bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Sport as Work
Authors: Donnelly Peter
Published: September 2017

If work and sport are referred to in the same breath, it is usually as opposites. Although it is now commonplace to refer to professional sports as a business, perhaps some resentment about the salaries of some professional athletes in some sports (as opposed to, for example, a more widespread acceptance of corporate salaries/bonuses, and incomes in the entertainment industry) is related to this sense that sport is not work. Along with leisure, recreation, games, and play, sport is usually considered as part of the non‐serious side of social life. However, there are many ways that sport is and has become work‐like, and a number of ways that sport is related to work.
Standardized Educational Tests
Authors: Berends Mark , Boerema Albert
Published: September 2017

Standardized tests are tests that are administered under controlled (or “standardized”) conditions – specifying where, when, how, and for how long test‐takers may respond to questions. The test questions provide a way to gather, describe, and quantify information that assesses performance on particular tasks to demonstrate knowledge of specific topics or processes. Standardization is important to compare individuals or groups and involves a consistent set of procedures for designing, administering, and scoring the test. The aim of standardization is to ensure that test‐takers are assessed under the same conditions, assuring that their test scores have the same meaning and are not influenced by differing conditions. Such standardized tests occur over the life course, with a range of uses including determination of school readiness, achievement throughout the schooling progress for students, accountability for districts, schools, teachers, and students, capabilities for college, and achievement as employees in the workforce.
State
Authors: Frankel Boris
Published: September 2017

Few concepts are as central to social analysis and political practice as the state. Many assume that the state is synonymous with the elected government. All the non‐elected state administrators, coercive apparatuses, and sociocultural institutions that constitute modern states are often ignored. Despite the crucial nature of state power, major political and methodological disputes remain over the nature and role of the state and how to acquire and maintain state power. Some argue that state institutions are interwoven with social and economic relations in society. Others view the state as distinct from non‐state institutions because they perform coercive, taxing, judicial, and other administrative roles that private institutions cannot perform. Despite the privatization of various state industries and services, there is little prospect that the state will be abolished and that all its current roles will be performed by private businesses. Sociologically and politically, Marxists argue that class and power relations in society hold the key to understanding state institutions and the way states maintain ruling‐class power, ideology, and cultural practices. Conversely, liberals and conservatives claim that society is made up of rich and poor individuals rather than a ruling class dominating other classes. Hence, they see the state as independent of class divisions in society. Weberians also argue that states are autonomous of class relations in society and have their own bureaucratic rationality and political and military agendas. Regardless of the political perspective, state theorists are also divided between those who formulate ideal types and models such as the “feudal state,” the “capitalist state,” or the “advanced liberal state,” and those who reject ideal types and stress the historical uniqueness of each state.
State and Private Sector Employees
Authors: Becker Rolf
Published: September 2017

Public employment is a significant characteristic of modern welfare states. After the building of nation‐states, professional employment in the state sector has become for an increasing share of citizens an indicator of modernization and democratization in most of the western countries (Weber 1920–1). While in the early phases of industrialization and modernization public employment has been characterized in terms of bureaucratization and the privileged status of a minority of the labor force, employment in the state sector became the pioneer of the post‐industrialization of social stratification (Esping‐Andersen 1990). In the twentieth century, the dominance of traditional tasks of the state sector such as military, police, public administration, and production of common goods (electricity, railway, and water supply) has shifted to social services and welfare production. As in any large‐scale organization in the private sector, a division of labor and well‐defined areas of competencies are basic characteristics of the state. A segmentation of specific welfare programs as well as segmentation within state employment is brought about (Mayer & Schoepflin 1989).
State Regulation and the Workplace
Authors: McCammon Holly J.
Published: September 2017

Workplaces are highly regulated spaces. As Edelman and Suchman (1997) state, they “are immersed in a sea of law.” In regulating the workplace, the state attempts to control the behaviors of employers, managers, and workers using a system of incentives and penalties and a variety of policy tools. In the US, the government has at least some say – and often much say – over discrimination in the workplace, union activities, workplace safety, wage levels, hiring practices, work hours, employee leaves, plant closings, and compensation for injuries at work. The two main areas of workplace regulation in the US are employment law and labor law. Employment law encompasses anti‐discrimination law, affirmative action policy, and equal pay law. Labor law, on the other hand, regulates trade union organizing, collective bargaining between workers and employers, and strike action by workers. Both areas have received substantial attention by researchers in sociology as they try to make sense of the law's development over time and its impact on employment relations.
Status Attainment
Authors: Buchmann Claudia , Obinna Denise N.
Published: September 2017

