bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Polyethnicity
Authors: Arabandi Bhavani
Published: September 2017

In a world characterized by massive immigration and high rates of intermarriage, it was inevitable that a new type of ethnicity, polyethnicity, would emerge. Whereas ethnicity is commonly understood to reflect the shared ancestry and history of a people, polyethnicity in this context refers to the ability and willingness of individuals to identify with multiple ethnicities and multiple identities.
Popular Culture Forms and Icons
Authors: Ritzer George
Published: September 2017

Sociologists have addressed a wide range of topics under the heading of popular culture.
Performativity
Authors: Tsekeris Charalambos
Published: September 2017

Through the 1990s, many scholars, following the epistemological path paved by the “crisis of representation” and the “linguistic turn,” have been led to a “praxis‐oriented” or “performative” turn of knowledge (Ellis 2004). This amounts to a radical move from the Cartesian split of mind/body/spirit to a relational epistemology of co‐emergence, from “representation” to “participation”, from the rational to the embodied. In such a viewpoint, knowledge is a participative and transformative social process which can be seen as actively performed through bodies, texts, spoken words, or visual images, and displayed as movement. From feminism (Butler) and critical theory (Bourdieu) to ethnography (Denzin) and science studies (Knorr Cetina), performativity is critically considered as a relational, embodied practice, as requiring bodily competence and physical work, or as creatively engaging with the material world of practices, things, texts, artifacts, and technologies.
Popular Religiosity
Authors: Marzal Manuel M.
Published: September 2017

Religion refers to a system of beliefs, rites, forms of organization, ethical norms, and feelings about the divine which help human beings to transcend and make sense of life. Popular religiosity is the equivalent of the religion of the common people, or popular piety, the way common people live their religion. It contrasts with official religiosity, which characterizes the specialists and the elites. There are several differences between these two kinds of religiosity (see Dupront 1987).
Population and Gender
Authors: Kishor Sunita
Published: September 2017

Gender represents the different roles, rights, and obligations that culture and society attach to individuals according to whether they are born with male or female sex characteristics. Gender is often described as being socially constructed since gender‐specific roles, rights, and obligations, with the exception of giving birth and breastfeeding, are ascribed, not biological, correlates of the sex of an individual. Gender is not just a characteristic of individuals, however; it is fundamental to the organization of societal institutions, including families, communities, laws, religion, and labor markets. While the specific manifestations of gender vary by culture, class, and, for individuals, life cycle stage, the common dimensions of gender critical for understanding the why and how of the gender‐population link include the following:
Posthumanism
Authors: Franklin Adrian
Published: September 2017

Posthumanism is a fast‐growing area of ontological debate and research that has emerged from broad currents of poststructuralist thought. In particular it gathers together the work of important scholars such as Donna Haraway (her “cyborg manifesto,” for example, and her more recent work on companion species), Bruno Latour (his development of actor‐network theory and its aftermath and his work on the “pasteurization” of France, for example), John Law (his work on relational materialism, orderings, and complexity), Andrew Pickering (his book
The Mangle of Practice
is a methodological masterpiece of posthumanist studies), and Nigel Thrift (his non‐representational geography project has opened up “human” geography to a much wider range of agency and forms of being in the world). Posthumanism is characterized by its opposition to humanism, as well as moving beyond it. It rejects the notion of the separability of humanity from the non‐human world, as is suggested by the very idea of sociology, and the division of knowledge into separate domains. Rather, it seeks to recover the complex ways in which humans are entangled with non‐humans. Latour and Law promote the idea of a symmetrical approach to all objects, human and otherwise, without giving humans the central organizing position and the only source of agency. Instead they advocate the idea of distributed cognition and a radical extension of semiotics. As Latour says:
Poststructuralism
Authors: McCormick Charles
Published: September 2017

Like postmodernism, this relatively recent coinage encompasses a wide range of intellectual schools and levels of analysis. These approaches tend to cluster around two somewhat overlapping camps: the “literary” theorists interested in describing the structure of language and culture, and the “sociological” camp consisting of sociologists and anthropologists interested in describing the structure of society and human agency.
Poulantzas, Nicos (1936–1979)
Authors: Wiedenhoft Wendy A.
Published: September 2017

Nicos Poulantzas was born in Athens, Greece. He was active in the Greek student movement of the 1950s and participated in various communist and leftist organizations throughout his career. After completing a degree in law in Greece, Poulantzas moved to France, where he received a doctorate in the philosophy of law in 1965. His first major work,
Political Power and Social Classes
, was published in 1968. Poulantzas held a number of academic appointments in France, and at the time of his suicide was professor of sociology at the University of Vincennes.
Pound, Roscoe (1870–1964)
Authors: Hill Michael R.
Published: September 2017

