bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Plato
Authors: Perović Milenko A.
Published: December 2017

This entry presents a synthetic review of the basic elements of Plato's philosophy. Along with the basic biographical and bibliographical information, it briefly reviews Plato's metaphysics, dialectics, cosmology, and psychology. The presentation of Plato's practical philosophy, and the concept of the bestpoliteia, occupy the central part of the entry.
Popper,Karl
Authors: Agassi Joseph
Published: December 2017

Karl Popper (1902–1994) was a major philosopher. He offered a new solution to the problem of induction – how is theoretical learning from experience possible? – and the problem of demarcation – what theory is scientific? His advocacy of the critical attitude is imperative for every rationalist. Popper's tremendous and highly controversial innovation is his minimalist program: adopting the critical attitude suffices for rationality. The same, he argued, holds for both science and democracy: both thrive on the encouragement of criticism.
Positivism
Authors: Borghini Andrea
Published: December 2017

The term positivism refers to a cultural current that emerged in Europe in the nineteenth century, which transformed many fields of human knowledge. Its main proponents include A. Comte and J. S. Mill (proponents of social positivism) as well as Herbert Spencer (evolutionary positivism). The positivist current aims to reconstruct the social order on new foundations. It adopts the naturalistic method of the physical sciences and mathematics and looks to faith in science as the means whereby it is possible to achieve concrete, objective, positive knowledge as opposed to traditional knowledge, which was deemed negative and metaphysical. Making science and the naturalistic method the basis of one's thought means assuming that knowledge is based on laws, on the observation of facts, and on the prediction of future events. Positivism entered into crisis basically with German historicism and with the crisis of natural sciences between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Prestige
Authors: Nasir Kamaludeen Mohamed
Published: December 2017

The study of prestige has its roots in classical sociology and can be found in the works of Max Weber (1864–1920) who examines the role of status groups. Studies since the 1960s often analyze the accumulation of prestige around occupations, although there are works that seek to understand it with regard to other variables such as gender, race, and culture.
S
aid,
E
dward
Authors: Bryce Derek
Published: December 2017

Edward Said (1935–2003) was a prominent Palestinian‐American cultural theorist of the late twentieth and early twenty‐first century. An academic specialist in comparative literature at Columbia University, he is perhaps best known for his book
Orientalism
and the associated works
Culture and Imperialism
and
Covering Islam
. In
Orientalism
he offers both historical and contemporary critiques of Western discursive practice, which renders the rival civilizations of the Middle East and Islam first into an ideological contestant to the West and then into knowable, conquerable space. He extends these ideas to the wider “postcolonial” world in
Culture and Imperialism
and offers arguments, in all three books, for how the West has developed and adapted these practices for renewed economic and political domination over other societies.
S
artre,
J
ean‐
P
aul
Authors: Thorpe Christopher
Published: December 2017

French philosopher Jean‐Paul Sartre (1905–1980) is a key figure in twentieth‐century existentialism. Sartre's work critically engages with the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and the existentialism of Martin Heidegger. A playwright, novelist, and literary critic, Sartre's work concentrates on issues of human freedom, consciousness, authenticity, and bad faith. Politically, Sartre's critical stance toward the French government's colonial policy in Algeria led to his turn to Marxism and then later existential Marxism. A vociferous and critical public intellectual all his life, Sartre's existentialist writing remains highly influential within philosophy and across a range of social‐scientific disciplines.
Scales and Scaling
Authors: Martire Fabrizio
Published: December 2017

In social sciences the term “scaling” encompasses specific processes to measure properties such as sentiment, opinions, attitudes, and so on. “To scale” can mean very different things: by scaling techniques such as Likert scales or Guttman scales the researcher can rank people along a specific dimension; other techniques, if the requirements for their application are met, allow the researcher to quantify the distances among people along a dimension. Moreover, scaling techniques differ in terms of the cognitive put to the respondent. From this point of view, two kinds of scaling are widespread in social research: (1) rating techniques, by which the respondent is asked to rate some objects along the same dimension; (2) ranking techniques, by which the respondent is asked to order some objects along a dimension. Ranking techniques are mainly used for unidimensional scaling, while rating techniques can be employed in a multidimensional scaling process.
Science Policy
Authors: Pedersen David Budtz
Published: December 2017

Science policy is a subfield of public policy and is concerned with the regulation and organization of science and research. The field includes funding, management, and evaluation of research activities, often in pursuance of other policy goals such as competitiveness, health, and national security. There is no single definition of science policy; rather there are multiple approaches to science, technology, and innovation policy – exemplified by, for example, system‐level approaches, institutional approaches, and economic and evolutionary approaches, and so forth. With the increasingly complex science and technological challenges facing society, the effective interface of science and public policy is becoming ever more important.
Semiology
Authors: Scalambrino Frank
Published: December 2017

The term “semiology” was coined from the Greek for “sign.” Hence, semiology refers to “a science which studies the role of signs as part of social life.” In this way, semiology involves the study of meaning‐making.
Social Movements, Theory of
Authors: Pauli Benjamin J.
Published: December 2017