Status attainment research begun by sociologists in the United States more than three decades ago laid the foundation for the study of the transmission of socioeconomic advantage from one generation to the next (also known as intergenerational social mobility). Status attainment research seeks to understand how characteristics of an individual's family (also called socioeconomic origins) relate to their educational attainment and occupational status in society. It developed a methodology – usually path analysis and multiple regression techniques with large data sets – to investigate the intergenerational transmission of status.
Status Construction Theory
Authors: Ridgeway Cecilia L.
Published: September 2017

Status construction theory is a theory of how widely shared status beliefs develop in a society or other collectivity about apparently nominal social differences among people such as sex or ethnicity (Ridgeway, 1991; Webster and Hysom, 1998; Ridgeway and Erickson, 2000). Status beliefs associate greater respect and greater competence at socially valued tasks with people in one category of a social difference (e.g., men, whites) than with those in another category of that difference (women, people of color). A typical reaction to the recognition of social difference is for people in each category to assume that their own group is “better.” When status beliefs develop about a recognized social difference, however, they transform simple difference into an evaluative hierarchy so that the difference becomes a status characteristic in society. Status beliefs are distinctive in that both those in the social category that is favored by the status beliefs and those in the less favored category come to hold similar beliefs that “most people” view the favored group as better than the other group. Status construction theory describes one set of processes by which such beliefs could come to be accepted, as a matter of social reality, by those they disadvantage as well as advantage so that the beliefs become roughly consensual in society. When status beliefs about a social difference become widely shared, they have widespread consequences for inequality among socially different individuals and groups.
Stepfamilies
Authors: Coleman Marilyn , Ganong Lawrence H.
Published: September 2017

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

Stepfamilies are becoming increasingly common in contemporary developed societies, with the vast majority (in heterosexual families) comprising a stepfather who has partnered and formed a (married or cohabiting) household with a biological mother and her resident children. The rise in stepfather households, however, occurs in an institutional context where legislation in many countries has shifted towards the view that bringing up children, and financial responsibility for them, primarily and unchangeably rests with biological parents. In contrast, and despite their prevalence, the institutional position of stepfathers is largely one of invisibility, or at least ambiguity, with few defined rights and responsibilities.
Stepmothering
Authors: Coleman Marilyn , Ganong Lawrence H. , Chapman Ashton
Published: September 2017

Stepmothers are women who marry or cohabit with partners who have children from prior unions. This broad definition of stepmothers includes women from a variety of roles and who live in diverse family constellations – those who have children of their own as well as women that are childless or childfree, women in lesbian relationships, and it includes stepmothers who reside with their stepchildren all of the time, some of the time, or never. Women who live with their stepchildren are called
residential
stepmothers and those who do not live with their stepchildren, or who spend only part of each year living with their stepchildren, are called
nonresidential
stepmothers. Some women that fit the broad definition of stepmothers, such as women cohabiting with fathers whose children live elsewhere, and some lesbian partners, do not see themselves as stepmothers, and, in fact, are seldom included in studies of stepmothers. Given the diversity of stepmothers’ situations, it is unfortunate that the majority of studies have been limited to married stepmothers and most researchers have not distinguished between residential and nonresidential stepmothers.
Stigma
Authors: Kusow Abdi M.
Published: September 2017

The term stigma refers to a social or individual attribute that is devalued and discredited in a particular social context. As Goffman (1963) noted, however, this definition requires an important qualification, one that defines stigma in terms of “a language of relationship” that can link attributes to particular stereotypes, rather than a priori objectified attributes. The language of relationship between attributes and stereotypes is extremely important because an attribute, in and of itself, does not carry an inherent quality that makes it credible or discredible outside the nature of the stereotype that corresponds to it.
Strain Theories
Authors: Agnew Robert
Published: September 2017

Strain theories argue that strain or stress is a major cause of crime. Individuals engage in crime to reduce or escape from their strain (e.g., theft to reduce monetary strain, running away to escape abusive parents), seek revenge against the source of their strain or related targets, or cope with the negative emotions caused by strain (e.g., illicit drug use). There are several major versions of strain theory in sociology, distinguished in terms of the types of strain they examine and their description of the factors that influence or condition the effect of strain on crime. This entry describes the major versions of strain theory, beginning with Durkheim and ending with Agnew, whose general strain theory builds on previous strain theories.
Stressful Life Events
Authors: Avison William R.
Published: September 2017