Roscoe Pound, sociologist, ecologist, and noted jurist, originated and promulgated the legal movement known as the American school of sociological jurisprudence. This revolutionary perspective remains the single most consequential application of sociological thinking in American society. Pound's sociological theories and empirical methodologies fundamentally transformed the prosecution and administration of US law for a full half‐century.
Poverty
Authors: Iceland John
Published: September 2017

While poverty generally refers to material deprivation, it is a multifaceted experience for those who are struggling to get by. It can certainly involve economic hardship, such as difficulty in paying food bills or living in housing in severe disrepair. For some, poverty means lacking some of the basic consumer items that their neighbors have, such as telephones and cars. The term poverty can be used to describe a lack of other types of goods, such as education or human rights. The focus here, however, is more narrowly on the economic dimensions of poverty.
Power‐Dependence Theory
Authors: Molm Linda D.
Published: September 2017

Power‐dependence theory is the name commonly given to the social exchange theory originally formulated by Richard Emerson (1962, 1972a, 1972b). As the name suggests, the dynamics of the theory revolve around power, power use, and power‐balancing operations, and rest on the central concept of
dependence
. Mutual dependence brings people together; that is, to the extent that people are mutually dependent, they are more likely to form exchange relations and groups and to continue in them. Inequalities in dependence create power imbalances that can lead to conflict and social change.
Pragmatism
Authors: Elliott David L.
Published: September 2017

Pragmatism began in 1871 with the formation of a discussion group of six Harvard graduates and scholars, among them the early pragmatist thinkers Charles Sanders Peirce and William James. The ideas of Peirce, including his doubt–belief theory of inquiry and theory of signs, and the ideas of James, especially his
Principles of Psychology
, were to influence the later Chicago or social pragmatists John Dewey and George Herbert Mead. Charlene Haddock Seigfried corrected the history of pragmatism by highlighting the contributions of early woman pragmatists, mostly notably the Chicago social worker Jane Addams. Mead was the chief pragmatist influence on the early Chicago School of sociology and its successor tradition of symbolic interactionism. Neil Gross recently used Hans Joas's reconstruction of classical pragmatist thought in developing a pragmatist theory of social mechanisms, in which he attempted to offer a more causal and macro alternative of pragmatist theory than that offered by symbolic interactionism. Dewey has been the chief pragmatist influence on recent work in the tradition of relational sociology, including Mustafa Emirbayer's manifesto for the approach, Josh Whitford's critique of rational choice theory, Ann Mische's ethnographic and network study of Brazilian youth activists, David Stark's theory of heterarchical organizations, and John Levi Martin's quest for a rigorous field theory.
Praxis
Authors: Wortmann Susan
Published: September 2017

Praxis is a term most commonly associated with the ability of oppressed groups to change their economic, political, and social worlds through rationally informed reflection and deliberate social action. As advocated and critiqued by contemporary theorists, the term itself is often loosely associated with the melding of theory to liberatory human action.
Prejudice
Authors: Jennings Laura
Published: September 2017

Prejudice is the judging of a person or idea, without prior knowledge of the person or idea, on the basis of some perceived group membership. Prejudice can be negative, as in the case of racist or sexist ideology, or positive, as in the case of a preference for a particular ethnic food, and can thus either help or harm a person so judged. Some writers, in defining prejudice, stress an incorrect or irrational component; others maintain that it is incorrect to do so because prejudice is often rooted in a quite rational self‐ or group interest. Prejudice is often used synonymously with such terms as discrimination and racism.
Prevention, Intervention
Authors: Kaufmann Franz‐Xaver
Published: September 2017

The terms “prevention” and “intervention” are used in many social sciences, from international politics to social work. They concern certain classes of intentional behavior by collective actors which are considered as interfering with given situations. Prevention means measures or actions to reduce potential risks, that is, to hinder the future happening of certain kinds of damage, for example, accidents at work, deviant behavior, or the spreading of contagious infections. Intervention, by contrast, means interference with some actual situation or process in order to change the course of an ongoing problematical event to the best outcome, whatever this means to the actors. From an analytical perspective the terms are fairly equivalent: prevention in the ordinary sense means interference in the earlier stages of an assumed causal process than intervention.
Primates and Cyborgs
Authors: Rees Amanda
Published: September 2017

Where the figures of the primate and the cyborg appear together, they are ineradicably associated with the work of the American historian of consciousness Donna Haraway. Representing utterly different clusters of form, meanings, and demonstrations, the two images share at least one distinct function: they are literally littoral figures, to be found on the category edges, both enacting and transgressing the boundary between nature and culture, body and machine, human and animal. But their significance is not merely to be found in their presentation as a persistent reproach to the philosophical dualisms that have characterized western culture. Both figures invoke politics as well as philosophy, exhibiting and intimating the ways in which politics is implicit in one's philosophical position, and one's political philosophy represents the active choice and creation of a sense of social and cultural identity. In some ways, the primate and the cyborg represent opposite ends of the range of Haraway's understanding of the thematic and practical possibilities for humanity's imagined future, and as such, a consideration of layered meanings that underlie these iconic emblems can be used as a means of accessing and interrogating her wider theoretical project.
Privilege
Authors: Rohlinger Deana A.
Published: September 2017