Social movements theory aims to define, categorize, and explain social movements. It directs special attention to the conditions under which social movements emerge and dissolve, the motivations of individuals who participate in them, the strategies that movements employ in their mobilization of resources, their success or failure in realizing their objectives, and their impact upon society.
Social Status
Authors: Veliz Philip
Published: December 2017

Social status is one's position in the social hierarchy. Social status can be based on one's level of achievement or ascriptive characteristics. Some social theories propose that social status is not simply based on economic resources but involves other social processes that are not driven by market forces. Future research on social status will need to consider new forms of social media that have an influence on one's location in the social hierarchy.
Socialism
Authors: Berberoglu Berch
Published: December 2017

This entry provides a descriptive analysis of the term “socialism” according to the views of various social theorists. However, it focuses on a critical exposition of the meaning of socialism and socialist society conceptualized by the Marxist classics. Understanding what Marx, Engels, and Lenin meant by socialism and its class base (the working class), the entry contextualizes socialism as a system in transition from capitalism to communism. In socialism, the state is controlled and ruled by the working class – hence the term “proletarian socialism,” which signifies the class rule of the working class.
Surveillance
Authors: Haggerty Kevin D. , Tetrault Justin E. C.
Published: December 2017

Surveillance is one of the most characteristic and often disturbing aspects of our contemporary world. Social theorists and literary figures have provided us with many resources to contemplate both the face‐to‐face attributes of surveillance and its increasingly technological manifestations.
Symbolic Boundaries
Authors: Mele Vincenzo
Published: December 2017

Symbolic boundaries are distinctions created by social actors to categorize objects, people, practices, time, and space. They are categories by which individuals and groups struggle over definitions of reality. Symbolic boundaries also separate people into groups and generate feelings of similarity and group membership. They are an essential medium through which people acquire status and monopolize resources. The literature on symbolic boundaries has gained importance since the 1960s due to a convergence between research on symbolic systems and indirect forms of power. Writings by Émile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, Mary Douglas, Norbert Elias, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, and Michèle Lamont on this topic have influenced several disciplines at an international level, particularly anthropology, history, literary studies, and sociology.
Syndicalism
Authors: Pauli Benjamin J.
Published: December 2017

Syndicalism is a revolutionary wing of trade unionism that envisions unions as both the agents of social revolution and the building blocks of a future society in which workers' control predominates in the realm of production.
Thick Description
Authors: Kostova Iva
Published: December 2017

In qualitative research the term “thick description” is used as a way of describing observations and interpretations that incorporate a level contextual detail. Thick descriptions take into account the directly unobservable contextual understandings that make an action or social event meaningful. Developed by anthropologist Clifford Geertz in the early 1970s to describe his own approach to ethnographic research, thick description has since been adopted by qualitative researchers across various disciplines. The approach remains relevant as an accepted norm for the collection of rich qualitative data in much of ethnographic and qualitative case study research.
Totalitarianism
Authors: Driskell Robyn , Nelson Justin
Published: December 2017

Totalitarianism is a political system in which a charismatic leader, most often through a single political party, imposes political authority over society. Authoritarianism is an attempt to subordinate all aspects of collective and individual life to political control. Totalitarian governments work to reduce or eliminate pluralism and, in some cases, individual and cultural expression, through coercion, indoctrination, and often, violence. In place of pluralism, authoritarian leadership attempts to create strong social ties by promoting a unitary ideology. This is often based on religious, ethnic, or linguistic themes. Such ideology is typically developed at the expense of a certain group that is vilified as the enemy of the state. Historical examples of totalitarian regimes include the Soviet Union (1919–1989) and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). Contemporary examples include the People's Republic of North Korea (1953–) and Saudi Arabia (1932–).
Understanding (Verstehen)
Authors: Sivado Akos
Published: December 2017

According to proponents of a fundamental distinction between the investigation of nature and society, understanding (
Verstehen
) is the proper way to account for the specifically human and social phenomena (often contrasted with natural scientific explanation). Classical theories of understanding place the emphasis on lived experience, social action, or rule‐following as the features of social life one needs to understand and interpret in order to attain knowledge of social institutions and processes.
Utopianism
Authors: Smith Kenneth
Published: December 2017

The term “utopia,” or “utopianism,” now widely used to describe a society which cannot possibly exist, was created by Sir Thomas More in 1516 and given by him as the title of his book of the same name. More recently this term has been associated with the attempt to create new model societies, especially during the period of the Industrial Revolution. Sometimes used to describe an ideal society, such attempts were roundly condemned as lacking any basis in reality by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, especially in their Christian or socialist forms. Marx and Engels argued that it was simply ludicrous to expect people to give up today something that they might well need themselves tomorrow. Only once all the necessities of life existed in abundant supply might such utopian socialist fantasies actually become possible.
Victims and Victimology
Authors: Walklate Sandra
Published: December 2017