Stressful life events are discrete social experiences or life changes that require individual adjustment or manifest themselves in emotional arousal or physical reactions. The defining characteristic of life events as stressors is that they are observable life changes that have relatively clear onsets and endings. This quality of discreteness distinguishes stressful life events from chronic stressors that typically have more insidious onsets and whose conclusions are less easily demarcated. Chronic stressors tend also to have longer time courses than life events.
Sunbelt
Authors: Baxter Vern , Johnson David
Published: September 2017

The Sunbelt is a contested construct adopted by scholars in the late 1970s from journalistic accounts of industrial relocation and shifts in population and political power to the Southern and Western regions of the US after World War II. The Sunbelt is defined by juxtaposing rapid economic growth and the rise of conservative politics in the South and West, with economic collapse and political liberalism in the Northeast and Midwest (Frostbelt). Sunbelt boundaries are ambiguous, depending on whether attention is directed to relocation of old industry, location of new industry, or political realignment. Sale's (1975) early designation of the Sunbelt as that area below the 37th parallel (northern border of North Carolina through lower third of California) was largely confirmed by Rice and Bernard's (1983) survey of business and public perceptions of the region, but other scholars believe the Sunbelt represents a sloppy form of regionalization that combines disparate patterns of growth and prosperity found in the South and West.
Supply Chains
Authors: Lonsdale Chris
Published: September 2017

The term supply chain is actually a metaphor for a complex series of interactions between a set of organizations delivering a product or service to an ultimate customer. Indeed, this series of interactions is often referred to as a supply network (Harland, 1996; Kim
et al.
, 2011). A supply chain starts with a set of raw materials and ends with the delivery of a finished product or service to the ultimate customer(s). The term gained prominence within the management field because of the realization that an organization's prospects are not only dependent upon its interactions with its immediate customers, competitors, and suppliers, but also on those that take place elsewhere within the chain or network.
Survey Research
Authors: Snyder Patricia
Published: September 2017

Survey research refers to systematic investigations designed to gather information from populations or samples for the purposes of describing, comparing, or explaining phenomena. Survey research involving samples often is distinguished from census surveys, which involve the study of populations. As Kerlinger noted in
Foundations of Behavioral Research
(1986: 377): “Survey research studies large and small populations (or universes) by selecting and studying samples chosen from the populations to discover the relative incidence, distribution, and interrelations of sociological and psychological variables.”
System Theories
Authors: Burns Tom
Published: September 2017

In the most abstract sense, a system is a set of objects together with relationships among the objects. Such a definition implies that a system has properties, functions, and dynamics distinct from its constituent objects and relationships. A system theoretic approach is not unique to sociology. Many of the major system theorists have belonged to other disciplines, including mathematics, with conceptual and analytic challenges rather different from those confronting sociologists and social scientists. Within sociology there have been several system theories, differing from one another in the extent to which, for example, human agency, creativity, and entrepreneurship are assumed to play a role in system formation and reformation; conflict and struggle are taken into account; power and stratification are part and parcel of the theory; structural change and transformation – and more generally, historically developments – are taken into account and explained. What the various system theories have in common is a systematic concern with complex and varied interconnections and interdependencies of social life. Complexity has been a central concept for many working in the systems perspective. The tradition is characterized to a great extent by a burning ambition and hope to provide a unifying language and conceptual framework for all the social sciences.
Surplus value
Authors: Beamish Rob
Published: September 2017

Determining the source of social surplus was the most important scientific and political question classical political economists addressed. The Physiocrats claimed that nature was the source of all social surplus (all other products simply circulated in the economy as an exchange of equivalents). Adam Smith maintained that the division of labor in manufacturing was the source of social surplus, suggesting that any tariffs or impediments to industry would restrict the wealth of nations. Karl Marx developed a theory of “surplus value” –
Mehrwert
(literally more‐value) – by focusing on capitalist production.
Social Dominance Theory
Authors: Kemmelmeier Markus
Published: September 2017