There is a historical and cultural tendency for dominant groups to institutionalize discrimination against subdominant groups. Discrimination is justified by arguing that members of the subdominant group are deficient in some way when compared to members of the dominant group. The idealized characteristics of the dominant group are intertwined in social, cultural, and legal institutions and ultimately work to advantage, or privilege, members of the dominant group and disadvantage those of the subdominant group. Sociologists most often discuss privilege in terms of gender (how women are subordinated to men), race/ethnicity (how people of color are subordinated to those with white skin), and sexuality (how homosexuals, bisexuals, and transsexuals are subordinated to heterosexuals).
Privilege
Authors: Rohlinger Deana A. , Latinsky Andrew
Published: September 2017

There is a historical tendency for dominant groups to create institutional level benefits for themselves at the expense of subdominant groups. These tiered systems of benefits lead to advantages for the dominant group, which are known collectively as privilege. Privilege can be difficult to detect because the characteristics of the dominant group are interwined in social, cultural, and legal institutions and used to define what is considered normal in a society. Consequently, privilege is most visible in the treatment of subdominant groups, who are discriminated against for being deficient in some way relative to dominant group members. Sociologists typically discuss privilege in terms of gender (how women are subordinated to men), race/ethnicity (how people of color are subordinated to those with white skin), and sexuality (how homosexuals, bisexuals, and transsexuals are subordinated to heterosexuals).
Professors
Authors: Hermanowicz Joseph C.
Published: September 2017

Professors are people with academic appointments at institutions of higher education. Compared to just a half‐century ago, higher education is differentiated on many counts, including the professorial role. While definitions delimit boundaries, they are sometimes ambiguously drawn. Professors in the American context typically hold advanced terminal degrees in the specialty in which they hold rank as assistant, associate, or full professor, those ranks composing an ascent in an institutional career. Yet vast numbers of people with academic appointments occupy roles, often without advanced terminal degrees, as lecturer, instructor, or, increasingly, as a temporary or part‐time adjunct or affiliate of a unit within colleges and universities. Thus one can be more liberal or restrictive in the application of the term, but this complexity raises core theoretic questions about the very topic of professors in contemporary society: Who are they? What roles do they perform? What is the academic profession to which these individuals purportedly belong? How has the profession changed over time in its form and function? Answers to these questions become even more complex when extending them across national boundaries, perhaps explaining why little systematic comparative work on higher education faculties has been attempted. A total of 138 national systems of higher education, involving most countries of the world and employing nearly all professors across the globe, are described over the four volumes of
The Encyclopedia of Higher Education
(Clark & Neave 1992).
Progress, Idea of
Authors: Weiler Bernd
Published: September 2017

The idea of progress, commonly considered one of the most influential and multifaceted ideas in the philosophy of history, states that material, political, social, intellectual, and moral conditions have continually and by necessity improved throughout human history and that such an improvement will continue in the foreseeable future (Nisbet 1980: 4–5). Since the Enlightenment the idea of progress and the controversies concerning its validity and ideological connotations have played a crucial role in modern social science discourse. The idea has not only been employed as a powerful conceptual framework to explain social change and the emergence of a new type of society, but also as a means to legitimate the entire endeavor of social science itself. By discovering the mechanism of societal progress and by identifying possible obstacles to progress, social scientists have claimed an authoritative role for themselves in the management of society's affairs. This sociocratic promise, encapsulated in the Comtean positivistic formula
savoir pour prévoir, prévoir pour pouvoir
, has drawn and continues to draw its strength from the fact that knowledge of nature's laws has been accompanied by an increased control over nature.
Prosocial Behavior
Authors: Wisely Nancy
Published: September 2017

Social psychologists invented the concept of prosocial behavior to characterize a range of voluntary actions that benefit the welfare of others. Because prosocial behavior is socially defined, its specific nature may differ across societies or by situations. For example, the widespread norm, “Thou shall not kill,” does not apply on the battlefield where killing may be rewarded with praise and medals. Prosocial behavior is consistent with social norms and provides a convenient antonym for antisocial behavior, or non‐normative behaviors such as crime and most forms of aggression.
Helping
is a prosocial subtype and refers to any behavior that has positive consequences for another. The helper's motivation may be altruistic or egoistic. Altruism is a special form of helping. The altruist is motivated by the ultimate goal of improving another's well‐being regardless of possible personal costs. Although the altruist may garner rewards in the act of helping, this does not preclude the altruistic intent. In contrast, egoistic responses are self‐serving and motivated by the desire to improve one's own welfare. The connection between altruism and prosocial behavior varies. Prosocial behavior will not always be altruistically motivated, and altruistic motivation will not always generate prosocial behavior (Batson 1991).
Protest, Diffusion of
Authors: Soule Sarah A.
Published: September 2017