Victimology emerged in the late 1940s and focuses attention on the victim (of crime). Like criminology, it is an area of analysis that has shifted from the creation of typologies, to being influenced by positivism, to more radical thought of the 1970s. In the 1980s there emerged different critical victimological voices and currently it is possible to identify strands of thought labeled as cultural victimology alongside that called critical victimology. Also like criminology, it is an eclectic area of study peopled by academics from different disciplines, policymakers, and campaign groups.
White‐Collar Workers
Authors: Nasir Kamaludeen Mohamed
Published: December 2017

The study of white‐collar workers gained widespread prominence with the publication of C. Wright Mills's
White Collar: The American Middle Classes
in 1951. The social group is often characterized by its office‐bound employment and the premium placed on the cognitive nature of the work, which is contrasted to the manual work of blue‐collar workers. Since the 1970s, there have been an increasing number of studies that argue for the convergence of lived experiences of white‐collar and blue‐collar workers. Contemporary scholarship on the white collar is distinguishable by its emphasis on white‐collar crime.
B
entham,
J
eremy
Authors: Schofield Philip
Published: December 2017

Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), English philosopher and reformer, was born in London and was educated at Westminster School and Queen's College, Oxford. Destined by his father for a legal career, and having qualified as a barrister in 1769, Bentham decided that his vocation was not legal practice but legal reform. His first major enterprise was to draft a complete penal code, which led him to investigate fundamental ideas in jurisprudence. Leaving this work incomplete, he turned his attention in the 1790s to an attempt to build a panopticon prison. He blamed the failure of the scheme on the sinister interest of aristocrats and politicians, and from 1809 devoted himself to a radical critique of the British political, legal, and ecclesiastical establishments.
Lenin,VladimirIlyich
Authors: Bideleux Robert
Published: December 2017

The global fame and influence of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (alias Lenin) have derived primarily from his pivotal roles as the founder, leader, and chief theoretician of Russia's Bolshevik Party, which acted as the world's prototypal “Communist Party” from 1918 to 1991. During the 1890s and 1900s he also published voluminous analyses of the development of capitalism in late Tsarist Russia. By greatly overstating the degrees of class differentiation within the Russian peasantry and largely overlooking the impact of countervailing leveling tendencies, he greatly overestimated the degrees to which the peasantry had become “proletarianized” and could therefore be expected to rally behind his fatally misconceived bid to establish a “proletarian” socialist regime based on Russia's still very small and poorly educated industrial proletariat
M
achiavelli,
N
iccolo
Authors: Femia Joseph V.
Published: December 2017

Machiavelli (1469–1527) was a Florentine civil servant and political theorist whose name has become a byword for the cynical and duplicitous quest for power. His experience as a diplomat, as well as his admiration for the imperial aggrandizement of ancient Rome, made it difficult for him to accept the idealistic tone and content of the political theory of his day. When the Florentine republic crumbled and he was exiled from the city, he took the opportunity to develop a more realistic political discourse – one based on empirical and historical analysis rather than figments of the Christian imagination. His two main works,
The Prince
and the
Discourses on Livy
, while differing in emphasis, equally expressed the political pragmatism that led more pious (or hypocritical) observers to denounce him as the devil incarnate.
E
mpires,
D
ecline and
F
all
Authors: Szakolczai Arpad
Published: December 2017

Empires are large and ever expanding political entities that become engaged in the pursuit of unlimited extension, thereby incorporating different cultures and geographic areas. Empire‐building thus has important affinities with globalizing expansion, explaining the increasing contemporary interest in Gibbon's classic work about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. In this entry, and following the best recent interpreters of Gibbon's undertaking and the Weber‐inspired historical theoretizations of Eisenstadt and Voegelin, the driving force of empire‐building is identified in an ever growing internal void that pushes a previously stable and flourishing entity toward the vain pursuit of unlimited growth.
B
ritish
M
arxist
H
istorians (
C
ambridge
H
istorians)
Authors: Salvaggio Marko
Published: December 2017

Marxist scholarship, including the writings of the British Marxist historians, has given much insight to social theory. The development of British Marxist historiography runs from the interwar period with the intellectual work of founders Dona Torr and Maurice Dobb to the radical student generation of the 1930s and 1940s whose members included Rodney Hilton, Christopher Hill, Eric Hobsbawm, and E. P. Thompson. The British Marxist historians contribute to social theory with their class analysis and “history from below” approach to include a historical narrative about British working‐class experience.
Frazier,EdwardFranklin
Authors: Watson Marcia , Wiggan Greg
Published: December 2017

Edward Franklin Frazier (1894–1962), more commonly known as E. Franklin Frazier, is widely known for his research on African American families, the middle class, and urban communities. A son of former slaves, Frazier was the first African American president of the American Sociological Association. Throughout his life, Frazier's scholarship was both intriguing and polemic. While many remember Frazier for his sometimes unpopular views, it is important to consider the pervasive and institutionalized racial climate that surrounded him, his life, and his research.
Phenomenology
Authors: Cassano Graham
Published: December 2017