Social dominance theory (SDT) is a conflict‐type theory developed by political psychologists Jim Sidanius, Felicia Pratto, and their students since the early 1990s. It is rooted in Blumer's group position theory, Marxian theory (Marx, Engels, Gramsci), and neoclassical elite theory (e.g., Mosca, Pareto), but also draws importantly on assumptions from sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. Further, it makes use of insights from Tajfel's social identity theory and some research on right‐wing authoritarianism. The main focus of the theory is to explain the psycho‐ideological underpinnings of intergroup conflict, social hierarchy, and oppression.
Social Dominance Theory
Authors: Kemmelmeier Markus
Published: September 2017

Social dominance theory (SDT) is a conflict‐type theory developed by political psychologists Jim Sidanius, Felicia Pratto, and their students since the early 1990s (Sidanius and Pratto, 1999). It is rooted in Blumer's group position theory, Marxian theory (Marx, Engels, Gramsci), and neoclassical elite theory (e.g., Mosca, Pareto), but also draws importantly on assumptions from sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. Further, it makes use of insights from Tajfel's social identity theory and some research on right‐wing authoritarianism. The main goal of the theory is to explain the psychoideological underpinnings of intergroup conflict, social hierarchy, and oppression.
System Justification Theory
Authors: Kemmelmeier Markus
Published: September 2017

System justification theory was first proposed by social psychologists John Jost and Mahzarin Banaji (1994). Along with Jackman's (1994) paternalism theory, which emerged around the same time, system justification theory was inspired by the observation that in many cases status relations within unequal and oppressive societies are rather nonconflictual. This notable absence of strife between unequal groups challenges traditional notions of group competition, which takes for granted an ongoing struggle over limited resources characterized by in‐group solidarity and out‐group rejection. Building on Marx, Gramsci, Bourdieu, and Habermas, system justification theory proposed a social‐psychological account of false consciousness and hegemonial ideology, which serve to mute group conflict and justify existing inequality.
Scientific Elite and Nobel Prizes
Authors: Fuller Steve
Published: September 2017

The elite character of scientific knowledge is traceable to the Greeks. For Plato, the distribution of talents across a population was the main principle of social stratification. Accordingly, education is about discovering the social role or function for which one has been biologically endowed. In a highly differentiated society, all such roles are “elite” in that a select few can play them well. The distinctiveness of science for Plato is that its form of knowledge makes one, at least in principle, fit to rule society as a whole. Francis Galton's original program of eugenics is the clearest modern descendant of the Platonic mentality. However, the idea of an “internal history of science,” whereby science proceeds according to a trajectory defined by a self‐selecting class of scientists, also continues Plato's spirit. Once sufficiently matured, the knowledge of this class may be applied to society at large. In Cold War political circles this was known as the “linear” model of science and technology policy, championed by Vannevar Bush and James Bryant Conant.
Teachers
Authors: Gordon Kristin
Published: September 2017

With over 3.1 million teachers working in the US public school system, teaching attracts considerable attention from sociologists. Many issues have been explored. Dominating the field are questions concerning teachers’ roles, quality, professional status, training, gender composition, pay, staffing, and placement. Teachers play multiple roles in the educational process. First, teachers impart academic skills and knowledge (human capital). Second, teachers socialize children in the lifestyles, values, and cultures of society (cultural capital). The importance of the academic, social, and cultural dimensions of this work for children raises one of the foremost questions in research on teachers: Does teacher quality matter? Early research studying the impact of teacher credentials and experience largely indicated that teacher quality did not consistently relate to student achievement. More recent exploration reveals that teacher preparation, particularly subject‐matter knowledge, does positively impact student achievement.
Television
Authors: Miller Toby
Published: September 2017

What is television? It is an object that is produced in a factory, then distributed physically (via transportation) and virtually (via advertising). At that point it transmogrifies into a fashion statement, a privileged (or damned) piece of furniture – a status symbol. Finally, it becomes outmoded junk, full of poisons and pollutants in search of a dumping ground. In short, television has a physical existence, a history as an object of material production and consumption in addition to its renown as a site for making meaning. That renown is the focus of most sociological theory and research into the media.
Terrorism
Authors: Kellner Douglas
Published: September 2017

The term “terrorism” derives from the Latin verb
terrere
, “to cause to tremble or quiver.” It began to be used during the French Revolution, and especially after the fall of Robespierre and the “Reign of Terror,” or simply “the Terror,” in which enemies of the Revolution were subjected to imprisonment, torture, and beheading, the first of many modern examples of state terrorism.
Text/Hypertext
Authors: Ulmer Gregory L.
Published: September 2017