The termdiffusionas it is used by social scientists refers to the spread or flow of some innovation, through direct or indirect channels, across actors in a social system (Rogers, 1995). Diffusion of protest, then, implies that social protest (or some element thereof) is spreading across (or flowing between) some set of actors in a social system.
Psychoanalysis
Authors: Movahedi Siamak
Published: September 2017

Freud defined psychoanalysis as a form of therapy, a mode of observation and inquiry, and a theoretical system. However, his passion lay primarily in psychoanalysis as a mode of scientific investigation. Psychoanalytic theory is based on Freud's image of the individual and his notion of psychic reality. The individual is presented as profane, irrational, self‐deceptive, narcissistic, power hungry, and the slave of the most primitive desires. This is the image of the decentered man, and is perhaps one reason for Freud's popularity among postmodernists.
Public Broadcasting
Authors: Allan Stuart
Published: September 2017

Precisely what counts as public broadcasting varies from one national media system to the next across the globe. Common to most definitions is the understanding that it revolves around a public service ethos that may be contrasted with the economic (profit‐oriented) priorities of private or commercial broadcasting. In investigating the key issues at stake, a continuum may be discerned between the model of public broadcasting introduced in the United States in the 1920s, at one end, and those developed in countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and Australia, at the other. In tracing their historical evolution, it is possible to pinpoint a range of factors that continue to shape their development in an era of interactive digital and high‐definition technologies with growing competition for viewers. Given contending demands on governmental support, concerns have been raised about how to sustain, let alone enhance, a public service ethos for a type of broadcasting increasingly being fragmented into narrowcasting. Differing views about its continued viability prompt considerable debate, involving a wide range of interested stakeholders in media policy‐making.
Public Order Crime
Authors: Huffer David
Published: September 2017

Complex, collective actions, people adjusting, cooperating, accommodating, and compromising in social intercourse, are the constituent elements of civil societies. Binding societies are social meanings and expectations of acceptable behavior, a social fabric. This tacit understanding, shared by residents and users of public spaces, reflects a pervasive sense of civility, mutual responsibility, and morality as well as desires for a pleasurable life and a safe environment. Public order crimes threaten, prevent, or otherwise interfere with these pursuits.
Public Realm
Authors: Lofland Lyn H.
Published: September 2017

While widely used in the contemporary discourse of such diverse fields as philosophy, political theory, sociology, art, media studies, architecture and urban planning, and gender studies, as well as in everyday speech, the concept of public realm has no consensual definition and definitions that are proffered are often both imprecise and enigmatic. What all the diverse usages do agree upon is that their referent is some sort of non‐private arena of social life and most judge that arena to be both critically beneficial and unappreciated; what they disagree about is its exact character. To add to the confusion, the non‐private arena may also be discussed under other names such as public sphere, public order, public domain, public world, and civic space.
Public Sphere
Authors: Delanty Gerard
Published: September 2017

The concept of the public sphere has become a key term in sociology since it was introduced by Jürgen Habermas as a sociologically pertinent concept. The public sphere refers to the space that exists in modern societies between the state and society. It concerns a domain that is generally related to civil society, but goes beyond it to refer to the wider category of the public. The public sphere comes into existence with the formation of civil society and the forms of associational politics to which it led. But it refers essentially to the communicative content of political modernity. Although the English term public sphere suggests a spatial notion of the public, the German termÖffenlichkeitconveys a stronger notion of a realm of communication, suggesting a discursive condition of “publicness.”
Phronesis and Phronetic Social Science
Authors: Hammersley Martyn
Published: September 2017

Phronesis
was a term used by Aristotle to refer to the kind of tacit wisdom acquired from engaging in practical action, notably the governance of states or of households. It amounts to knowing what is good or bad, what can and should be done, and also how to do it. It differs from both philosophical or scientific knowledge (
episteme
) and from technical knowledge or know‐how (
techne
). By contrast with the first, it is practice‐focused – in other words, it is not just about what is true but also about what it would be good to do in given circumstances. It differs from technical knowledge in that it is concerned with evaluating and prescribing goals as well as with selecting means. Equally important, and more fundamentally, it is not equivalent to grasping some theory or having command over a set of skills – it is actually closer to a virtue, or a set of virtues, that is part of the character of the person.
Peirce,CharlesSanders (1839–1914)
Authors: (Hans) Bakker J.I.
Published: September 2017