Phenomenology is the philosophical and sociological study of experience as a gestalt generated by the relation between self, other, and world. Although in the nineteenth century the term had been used by philosophers as diverse as G. W. F. Hegel and Charles Sanders Peirce, the contemporary study of phenomenology is largely associated with the discourse initiated by Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) in the early twentieth century.
Social Identity Theory
Authors: Losh Susan Carol , Nzekwe Brandon
Published: December 2017

Social identity theory is a social psychological theory addressing self‐categorizations and group behaviors deriving from social group memberships, location in social structure, group status mobility, and intergroup relations. Because social groups create both self identities
and
social roles, role identities formed as part of a collectivity may intertwine with social identities. Among individuals, social identities have been conceptualized as sources of self‐esteem and may relate to pain tolerance and stereotype threat. In some initial formulations, out‐group stereotypes and prejudice have been linked through social comparison processes and group cohesion to the desire to maintain or elevate the social identities and self‐worth associated with group affiliation. Other derivations of the theory include self‐categorization theory, social creativity, and in‐group favoritism.
Chaebol (Korea) andZaibatsu (Japan)
Authors: Kim Eun Mee
Published: December 2017

Chaebol and zaibatsu are business groups found in South Korea and Japan, respectively. They are known for their strong family ownership, management, diversified businesses, and close relationship with their respective governments. Due to their distinctive traits, they are known by names in their respective languages rather than as business groups or business conglomerates. South Korea's chaebol are family‐owned and family‐managed business groups with diversified businesses such as manufacturing, services, and non‐banking financial services. Japan's zaibatsu are business groups founded in the pre‐World War II period, known for their activity in the industrial and financial sectors. Because of their strong influence in Japanese society during World War II, they were disbanded and restructured by the US military after the war. Although zaibatsu are no longer existent in Japan, keiretsu are business groups found in contemporary Japan. “Keiretsu” refers to business groups that are managed by professional business managers.
D
anwei
Authors: Baek Seung‐Wook
Published: December 2017

In the socialist era before the implementation of economic reforms, Chinese society operated on the basis of the “work unit system” (
danweitizhi
). Work units were places of work for income, places of reproduction for everyday life, and basic government organizations for administration. The danwei system was formed under socialism, especially after the Cultural Revolution. The trauma of the Cultural Revolution was always combined with fear of mass revolt, and restricted the possibility of politics to develop beyond the boundary of work units. Chinese economic reform has aimed to demolish the work unit system, but many characteristics still remain in changed form.
EurasianModernities
Authors: Dirlik Arif
Published: December 2017

“Eurasian modernities” or, more broadly, “Afro‐Eurasian modernities,” is a designation for the roughly four centuries (fourteenth to the eighteenth) when societies across Afro‐Eurasia experienced transformative changes in their economy, society, politics, and culture. It may seem anachronistic (not to say Eurocentric) to extend back in time and stretch across space a concept associated with “modern” Euro/America, which itself extends back into this earlier period. This entry is an account of the conceptual and historical reasoning that justifies the designation. Two paramount considerations are to highlight the primary significance of global relationships in the formation of modernity and, thereby, to rescue from the erasures of Eurocentric historiography the part these “lost modernities” played in the origins of modernity.
Individualization in
E
ast and
W
est
Authors: Yan Yunxiang
Published: December 2017

Individualization is one of the three theorems (the other two are “risk society” and “cosmopolitanization”) in Ulrich Beck's theory of reflexive modernization or second modernity; as an important thesis exploring the significant change in the individual–society relationship in postindustrial societies, individualization has also been addressed by other noted social theorists. The individualization thesis highlights five basic features of the categorical shift in individual–society relations: detraditionalization, disembedding, re‐embedding, compulsory self‐determination, and the role of conformity in individualization. It is important to note that individualization refers to the structural change in a society which may or may not relate to the rise of individualism.
Imagined Communities
Authors: Abbas Tahir
Published: December 2017

The notion of “imagined communities” entered into the lexicon of nationalism studies during the 1980s. Benedict Anderson has been credited in taking forward a term that represented an analytical framework regarding the origins and destinations of modern nation‐states based on the ideas of shared language in understanding the nature of ethnic and cultural conflict. It reflected a growing trend in political science and sociological theory to see world history in modernist terms. In the twenty‐first century, the era of the digital age and the acceleration of globalization have heralded in a new era of real
and
imagined communities.
Reflexive Modernization
Authors: Chang Kyung‐Sup
Published: December 2017

Reflexivity is a defining characteristic of modern society (and people) which produces a built‐in dynamic of cognitively and politically bounded social change. Reflexive modernization – a theory of late modern social change led by Ulrich Beck in association with Anthony Giddens, Scott Lash, and so on – is a form of social change driven by judgments and actions which are supposedly scientific or rational, but in practice comprised ofreflexes, and therefore destined to engender a risk‐ridden state of affairs in society. Late modern individuals, groups, and organizations do not self‐consciously (and cannot) choose to be reflexive, instead of being reflective. They (are forced to)choose compulsivelyamong the floods of choices presented to them in the name of rationality. On the other hand, there have been abrupt realignments and enlargements of boundaries of human existence and institutional operation that simultaneously cause drastic amplification of the already proliferated pool of knowledge and its social coordinates and heavily intensify ontological indeterminacies and uncertainties as to people and society.
Methodological Cosmopolitanism
Authors: Levy Daniel
Published: December 2017