Hypertext refers to a network of nodes or lexias (units of content) connected non‐sequentially by links, forming a docuverse that includes users in a feedback loop, usually in a computer medium. The first description of hypertext as a concept was by Vannevar Bush, in an article entitled “As We May Think,” published in the
Atlantic Monthly
in 1945. Bush imagined a machine‐desk called “memex” that could solve the problem of storage and retrieval created by the modern information explosion. Merging the functions of a library and a personal filing system, memex proposed to support and augment an associative indexing corresponding to the actual processes of human thought, memory, and imagination. Individuals researching the branching paths of information related to an inquiry would build trails of connections through the collective archive of recorded information, and these trails would be preserved, shared, and cross‐referenced, establishing possibly a new profession of knowledge “trailblazers.”
Theory Construction
Authors: Markovsky Barry , Webster Murray
Published: September 2017

Theory construction is the process of formulating and assembling components of theories into coherent wholes, or the process of revising and expanding theories in light of logical, semantic, and empirical analyses. Every theory in sociology has gone through some type of construction process. However, the “theory” label has traditionally been used to refer to a variety of rhetorical objects, constructed according to criteria that are sometimes mutually incompatible, at other times implicit or even nonexistent. The definition employed here is consistent with how the term is used by many sociologists and by most scientists outside of the field: a
theory
is a set of explicit, abstract, general, logically related statements designed to explain observed phenomena in the natural world. Theory construction is the means to this end.
Theory and Methods
Authors: Markovsky Barry
Published: September 2017

Theories organize and manipulate elements in a world of ideas. In contrast,
methods
organize and manipulate elements in the natural world, the world of concrete objects and events. Although
theory
has a variety of meanings in sociology, a definition that is both widely shared within the field and also consistent with the term's use in mainstream sciences is the following: a theory is a set of abstract, general, logically related statements formulated to explain phenomena in the natural world. The term method is commonly used two ways in sociology: (1) a procedure enacted in the natural world for the purpose of yielding theoretically relevant observations; (2) an analysis of recorded observations that is intended to summarize or to make inferences about them. The first usage is loosely referred to as
research methods
. The second usage,
methods of data analysis
, encompasses our rather large palette of qualitative and quantitative techniques for working with empirical observations.
Time Series
Authors: Capraro Robert M.
Published: September 2017

Time series analysis can be used in two general situations: (1) forecasting and (2) exploring the nature of some event represented by a set of points or observations, with both techniques serving the purpose for establishing theory that can, at some point, represent future events. Time series analyses are often used in business settings by forecasting stock, commodity, and product valuing. Time series is less often used in educational research; therefore, it is this perspective that will be used in all examples to contextualize possible research scenarios where time series analyses would be appropriate.
Tracking
Authors: Schiller Kathryn S.
Published: September 2017

Tracking is the process of differentiating individuals’ school experiences through the grouping of students for instructional purposes based on actual or assumed differences in academic development or interests. In theory, such practices can maximize learning by allowing instruction to be tailored to the needs of each classroom of students. In practice, the quality of instruction often varies dramatically based on the group level, such that low track students receive few learning opportunities while high track students are exposed to a rich and rigorous curriculum. When group placements are related to ascribed characteristics such as social class or ethnicity, tracking contributes to social stratification by perpetuating social inequality in not only individuals’ current learning opportunities but also future educational and occupational attainment.
Transcarceration
Authors: Menzies Robert
Published: September 2017

Commonly linked with the revisionist social control and new penology literatures of the 1980s and 1990s, transcarceration refers to the widespread profusion of regulatory organizations, practices, authorities, and subjects across and beyond traditional boundaries of institutional governance in contemporary western societies. The intellectual impetus for the transcarceration concept derived in large part from Michel Foucault's (1977) writings on the rise of the disciplinary society and “carceral archipelago”; from Andrew Scull's (1984) critique of conventional approaches to understanding community criminal justice and mental health initiatives; and from Stanley Cohen's (1985) analysis of late twentieth‐century “master patterns” of deviancy classification and punishment. From a range of disciplinary and substantive perspectives, theorists and researchers in the 1980s sought to account for the failings of the diversion, decarceration, rehabilitation, and reintegration schemes of the prior two decades – and of the post‐World War II liberal reconstructionist and civil libertarian political philosophies that these movements had embodied.
Transgender, Transvestism, and Transsexualism
Authors: King Dave , Ekins Richard
Published: September 2017