Charles Sanders Peirce emphasizes the way in which various kinds of signs mediate between the represented and the interpreted in order to create “habits” of social action; that is, we tend to think that a sign adequately represents what it is supposed to designate and often do not give the relationships between signs and their designated referents much thought. The apparently simple addition of a third item in the relationship between an “object” of thought and the “subject” who is doing the thinking allows us to move beyond a simplistic application of Cartesian subject–object, mind–body dualism. Peirce's critique of Cartesian dualism makes it clear that an epistemology that focuses on the solitary individual “subject” as an interpreter of “objects” is severely misleading. Peirce's correction of Descartes's logic and epistemology parallels Einstein's extension of Newton's physics. The isolated individual scientist (e.g., Galileo) never exists in reality. All scientific understanding is ultimately based on communities of scholars or “invisible colleges” that collectively interpret “facts” based on signs that are recognized by the majority of those who belong to the network. Peirce is widely considered to be a pathbreaking thinker.
Popular Culture Forms: Beach
Authors: Franklin Adrian
Published: September 2017

“The beach” is a dominant site and form of recreation and tourism – and not merely on the new pleasure peripheries of Southeast Asia, Mexico, the Caribbean, Bali, or Australia. The seaside towns of the United States and the UK, for example, have been through a turbulent period of change as they faced new competition, but even they are remarkably resilient, morphing into new lives for fashionable nostalgias and kitsches; homes for theme parks; new and desirable locations for weekend villas, condos and spaces of retirement, and as centers for conferences and conventions.
Popular Culture Forms: Hip‐Hop
Authors: Halnon Karen Bettez
Published: September 2017

Hip‐hop originated in 1974 as a local subculture in the South Bronx, New York City with Kingston, Jamaica‐born Clive Campell, the founding “Father of Hip‐Hop.”
Popular Culture Forms: RealityTV
Authors: Hill Annette
Published: September 2017

Reality TV is a catchall category that includes a wide range of popular factual programs. Sometimes called factual entertainment, or infotainment, reality TV is located in border territories, between information and entertainment, documentary and drama. Originally used as a category for law and order programming, reality TV has become the success story of television in the 1990s and 2000s.
Popular Culture Icons: Bob Dylan (
b
. 1941)
Authors: Beilharz Peter
Published: September 2017

Robert Zimmerman was born in Hibbing, Minnesota. Unlike Jimi Hendrix, who peaked and died young, Dylan has become a kind of weathervane as well as leader of musical taste since the 1960s.
Popular Culture Icons: Frank Sinatra (1917–1998)
Authors: Rojek Chris
Published: September 2017

Frank Sinatra was a popular singer, actor, and night‐club entertainer who dominated American popular culture for nearly six decades.
Popular Culture Icons: Myth of the
A
merican Frontier
Authors: Slotkin Richard
Published: September 2017

The Myth of the Frontier is the oldest and most durable of American national myths. Like all nation‐state mythologies, its function is to provide a historical account and an ideological justification of national development, and a repertoire of exemplary fables – based on historical events – which offer plausible precedents for dealing with contemporary crises.
Race and the Criminal Justice System
Authors: Samuel Laurie
Published: September 2017

This entry reviews the role of race in the definition of crime and justice within the American criminal justice system. The criminal justice system is a system of social control designed to regulate the behavior of citizens which includes the police, courts, corrections, probation, and parole. Its very creation is based on prejudices and stereotypes, and official decisions are therefore made through a lens of inequality.
Race and Ethnic Consciousness
Authors: Gold Steven J.
Published: September 2017

Race and ethnic consciousness refers to the awareness of membership in a racial or ethnic group by both group members and the larger society in which they reside. The concept embodies both popular
and
social scientific understandings of classification and membership. Popular perceptions often attribute race and ethnicity to biological origins. In contrast, social scientists insist that these categories are the consequence of a social construction process. Despite the social basis of race and ethnicity, social scientists acknowledge that they are real in their consequences. Race and ethnicity shape social stratification, underlie individual and group identities, determine patterns of social conflict, and condition life chances. In fact, so important is the notion of consciousness to the comprehension of race that eminent scholar George Fredrickson defines race as “
consciousness
of status and identity based on ancestry and color” (1988: 3; emphasis added).
Race/Ethnicity and Friendship
Authors: Tyson Will
Published: September 2017

Race and ethnicity are important factors in friendship formation. People tend to form friendships with others who live near them and who occupy similar social positions, belong to the same organizations, and are like themselves in terms of attitudes, values, and behaviors. Race and ethnicity are often cues of these similarities; therefore, race and ethnicity structure friendship formation (McPherson et al. 2001). People are likely to associate with others of their own race if the racial composition of the populations and distribution of members of a race throughout substructures of the population provide opportunities for same‐race friendships to form.
Racial Hierarchy
Authors: Song Miri
Published: September 2017