Global processes and the attendant growth of interdependencies have propelled a critical engagement with the nation‐centric features of mainstream social sciences. Methodological cosmopolitanism (MC) is an important epistemological and conceptual intervention against this methodological nationalism. Tracing the trajectory of MC from its inception to its maturation during the last decade, several interrelated dimensions can be identified: one engages MC on the epistemological level and orbits around a critique of methodological nationalism; the second addresses the relationship of the cosmopolitan to nationalism; the third aspect consists of the iterative construction of an analytical cosmopolitan tool kit. Cosmopolitanization is underwritten by the political and normative salience of human right norms (including the validation of the other) and the growing awareness of shared global risks. Methodological cosmopolitanism thus offers a historically specific and empirically driven challenge to the national presuppositions of the social sciences.
Online Communities (Virtual Communities)
Authors: Toews David
Published: December 2017

Widespread use of the Internet has led to the use of the termonline communitiesto describe a sensibility of digitally mediated social life distinct from traditional or offline social life. The oldest online communities are premised on a strong sense of techno‐communalistvirtual community, but today most online communities do not imagine digital technology represents a radical break with the past, and are more about involving new forms of mediation within traditional social interaction rather than establishing a new frontier of experimental group living. Social networking is a structural force that has shaped and influenced all kinds of online communities, as well as produced within them new forms of deviance and civic consciousness.
Capitalism (Global)
Authors: Sklair Leslie
Published: December 2017

While the idea of international capitalism has been part of political economy and related disciplines for more than a century, the concept of global capitalism is of more recent origin. Despite the fact that many scholars have used the terms interchangeably, one consequence of the popularity of the concept of globalization in the 1990s was the increasing force of the argument for a firm distinction between the terms. International capitalism has generally been conceptualized in state‐centrist terms, focused mainly on how national capitalists based in competing national economies and working through national companies operated across borders. The distinctive concept of global capitalism takes its departure from the idea of a global economy dominated by globalizing corporations and those who own and control them, and those in influential positions who serve their interests. Indeed, in many cases, it is those who control the states that the concept of international capitalism takes to be the primary unit of analysis who facilitate corporate interests. This entry traces the development of the concept of global capitalism since the 1960s from the transitional idea of capitalist world economy through several attempts to establish a genuinely global conception of capitalism not grounded in national economies and societies. Resistance to global capitalism is analyzed in terms of the class polarization and ecological crises inherent in the system.
Political Parties
Authors: Visco Stephen Del
Published: December 2017

This entry discusses political parties. Specifically, it covers the purpose and evolution of political parties in the United States. It also highlights how parties differ in other democracies. The entry closes with some insights regarding recent trends in US party politics.
S
hklar,
J
udith
Authors: Turner Bryan S.
Published: December 2017

Judith Nisse Shklar (1928–1992) was a political theorist who, albeit influential, stood somewhat outside the dominant tradition of American political science. She was born in Riga, Latvia to Jewish parents who fled from the Soviet Union when she was a young girl. Her sense of being an outsider and of exile was an important psychological background to her interest in citizenship and the problems of inclusion. It also contributed to her pessimistic assumption that the prospects of eliminating corruption and overcoming injustice were always limited. The core issue in her critical theory of political institutions was the problem of cruelty in human societies. Although Shklar's contributions to political theory are widely recognized, she did not create a particular school of political theory and in fact she declared that she disapproved of disciples.
Empire
Authors: Behr Hartmut , Foster Russell
Published: December 2017

Empire – according to Western intellectual history – is a widely used and contested word that has been applied in economic, geographical, political, and cultural discourses. Empire is best understood not as a political reality that can be defined and conceptualized by structures and as entities, but as a discourse of superiority, legitimacy, duty, and destiny.
D
workin,
R
onald
Authors: Turner Bryan S.
Published: December 2017

Ronald Dworkin (1931–2013) was an influential legal and political philosopher. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, he graduated from Harvard in 1953, was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford (BA, 1955), and received his LLB from Harvard Law School in 1957. He started teaching at Yale Law School in 1962 and succeeded H. L. A. Hart in the Chair of Jurisprudence at Oxford in 1969. In 1975 he began teaching at the New York University Law School, dividing his time between New York and Oxford and eventually moving to University College London in 1998. His principal publications include
Taking Rights Seriously
(1977),
Law's Empire
(1986),
Life's Dominion
(1993), and
Sovereign Virtue
(2000). He made regular contributions to the
New York Review of Books
.
Happiness
Authors: Turner Bryan S. , Contreras‐Vejar Yuri
Published: December 2017

Happiness has historically enjoyed many different definitions, perspectives, and transformations. We provisionally understand “happiness” in terms of “regime of happiness” that is as a social configuration in which different discourses articulate a vision of human fulfillment. These social configurations or regimes change over time and in different contexts. Furthermore any given society may have different competing views about what constitutes happiness. Happiness is therefore semantically equivocal and inevitably contested. To simplify our entry, we will focus exclusively on Western traditions.