Twenty years ago a sociological encyclopedia would not have included a separate entry featuring cross‐dressing or sex‐changing. The medicalization and pathologizing of these phenomena under such categorizations as transvestism, transsexualism, gender dysphoria, and intersex ensured that cross‐dressing and sex‐changing were considered, in the main, to be the domain of medicine and psychology. The small number of sociological studies relating to “transvestism” and “transsexualism” was considered to be a peripheral concern of historical sociology, the sociology of deviance, and feminism and gender studies. Only Garfinkel (1967) and Kessler and McKenna's
Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach
(1978) provided a hint of the importance of transsexualism to the discipline of sociology.
Transnationals
Authors: Loveridge Ray
Published: September 2017

The term transnational corporation (TNC) is often used interchangeably with that of multinational corporation (MNC) or multinational enterprise (MNE) to mean a firm that owns or controls income‐ generating assets in more than one country. In the more exacting definition of Bartlett and Ghoshal (1989) the multinational organizational mode is described as one subset of the TNC (see below). Other transnational organizations include intergovernmental bodies such as the United Nations Organization (UNO) and International Monetary Fund (IMF), regulatory or standard‐setting agencies such as the Basle Group of Bankers, and a rapidly expanding group of “voluntary” associations known as non‐government organizations (NGOs). The focus here, however, will be on TNCs rather than these latter forms of cross‐national governance. In popular usage, the TNC is usually seen as being extremely large in terms of its level of employment, financial turnover, and ownership of assets. Indeed, it is usual to compare the turnover and assets of the top TNCs such as General Electric or Wal‐Mart with the gross domestic product of nation‐states. While not wishing to deny the vividness of this crude comparison, we should be aware of its analytical limitations in assessing both the relative resources of these institutions and the nature of their authority. Also, there are an increasing number of small firms that seek an international presence in order to provide their services across borders. In large part this has to do with the increasing appeal of so‐called “world standards” and global presence in purchasing a service or material product. Thus, the United Nations’ (2000) estimate of 45,000 parent‐TNCs existent in the mid‐1990s is likely to have increased significantly over the ensuing decade and now includes many little‐known startup firms that have local joint ventures or affiliates in several countries.
Transparency and Global Change
Authors: Holzner Burkart
Published: September 2017

The word “transparent” traditionally means the capacity of light to pass through clear glass so that one can see the things behind it. Transparency also means open, frank, candid, and true, as opposed to opaque or secret. Today, the concept “transparency” in sociology refers to the globally emerging value (and its derivative norms) of information disclosure and access. It asserts that all centers of authority have a “duty to disclose information” and that publics and citizens have a “right to know.” The value of transparency does not stand alone; it is part of information value systems that include also its counter values. Thus, the rules for openness are often circumscribed by norms limiting disclosure, such as secrecy, privacy, confidentiality, and others. There are obviously many different kinds of information linked to these norms, such as personal data, public information, proprietary, and others. However, transparency norms are increasingly expected to be followed by governments, international agencies, professions, corporations, foundations, and civil society organizations.
Third Way (Giddens)
Authors: Leggett Will
Published: September 2017

The Third Way was the label originally given in 1998 by British sociologist Anthony Giddens to his program for modernizing center‐left politics. It was closely associated with Bill Clinton's New Democrats in the US and Tony Blair's New Labour in the UK. It represents a direct attempt to use sociological theory to inform a political and governing project.
Tarde, Gabriel (1843–1904)
Authors: Borch Christian
Published: September 2017

The French sociologist Gabriel Tarde developed a comprehensive general theory of society based on the notion of imitation. His sociological program was highly influential in late nineteenth‐century French sociology as well as in early twentieth‐century US sociology, but later generations largely ignored his work, although a recent revival of Tarde's thought is detectable. Tarde's starting point was a cosmological theory of universal repetition. While the physical world is characterized by repetition through vibration, and organic life by repetition through heredity, social life for Tarde is characterized by repetition through imitation. Indeed, in his sociological masterpiece on theLaws of Imitation, he defined society as imitation (Tarde, 1962). Imitation constitutes a social bond in that it signifies how one person approaches another's taste, gestures, choices, etc. Tarde applied his theory of imitation to various fields, such as crime, crowd behavior, power, and economics.
Urban Crime and Violence
Authors: DeKeseredy Walter S.
Published: September 2017

