences with host hostility have further solidified middleman minorities.
Reification
Authors: Beamish Rob
Published: December 2017

Sociologists from several perspectives have critically addressed reification. In general, reification is a misplaced concreteness that occurs when an analytic or abstract concept is thought of or treated as a material reality. Through reification people regard human relations, actions, and ideas as independent of themselves, sometimes governing them. The abstraction “society” is frequently reified into something that has the power to act. Society does not act – people do. The significance of reification is found in Marx's discussion of “the fetishism of commodities” where social relationships appear as the relationships among things. For phenomenologists, reification is part of the natural attitude where human agents forget their own authorship of the lifeworld. In Bourdieu's work, doxa emphasizes reification in a similar manner where the existing world seems natural and inevitable.
Sorokin,PitirimA.(1889–1968)
Authors: Nichols Lawrence T.
Published: December 2017

A world‐class scholar of exceptional erudition, Pitirim A. Sorokin contributed much to the development of both academic and public sociology in Russia and in the United States. As a young man, Sorokin was deeply involved in politics, but he became disillusioned and devoted himself to scholarship, though always with an eye toward social issues. He held professorships at the University of Saint Petersburg, the University of Minnesota, and Harvard University. In 1937, Sorokin published his major work,Social and Cultural Dynamics, which introduced his mature approach, called integralism. Sorokin subsequently pioneered the sociological study and teaching of altruism. He also founded the Harvard Center for Research in Creative Altruism, helped organize the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations, and served as president of the American Sociological Association. Since the late 1980s there has been an international resurgence of interest in Sorokin, most recently highlighted by the 2014 decision of the Komi Autonomous Republic to rename a university in his honor.
Space
Authors: Wasson Leslie
Published: December 2017

Space has many faces, including individual, private, public, and “human” space. 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.