Any discussion of happiness has to engage with Aristotle's ideas. His ethical writings pioneered the debate, and have been essential in creating the philosophical as well as the politico‐religious vocabulary of Western civilizations. For Aristotle, happiness is a state between being independent and simultaneously being dependent on others for pleasure and companionship. Aristotle did not write much about the related notion of hope. However, he realized that it was connected with a lapse of time: memory captures the past, hope the future. Thus in Greek philosophy,eudaimoniaor human flourishing was recognized in Aristotle's ethics. In Christianity, it was developed through the notion ofbeatitude.

After Immanuel Kant, the normative realm was reduced tomoralität, the domain of obligations.Sittlichkeit, ethical life, became deontological and the questions regarding thetelosof human life was eradicated from serious intellectual discussions. Social facticity came to be devoid of moral life. However, happiness was important in British utilitarianism. Jeremy Bentham constructed a measure of happiness. J. S. Mill, rejecting this simple quantitative approach, recognized that happiness is the end of all human activity and the principle underpinning liberty. Another source of the modern notion of happiness was the pragmatic social psychology of William James who influenced both Max Weber and Émile Durkheim. However, Weber was reluctant to see happiness as a suitable topic for sociology and in the famous Munich lectures at the end of his life painted a picture of life as miserable and lacking in meaning. For both Durkheim and Weber, secularization raised questions as to whether happiness could be found in modern society.

While the analysis of happiness has largely dropped out of modern social and political theory, it is widely used to measure how successful societies are in providing for the well‐being of their citizens in terms of health, wealth, and happiness. So‐called happiness studies have become a topic of scientific inquiry and of interest to governments and policymakers in judging the success of governments in delivering “well‐being” to their citizens.
Socialization
Authors: Turner Bryan S.
Published: December 2017

Socialization is the process whereby individuals acquire the values and norms of the society into which they are born and raised. Although the early years are the most important, socialization continues through the life cycle. The concept of socialization in sociology is employed to show that genetic inheritance is not the principal explanation of human behavior. Nurture rather than nature explains personality and identity.
C
hafetz,
J
anet
Authors: Zisook Jonathan J.
Published: December 2017

Janet Saltzman Chafetz (1942–2006) was a scholar and developer of formal gender theory. She formulated a theory of gender stratification and change and strongly advocated the incorporation of feminist theory into the mainstream of sociological theory. Throughout her work on gender, she strongly cautioned against the pitfalls of essentialism, urging scholars to avoid characterizing male and female capacities as categorically different. While known mostly for her work on gender theory, she also did research on religion and immigration. In addition to focusing on the role of religious institutions in the integration process of immigrants in the United States, Chafetz also applied gender theory to assess the changing status of women in immigrant congregations.
Indirect and Mediated Intergroup Contact
Authors: Harwood Jake
Published: December 2017

People may encounter members of other groups in many ways other than face‐to‐face contact. Contact‐like experiences can occur through mass or interpersonal media, through imagined encounters, or through knowing about or observing contact between others. This entry addresses such experiences, noting where they have similar effects to direct contact, and in some circumstances the advantages of indirect forms of contact over more direct contact. Mediators and moderators of indirect contact overlap with those for direct contact, but some unique processes by which contact influences attitudes toward outgroups are also discussed here.
Intercultural Experiential Learning
Authors: Yang Min
Published: December 2017

Studies and programs of intercultural experiential learning are informed by Kolb's experiential learning theory to examine and guide individuals' development of intercultural competence. Intercultural experiential learning can be viewed as a recursive cycle through which individuals acquire knowledge and skills for appropriate and effective intercultural interaction. Research has identified abilities and skills affording productive intercultural learning, and pedagogical approaches to fostering intercultural learning outcomes. Although direct experiences are widely adopted in intercultural experiential learning, there is a need to further explicate how learning from indirect experiences (i.e., vicarious learning) may benefit individuals. One example of vicarious learning is intercultural simulations immersing individuals in virtual environments that represent synthetic and/or national cultures. Future studies may explore how individuals' preferences for intercultural learning abilities and skills vary across cultural contexts, and how alternative pedagogies, especially group‐based intercultural training activities and vicarious intercultural experiential learning, can facilitate the development of intercultural competence.
Intercultural Training for Educators
Authors: Cushner Kenneth
Published: December 2017

Today, more than ever before, the need exists to enhance the education of children, and thus teachers, with a new set of interculturally grounded knowledge, skills, and dispositions so they are better able to solve the global problems with people different from themselves that they, and their children, are certain to confront in the years ahead. Teachers, thus, must not only enhance their own intercultural competence, but must also understand the nuances of intercultural communication and interaction sufficiently so they can transfer this to the students in their charge.
A
cidobacteriaceae
Authors: Huber Katharina J. , Pascual Javier , Foesel Bärbel U. , Overmann Jörg
Published: December 2017

A.ci.do.bac.te.ri.a.ce'ae. N.L. neut. n.
Acidobacterium
, type genus of the family; suff. ‐
aceae
, ending to denote a family; N.L. fem. pl. n.
Acidobacteriaceae
the
Acidobacterium
family.