Defining crime and violence is the subject of much debate and the literature reveals a myriad of definitions. This entry reviews the most up‐to‐date empirical and theoretical sociological literature on urban crime and violence. Some gaps in the extant literature are identified and a few means of filling them are suggested.
Urban education
Authors: Sadovnik Alan R.
Published: September 2017

Urban education has been the subject of ongoing discussions, with policies aimed at urban school improvement vigorously debated over the last forty years. Since the 1960s, as cities became increasingly poor and populated by minority groups, urban schools have reflected the problems associated with poverty. Although rural and many suburban schools have similar problems, urban schools represent the most serious challenges. A significant percentage of urban schools have been labeled in need of improvement under federal No Child Left Behind (2002) guidelines, with large city school systems having dropout rates at or above 40 percent and student achievement well below 50 percent proficiency in mathematics and reading. Despite these alarming data, there are significant numbers of high performing urban schools and a number of reform programs that show promise (Tractenberg, Sadovnik, & Liss 2004).
Urban Education
Authors: Sadovnik Alan R. , Coughlan Ryan W.
Published: September 2017

Urban education has been the subject of ongoing discussions, with policies aimed at urban school improvement vigorously debated over the last 50 years. Since the 1960s, as cities became increasingly poor and populated by minority groups, urban schools have reflected the problems associated with poverty. Although rural and many suburban schools have similar problems, urban schools represent the most serious challenges. A significant percentage of urban schools have been labeled in need of improvement under federal No Child Left Behind guidelines, with large city school systems having dropout rates at or above 40 percent and student achievement well below 50 percent proficiency in mathematics and reading. Despite these alarming data, there are significant numbers of high performing urban schools and a number of reform programs that show promise.
Urban Tourism
Authors: Lloyd Richard
Published: September 2017

Urban tourism refers to the consumption of city spectacles (such as architecture, monuments, and parks) and cultural amenities (such as museums, restaurants, and performances) by visitors. Studying urban tourism requires taking seriously leisure activities and transient populations, features of the city that much of classic urban theory declines to address. However, a number of developments in recent decades have led tourism to assume a larger place in urban scholarship. As industrial manufacturing deserts dense urban areas, entertainment plays an expanded role in many city economies. Leisure and consumption for some means work and profits for others. The attraction and accommodation of visitors has become a central concern for public and private city boosters. The sizable but fleeting population of visitors to the city has a surprising influence over local politics, investment choices, and the built environment.
Use‐Value
Authors: Beamish Rob
Published: September 2017

Marx begins
Capital
with an analysis of the use‐value of the commodity, suggesting, perhaps, that all useful concrete things have use‐values – but that is incorrect and the distinction, fine as it might seem, between the utility of a thing and the use‐value of a commodity is important. First, not every useful thing is a commodity, although every commodity, except one, is a useful thing. There are many things in the world around us – some may have no apparent use and others have known utility. As a thing – of utility or non‐utility – it is a concrete object with qualitatively distinct, physical properties; it is part of the natural order; it may have uses but it does not have use‐value. Use‐value inheres only in a commodity and the difference between utility and use‐value indicates the significant social dimension of a commodity.
Verstehen
Authors: Ray Larry
Published: September 2017

Usually translated as “understanding,” the concept of
verstehen
has become part of a critique of positivist approaches to the social sciences. Associated with the sociology of Max Weber,
verstehen
derives from the hermeneutic critique of positivism that emerged in German universities in the 1880s and 1890s that gave rise to a dispute over method in the social sciences (
Methodenstreit
).
Verstehen
refers to understanding the meaning of action from the actor's point of view. It is entering into the shoes of the other, and adopting this research stance requires treating the actor as a subject, rather than an object of one's observations. It also implies that unlike objects in the natural world, human actors are not simply the product of causal forces. Individuals are seen to create the world by organizing their own understanding of it and giving it meaning. To do research on actors without taking into account the meanings they attribute to their actions or environment is to treat them like objects. (Drislane and Parkinson 2002)
Victimization
Authors: Vandecar‐Burdin Tancy J.
Published: September 2017