Racial hierarchies are systems of stratification premised upon the belief that some racial groups are either superior or inferior to other racial groups. A racial hierarchy in which white Europeans were deemed innately superior to all other “races” in virtually every respect was crucial for imperialist expansion in all parts of the world, as well as for the creation and practice of slavery. Without the stated belief that white people are superior – intellectually, spiritually, artistically – than non‐white people, it would not have been possible to subordinate and dehumanize conquered peoples.
Radcliffe‐Brown, Alfred R. (1881–1955)
Authors: Weiler Bernd
Published: September 2017

Alfred Reginald Radcliffe‐Brown and Bronislaw Malinowski (1884–1942) are generally considered to be the “founding fathers” of British social anthropology. Born into a poor family in Sparkbrook, Birmingham, Radcliffe‐Brown attended King Edward's School and worked in a library in Birmingham before being awarded a scholarship for Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1902. At Cambridge Radcliffe‐Brown, whose interest in the social sciences was allegedly stimulated by his acquaintance with H. Ellis and P. Kropotkin, took his undergraduate work in Mental and Moral Science. Toward the end of his formal education he turned to anthropology, studying with, among others, W. H. R. Rivers, A. C. Haddon, and C. S. Myers, all veterans of the famous Torres Straits Expedition (cf. Kuper 1989: 36–49; Stocking 1996: 306). In 1906, after one year of preparation, Radcliffe‐Brown went to do fieldwork among the Andaman Islanders, who in the evolutionist framework were supposed to be among the “lowest” peoples on earth. Upon his return in 1908, Radcliffe‐Brown became a fellow at Trinity College and, as he wrote in a letter to M. Mauss in 1912, found himself “in complete agreement with the view of sociology put forward in the
Année sociologique
” as well as being “the first person to expound … [Durkheim's] views in England.” Between 1910 and 1912 he conducted further ethnographic research in Western Australia. After World War I Radcliffe‐Brown, whose ethnography on
The Andaman Islanders
(1922) appeared in the same year as Malinowski's work on the Trobrianders, led a nomadic academic existence, teaching anthropology at Cape Town, Sydney, Chicago, Yenching, Oxford, São Paulo, London, Manchester, Alexandria, and Grahamstown, South Africa. From the late 1930s, when Malinowski left for the United States and Radcliffe‐Brown returned to England, to the early 1950s, Radcliffe‐Brown's (structural) functionalism dominated British social anthropology. Social scientists influenced by Radcliffe‐Brown's teaching in and outside Great Britain include (the early) E. E. Evans‐Pritchard, M. Fortes, S. F. Nadel, M. Gluckman, I. Schapera, A. P. Elkin, M. N. Srinivas, F. Eggan, R. Redfield, S. Tax, and W. L. Warner.
Radio
Authors: Crook Tim
Published: September 2017

Human social life depends upon the constant development and varied uses of modes of communication. Social existence also relies on shared and contested understandings of the world. This necessitates the systematic study of communication and culture and of their mediation through a variety of channels. The sociology of radio concentrates on the role of the radio medium in this process. Radio is now embedded in a complex intermedia world. It is not a medium that has been substantially replaced in the subsequent development of alternative modes of communication. But the changing nature of communications technology has led to a change in style and content of the social function of radio in human communities.
Rational Choice Theory: A Crime‐Related Perspective
Authors: Bouffard Jeffrey A. , Wolf Kelly
Published: September 2017

As an explanation of crime, the rational choice perspective in essence argues that would‐be offenders consider the potential costs and benefits before deciding whether to engage in crime. To be accurate, there is not a single, well‐defined rational choice theory, but rather a series of models that attempt to explain criminal events and/or criminality. The rational choice perspective in criminology has evolved largely from two previous and complementary explanations of human behavior. One of these is the classical school of thought characterized by the Enlightenment scholars Cesare Beccaria (1764) and Jeremy Bentham (1789). These early philosophers proposed that individuals would refrain from offending out of fear of the potential punishment that would result from such behavior (this is also the conceptual basis for the deterrence perspective in criminology). The rational choice perspective on crime also has more recent roots in a second explanation of human behavior, specifically, the attempts of economists to explain consumer purchasing decisions based on a consideration of the perceived potential utility of a product.
Rational Choice Theory (and Economic Sociology)
Authors: Fararo Thomas J.
Published: September 2017

Two major themes are part of the tradition of sociological analysis as it relates to economics. One theme concerns the sociology of economic phenomena, while the other concerns the relationship between economic theory and sociological theory. The first theme is the central focus of economic sociology, and the second has been a central focus of sociological theory in its phases of development. The two themes are closely connected. In recent decades, economists have endeavored to apply their theoretical approach to a wide variety of social phenomena very much in the domain of sociological research, such as religion and the family. Such “economic imperialism” has been met with some controversy and with opposition that includes a kind of reverse invasion, in which economic sociologists delve into the details of economic phenomena traditionally within the purview of the discipline of economics, e.g., the behavior of markets. In this mutual invasion of territories, economic sociologists criticize economic theory for postulating a “hyperrationality” on the parts of actors that is unreal and therefore misleading in its derived consequences even in regard to economic phenomena. Thus economic sociology itself is a major domain in which the controversial interplay of the disciplines occurs.
Ratzenhofer, Gustav (1842–1904)
Authors: Weiler Bernd
Published: September 2017