Acidobacteria / Acidobacteriia / Acidobacteriales / Acidobacteriaceae

The
Acidobacteriaceae
are delineated from other taxa based on 16S rRNA gene analysis and represent the first validly described family of the class
Acidobacteriia
(formerly: subdivision 1
Acidobacteria
) and the order
Acidobacteriales
. Cells are coccoid to rod‐shaped and stain Gram‐negative. In older cultures cell rosettes can occur. They divide by binary fission and do not form spores. Capsule formation is variable. In some genera motility occurs. Representatives of the family
Acidobacteriaceae
are aerobic, microaerobic, or facultatively anaerobic. Most species are oxidase negative. Under microaerophilic conditions reductive dissolution of ferric iron minerals occurs in some species. Members of the
Acidobacteriaceae
are chemoorganotrophic mesophiles, which display their growth optimum at lower pH values but also survive near‐neutral pH values.
Acidobacteriaceae
mainly use monomeric sugars as carbon and energy source, but many can also degrade complex carbohydrates such as cellulose, chitin, starch, or xylan. Phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidyltethanolamin and various unidentified glycolipids, and unidentified phospholipids or aminophospholipids constitute the polar lipids. Major fatty acids are iso‐C
15:0
, C
16:0
, C
16:1
ω7
c
or (C
16:1
ω6
c
or iso‐C
15:0
2‐OH), iso‐C
17:0
, iso‐C
17:1
ω7
c
or ω9
c
. Members of some genera also contain C
18:0
and C
18:1
ω9
c
. After direct acid hydrolysis of biomass, 13,16‐dimethyl octacosanedioic acid (
iso
‐diabolic acid) is detected in higher amounts in all members tested to date. Members of the family
Acidobacteriaceae
have been isolated from different types of soils (i.e., peat bogs, savannah, and tundra soils), acidic mine drainage, water, cherry bark, but also termite hindguts.
L
eptospiraceae
Authors: Picardeau Mathieu
Published: December 2017

Lep.to.spi.ra.ce'ae. N.L. fem. n.
Leptospira
type genus of the family; ‐
aceae
ending to denote a family; N.L. fem. pl. n.
Leptospiraceae
the
Leptospira
family.

Spirochaetes / Spirochaetia / Spirochaetales / Leptospiraceae
Leptonema
Authors: Picardeau Mathieu
Published: December 2017

Lep.to.ne'ma. Gr. adj.leptosthin, narrow, fine; Gr. neut. n.nemaa filament or thread; N.L. neut. n.Leptonemaa thin filament or thread, describing a bacterium that resembles a thin filament or thread.

Spirochaetes / Spirochaetia / Spirochaetales / Leptospiraceae / Leptonema

Long, thin, flexible rods, 0.1–0.2μm in diameter and 13–21μm in length, with a regular helical coiling pattern having a wavelength of 0.6–0.7 µm. Unicellular but may be observed as dividing pairs or short chains in actively growing cultures. Resting stages are not known. Gram‐stain negative. Due to small diameter, unstained cells arenot visible by bright‐field microscopy. Dark‐field or phase‐contrast microscopy is required for visualization of unstained cells. Highly motile.Obligate aerobes. Growth temperatures range between 13 and 30°C, with optimal growth at 28–30°C.Chemoorganotrophic; consume long‐chain fatty acids and fatty alcohols as primary carbon and energy sources. Can grow on trypticase media. Uses respiration with oxygen as the terminal electron acceptor. Optimal growth occurs in semisolid (0.2%) agar media. Growth on 1–2% solid agar results in the formation of clear to turbid subsurface colonies. Oxidase‐positive. Lipase‐positive. Nonpathogenic for cattle, gerbils, guinea pigs, hamsters, and mice.Free living in aquatic environments and soil. Some strains found in association with animals. Does not share significant levels of sequence similarity with otherLeptospiraceaeas determined by DNA hybridization analysis. The 16S rRNA sequence is distinct from otherLeptospiraceae.

DNA G + C content (mol%): 54.

Type species:Leptonema illini(Hanson, Tripathy, Evans and Alexander 1974) Hovind‐Hougen 1983, 439VP(Effective publication: Hovind‐Hougen 1979, 251) (LeptospiraserotypeilliniHanson, Tripathy, Evans and Alexander 1974, 356).
T
urneriella
Authors: Picardeau Mathieu
Published: December 2017

Tur.ne.ri.el'la N.L. fem. dim. n.
Turneriella
named after Leslie Turner, an English microbiologist who made definitive contributions to the knowledge of leptospirosis.