Victimization is the action of victimizing, or fact of being victimized (Viano 1976). Until a variety of factors converged during the 1960s, individual victims were not always given much attention by the criminal justice system. During this time, the women's movement began to address the victim‐blaming often seen with sexually violent crimes. Child abuse as a societal problem was also coming to the attention of local and state leaders. Finally, rapidly growing crime rates between 1960 and 1980 brought greater scrutiny to the criminal justice system, in part through President Johnson's 1967 Commission report. Victimization was one focus of this report. The culmination of these factors began the discussion about the victim's role in the criminal justice process, what services should be provided to victims, and data gathering about victimization in the US (Doerner & Lab 1995).
Video Games
Authors: de Peuter Greig
Published: September 2017

“Video game” is an umbrella term encompassing digital play on a dedicated gaming console, a personal computer, or a mobile device. The turn of the millennium saw the emergence of game studies, a multi‐ and trans‐disciplinary field addressing social, cultural, economic, and technological dimensions of video games.
Widowhood
Authors: Davidson Kate
Published: September 2017

There has been a slow but discernible increase in sociological interest in the experience of widowhood in later life in the last three decades of the twentieth century, which has come about as a result of two major western world trends: demography and feminism. People are living longer, and as a result of a decrease in birth rates, the proportion of older people in the population is steadily increasing. For example, in the UK, the 2001 census data revealed that 48 percent of women compared to 17 percent of men over the age of 65 were widowed. Second wave feminism's imperative has been to examine women's experiences and circumstances, and to reflect on what societal norms and values inform meaning and self‐conceptualization in relation to being female. Gradually now, feminism is addressing the issue of aging. The conjunction of these two trends has seen the steady emergence, particularly in North America, of sociological study of widowhood as experienced by women (Lopata 1996).
Women, Economy and
Authors: Esterchild Elizabeth
Published: September 2017

Women's position in the economy and their general well‐being in all other spheres of life depend heavily on the type of society in which they reside. All societies have a complex division of labor by sex. In some, men's and women's tasks are not differentially evaluated and rewarded; in others differential evaluation is so strong that men receive the lion's share of property, material goods, and rights and privileges while women become the property of men and their work and work products are controlled by men. Societies differ because of alternative modes of organization of the productive forces and the subsequent differences in the parts played by the two sexes in these economic arrangements. Gerhard Lenski (1966) described six different types of societies based on the level of technology of the primary means of production, while gender scholars (Dunn et al. 1999) filled in the distinct implications for women.
Women, Sexuality and
Authors: Vares Tiina , Potts Annie
Published: September 2017

Western thought is underpinned by hierarchical binaries or dualisms, for example, mind/body, culture/nature, masculine/feminine, active/passive, to name but a few. Within this framework, “woman” is associated with terms such as passive, responsive, and inferior. These are constructed in opposition to “man,” described as active, aggressive/predatory, and superior. The cultural investment in binarization, particularly between the two sexes, also produces heterosexuality as the only normative form of desire and privileges so‐called masculine values and experiences over so‐called feminine. With respect to sexuality, Luce Irigaray, in
This Sex Which is Not One
(1985), argues that western culture has persistently negated or repressed those modes of sexual experience that may be specific to women and which do not fit with masculinist assumptions about women's sexuality.
Women's Movements
Authors: Mueller Carol
Published: September 2017

Women's movements arise from the gendered social constructions that have accompanied the biological differences between male and female. Because social distinctions based on gender are the most basic forms of human differentiation, they pervade social life. Throughout history, across classes, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, and religious groupings, the gendered division of labor has been associated with differential roles, rewards, and with an associated politics. That is, the political processes by which rules are made and valued objects and services are distributed have institutionalized gender differences since the beginning of human history. In only rare circumstances have these differences not been associated with the subordination of women. Traditional systems of political thought, supported by most religions, have relegated women to a secondary status. Thus, the potential beneficiaries of “women's movements” conceivably encompass more than half of humanity throughout history.
World Trade Organization
Authors: Lee Susan Hagood
Published: September 2017

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is a multilateral body that regulates world trade and provides a forum for negotiations to reduce trade barriers. It includes a mechanism for settling trade disputes between member states and authorizing sanctions. The 150‐plus member states agree to abide by negotiated rules governing trade in goods and services. Negotiations take place in rounds of talks about a package of reduced tariffs and trade barriers. A set of principles guides negotiations, including most‐favored nation treatment, predictability, transparency, fair competition, and special treatment for least‐developed nations. The most contentious issues in negotiations have been agricultural subsidies in developed nations. The WTO has been the focus of anti‐globalization protests that highlight negative consequences of trade liberalization such as high unemployment and environmental damage.