Besides Ludwig Gumplowicz, the Viennese‐born Gustav Ratzenhofer is the best‐known representative of the so‐called Austrian Struggle or Conflict School. After only a few years of formal schooling and an apprenticeship as clockmaker (his father's business), Ratzenhofer entered the Austrian Army in 1859. In a highly successful military career he rose to the position of a lieutenant field marshal and, a few years before his retirement, was also appointed president of the military supreme court in Vienna. During his time in the army Ratzenhofer acquired a first‐hand knowledge of the national struggles which were increasingly besetting the Austro‐Hungarian Empire. His political worldview was marked by a tension between the commitment to the liberal ideals of the revolution of 1848 and the conviction that a strong, centralized state was needed to counteract the centrifugal forces in the Habsburg monarchy. Before Ratzenhofer turned to sociology he had written numerous treatises on military history and strategy (e.g., Ratzenhofer 1881) and had also provided an in‐depth analysis of the peculiar political nature of the Habsburg monarchy (Renehr 1877–8). In 1893 he published his first explicitly sociological work, the three‐volume
Wesen und Zweck der Politik
, followed shortly thereafter by
Die sociologische Erkenntnis
(1898) and by the posthumous work
Soziologie: Positive Lehre von den menschlichen Wechselbeziehungen
(1907), which contains a number of anti‐Semitic and racist remarks. Ratzenhofer was mainly self‐taught and remained on the margins of Viennese academia throughout his life. One of his few scientific allies in Austria was his fellow‐countryman Ludwig Gumplowicz, who assumed the role of a mentor and made his name known in the international sociological community. Ratzenhofer died in 1904 on his return trip from the St. Louis Congress of Arts and Sciences where he had presented a sociological paper.
Refugee Movements
Authors: Robinson Courtland
Published: September 2017

Refugee movements are defined as the involuntary migration of people across international borders as a result of generalized conflict and disorder, or of more particularized threats of persecution and physical insecurity. The concept of “refugee” generally is treated as one category within a broader typology of forced migration, which includes involuntary movements both within and across international borders and encompasses other categories such as internally displaced persons, development‐displaced persons, and trafficked and smuggled persons.
Regression and Regression Analysis
Authors: Brown Stephen E.
Published: September 2017

Regression is a statistical technique for writing an equation to predict the values of a dependent (y) variable from values associated with one or more independent (x) variables. An important caveat, however, is that predictive success does not imply causality, as prediction is only one of the criteria for establishing causality. The most rudimentary regression form is ordinary least squares (OLS) linear regression. In addition to estimating the association with the independent variable(s), such an equation also incorporates a constant (alpha), or value of y when x is equal to 0, and an error or disturbance term (epsilon) comprised of variation in y not accounted for by the remainder of the equation. The better the fit of the equation, the more variation in y is explained, as reflected in the value of R squared. As the explained variance of the equation increases, ability to predict values of y associated with any particular values of x (or sets of x in multiple regression) is enhanced. That is, as the explained variance in y increases, the prediction error of the equation is reduced until an equation that explains all variance in y (R squared = 1.0) would perfectly predict y for any set of x values and have an error term of 0. Conversely, as prediction error of the equation increases, explained variance declines until the prediction of the equation offers no improvement over the mean of y as the best predictor of values of y for any level of x. A regression or slope coefficient (beta) is calculated for each x variable and represents the predicted change in y values for each unit change in the value of x. This coefficient may be positive or negative and is multiplied by the level of x for which y is being predicted. The greater the absolute value of the regression coefficient, the steeper the angle of the line (right angle for positive; left angle for negative) that best describes the relationship between x and y. Thus the generalized form of the regression equation is as follows:
Reich, Wilhelm (1897–1957)
Authors: Plummer Ken
Published: September 2017

Wilhelm Reich was a controversial theorist of the early and mid‐twentieth century who attempted to wed the ideas of Freud and Marx through a radical theory of the “sexual revolution” (a term he coined in the 1920s). His Marxism led him to the Communist Party in Austria, and to being a member of the Psychoanalytic Society. These organizations were at mutual odds, and Reich was soon expelled from both.
Relational Cohesion Theory
Authors: Lizardo Omar
Published: September 2017