Spirochaetes / Spirochaetia / Spirochaetales / Leptospiraceae / Turneriella

Flexible helical rods, 0
.
3
×
3
.
5–7
.
5
μ
m with a wavelength of 0
.
3–0
.
5
μ
m
. Gram‐stain‐negative. Unicellular. Resting stages are not known. Dark‐field or phase‐contrast microscopy is required for visualization of unstained cells.
Obligate aerobes
. Grows slowly at 13, 30, and 37°C, with temperature optimum of 28–30°C.
Chemoorganotrophic bacteria that consume long‐chain fatty acids and fatty alcohols as primary carbon and energy sources
. Optimal growth occurs in semisolid (0.2%) agar media. Oxidase‐positive. Lipase‐positive. Isolated from contaminated culture medium, tap water, and uterus of a sow. DNA hybridization and 16S rRNA sequence analyses show this genus is distinct from other
Leptospiraceae
.

DNA G + C content (mol%)
: 47–48.

Type species
:
Turneriella parva
(Hovind‐Hougen, Ellis and Birch‐Andersen 1982) Levett, Morey, Galloway, Steigerwalt and Ellis 2005, 1499
VP
(
Leptospira parva
Hovind‐Hougen, Ellis and Birch‐Andersen 1982, 384).
T
erracidiphilus
Authors: Lladó Salvador , García‐Fraile Paula
Published: December 2017

Terr.a.ci.di'phi.lus. L. n.
terra
, earth; L. adj.
acidus
, sour, acid; N.L. adj.
philus
‐a ‐um [from Gr. adj.
philos ‐ê ‐on
], friend, loving; N.L. masc. n.
Terracidiphilus
, bacterium from soil‐loving acid conditions.

Acidobacteria / Acidobacteriia / Acidobacteriales / Acidobacteriaceae / Terracidiphilus

Gram‐negative, motile, nonspore forming, short and ovoid rod‐shaped cells. Aerobic. Catalase negative and oxidase negative. Acidophilic and mesophilic. The type strain of the genus was isolated from a coniferous forest soil in the Bohemian Forest National Park (Czech Republic). Soil metatranscriptomic data suggests a significant role of these bacteria in the forest carbon cycle. Cells produce enzymes involved in the degradation of plant‐derived biopolymers such as β‐glucosidase, β‐xylosidase, and β‐galactosidase. They grow with cellulose, hemicellulose and chitin as sole source of carbon. This represents an important phenotypic difference with related genera not able to grow with all or even any of these complex substrates such as
Occallatibacter, Telmatobacter, or Acidicapsa
. Cells are also able to grow with a wide variety of sugars, organic acids, and amino acids. Genomic analysis found 346 genes encoding different carbohydrate‐active enzymes (CAZYmes) involved in the decomposition of cellulose, hemicellulose, starch, pectin, and chitin. The respiratory quinone is MK‐8. Main fatty acids are iso‐C
15:0
, C
15:0
, C
18:0
, and C
16:1
ω7. Members of the phylum
Acidobacteria
, family
Acidobacteriaceae
. Known habitats are acidic soils.

DNA G + C content (mol%)
: 57.3.

Type species
:
Terracidiphilus gabretensis
García‐Fraile, Benada, Cajthaml, Baldrian and Lladó 2016b, 2464
VP
(Effective publication: García‐Fraile, Benada, Cajthaml, Baldrian and Lladó 2016a, 564).
Grimshaw, Allen (1929–2011)
Authors: Corsaro William A.
Published: December 2017

Allen Grimshaw was born in New York City in 1929. He took his AB degree in anthropology and sociology at the University of Missouri in 1950 and his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania in 1959. He joined the faculty at Indiana University, Bloomington that same year as Instructor and retired as professor of sociology in 1994. Grimshaw's most significant contribution to sociology was theory construction and empirical research in two areas: conflict and violence, and the general area of sociolinguistics. In the later part of his career Grimshaw successfully integrated these two areas in studies of the discourse of international negotiations on the macro level and of conflict talk (sociolinguistic investigations of arguments in conversations) at the micro level.
Tilly, Charles (1929–2008)
Authors: Hanagan Michael
Published: December 2017

Charles Tilly was a leading American historical sociologist. His first book was a widely acclaimed study of the Vendée and the rural counter‐revolutionaries of 1793–1796. Over his entire career he published more than 50 books in social history and historical sociology. Among his best‐known works were
The Contentious French
,
Popular Contention in Great Britain 1758–1834
, and (with Doug McAdam and Sidney Tarrow),
The Dynamics of Contention
. He particularly contributed to the study and understanding of contentious action, state‐making, and the rise of European capitalism. In his last years he was involved in a major shift in methodological approach highlighting the role of mechanisms and social relations in the study of social change, finally describing himself as a “rational realist.”