Relational cohesion theory was designed to explain when and how people involved in exchange relations become committed to their relationship. This extensive research program was developed by Edward Lawler, Jeongkoo Yoon, and Shane Thye and has become one of the most cumulative research programs in sociological social psychology (Lawler & Yoon 1993, 1996, 1998; Lawler et al. 2000). The theory predicts that dyads embedded in equal power relations within exchange networks are more likely to engage in repeated exchange relations than dyads embedded in more unequal power arrangements. These frequent successful exchange episodes are, in turn, predicted to lead to a higher frequency of experience of positive emotions. When individuals attempt to ascertain the source of positive and negative feelings, relational cohesion theory predicts that these positive feelings are interpreted as a product of the relationship by way of an attribution process. This serves to make the relationship a cognitively salient object (“setting it off” as distinct from other alternative relations) and to imbue it with positive affect. Thus the relationship becomes an independent object of emotional attachment for the individual, which helps create perceptions of their relation as a cohesive unit. This perceived
relational cohesion
is thought to result in a host of behavioral outcomes associated with relational
commitment
, such as staying in the relationship even when alternatives of equal value become available, starting new ventures with the current partner, and expressing positive regard for the partner in the form of unilateral gift‐giving.
Reliability
Authors: Henson Robin K.
Published: September 2017

Reliability refers, at a general level, to
consistency
of measurement. Consistency can be conceptualized somewhat differently for different forms of reliability estimation, but in all cases reliability is focused on whether a measurement yields consistent results.
Reliability Generalization
Authors: Vacha‐Haase Tammi
Published: September 2017

Reliability generalization (RG) is a measurement meta‐analytic method proposed by Vacha‐Haase (1998) characterizing score reliability across multiple administrations of a measure as well as identification of study features predictive of measurement error variation. RG identifies (1) the typical score reliability for a given measure, (2) the variability in score reliabilities across administrations of a given measure, and (3) which features of the measurement protocol do and do not explain or predict these variations in score reliability. Reliability generalization is similar to the theoretical concepts of validity generalization. Meta‐analysis of validity coefficients were the precursors to validity generalization, which began in the late 1970s to test whether the validity of scores for a given measure or set of related measures was generalizable. Meta‐analysis was the testing of the hypotheses of “situation‐specific validity.”
Religion
Authors: Cipriani Roberto
Published: September 2017

The concept of religion is based on an idea of reality which goes back to the beginnings of humankind and provides an explanation for the existence of itself as well as the world surrounding it. Since the beginning of history, the idea of religion has manifested itself in diverse forms, across human societies. These forms, which constitute bodies of knowledge, beliefs, and social institutions, form an ordered, operative system. In Durkheimian terms, a religion gradually emerges as the members of a particular tribe or society build a system of beliefs and rites that bind them.
Religion, Sociology of
Authors: Dillon Michele
Published: September 2017

The sociology of religion is a core component of the discipline, having a critical place in the classical theorizing of Max Weber and Émile Durkheim and comprising one of the more researched areas of interest among contemporary sociologists (for an introduction to sociological theory and religion, see Cipriani 2000). The sociology of religion is concerned with the multiplicity of ways in which religion is part of human society and thus it focuses on its institutional, cultural, and individual expression across varying social, geographical, and historical contexts. A common typology is to differentiate between substantive and functional approaches to studying religion. The former is concerned with the symbolic contents or meanings contained within a religious worldview and the latter with religion's purposes or functions in society. Following Weber's (1958) analysis of the doctrinal tenets of the Calvinist ethic, substantive approaches focus on delineating particular religious beliefs, defined in terms of concerns about transcendence and other‐worldly salvation, and how these beliefs are understood and give meaning to everyday life.
Religious Cults
Authors: Giordan Giuseppe
Published: September 2017

The cult is intended to be the concrete form through which man expresses his veneration for a superhuman entity or force whom he believes superior and deems worthy of honor and devotion. With this term, one usually makes a reference to the relationship of dependence and adoration between man and the divine, be it a personal entity, a force of nature, or an ancestor's spirit. The cult therefore is placed in the center of every religion and carries across the ritual behaviors, which are usually presided over by a special individual believed to be particularly competent for the job: he can be a priest, a wizard, a shaman, or even a member of the group who is believed to be in possession of special gifts.
Reparations
Authors: Dennis Rutledge M.
Published: September 2017

Reparations refer to the actions of an aggrieved nation, group, or individual to seek redresses and compensations for the loss of land, money, works of art, jewelry, or other valuable objects, due to the actions of a country, group, or another individual. The claim of those seeking redresses or reparations is that their property was knowingly and willfully stolen and they now seek a just payment for their loss. In the United States the major demands for reparations have been made by Native Americans that they be compensated for the loss of land given them by treaties, but subsequently taken by whites. As a result of the many broken treaties, there are now dozens of claims against the federal government by Native Americans relating to many square miles of land now a part of the urban corridor in the Northeast and New England.