bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Kidd, Benjamin (1858–1916)
Authors: Stockman Norman
Published: January 2023

Benjamin Kidd (1858–1916) was a popular writer on sociology in the early years of the new discipline. He engaged with the dominant tendency in British sociology, social Darwinism, which argued that society evolved in a similar way to biological species. His distinctive approach in his book
Social Evolution
was to identify a social level of competition, separate from but related to the individual level. Societies would be more successful in intersocietal competition if they could maintain a high degree of social integration by controlling the intensity of individual competition, through religious cohesion and ethical principles such as belief in equality of opportunity, thus committing their members to long‐term social goals.
Geiger, Theodor (1891–1952)
Authors: Meyer Thomas
Published: January 2023

Theodor Geiger was one of the pioneers of theory‐based social research in Germany and Scandinavia. If he is remembered at all, it is for his work on social stratification and perhaps also his critique of ideology and his work on legal theory, sociology of crowds, journalism, and publicity. What is now, to a great extent, disregarded is Geiger's work on the Volkshochschule adult education movement and the education of the working class, and his critical response to national socialism. For many colleagues of his time, he was too much of an empiricist, too critical of the collective, too much of a modernist and socialist. After the war, he was considered anti‐dogmatic and too much of a “positivist” with his strong belief in science and research for the Frankfurt School.
Goudsblom, Johan (Joop) (1932–2020)
Authors: van Krieken Robert
Published: January 2023

This entry outlines the key works of influential Dutch sociologist Johan (Joop) Goudsblom:
Nihilism and Culture
,
Sociology in the Balance
,
Fire and Civilization
, and the essay “Public Health and the Civilizing Process.” The distinctiveness of his approach to sociology, strongly influenced by Norbert Elias and his conception of the process of civilization, is explained, emphasizing his style of theory and research as a productive alternative to mainstream sociological thought.
“Honor”‐Based Violence
Authors: Gill Aisha K.
Published: January 2023

In recent years, violence against women and girls committed in the name of “honor” has attracted increasing attention across the globe. Unfortunately, media accounts and policy discourses concerning “honor”‐based violence (HBV) and “honor” killings have principally viewed the problem through the lens of cultural essentialism: In other words, explanations have focused on the cultural (including religious) factors underlying HBV rather than examining HBV in the broader context of violence against women and girls (VAWG). VAWG is endemic across the whole of UK society, though different sociocultural and ethnic groups experience heightened rates of certain forms, like HBV. This entry identifies the norms, traditions, and values that underpin HBV as a specific form of VAWG. Culture, ethnicity, religion, and nationality contribute to the forms of VAWG that an individual may experience, but none of these factors is the sole or even main cause of this complex phenomenon.
Democratic Deficits
Authors: Kuyper Jonathan W.
Published: January 2023

Democratic deficits occur when sites of public power – which impact people's lives – are not democratically controlled by those same people. Democratic deficits exist in many different contexts, including within nation‐states, regional governance arrangements, and international institutions. For the most part, democratic deficits exist because globalization has altered the ability of nation‐states to control what occurs within their own borders. The migration of power to regional and international organizations is then said to create democratic deficits. This entry will define democratic deficits, give some background on how and why they occur, and discuss potential remedies.
Natural Experiments
Authors: Gross Matthias
Published: January 2023

In the mid‐nineteenth century, the term “natural experimentation,” or “social experimentation,” was used to describe sociological observations of events that occur in the course of life as opposed to the manipulation of variables by researchers. In the twentieth century, the notion of natural experiments as well as field or quasi‐experiments was used to denote a comparison of a treatment applied to a control group without defining beforehand how the treatment is assigned. The test subjects are divided into an experimental group and a control group based on natural events. Since the 1990s, natural experiments have been improved in various ways, as have studies using a random assignment of groups. What is common to these approaches is that they increasingly take the opportunity to do research in real‐world settings that have previously been considered inappropriate for sociological investigation. In this way, experimentation in “natural” settings opens up new possibilities for research in and with society.
Profane
Authors: Grenda Christopher S.
Published: January 2023

Veneration is a common practice. Societies across the globe have for millennia chosen select objects and symbols for special reverence or esteem. The impulse to profane those objects – to besmirch or ridicule them – is similarly abiding and broad. As a result, humans have long sought to regulate expression with legal codes defining and punishing unwanted irreverence. Though talk of “blasphemy codes” conjures images of medieval taboos, the penchant to select objects for special recognition and protection has not faded with the advance of modernity. Nor have the resulting ventures in censorship. The current age of human rights, digital technologies, and multicultural sensibilities has renewed anxieties over profane expression and generated legal formulas forbidding unwelcome derision.
Event History Analysis
Authors: Blossfeld Gwendolin J. , Blossfeld Hans‐Peter
Published: January 2023

Event history analysis is closely related to a new understanding of causation as a “generative process.” Event history models allow the researcher (1) to relate the rate of change in future outcomes to changes in conditions in the past; (2) to use the transition rate as a local, time‐related description of how the dependent process in a causal system evolves in time; and (3) to use time‐dependent covariates in order to study the impact of parallel processes and time lags between causes and their effects as well as different temporal effect shapes. Depending on the precision of the time measurement of events, discrete‐time and continuous‐time event history methods can be distinguished.
Participant Observation
Authors: Jorgensen Danny L.
Published: January 2023

Participant observation (a mainstay of ethnography, fieldwork, and field research) is a method of study whereby the researcher becomes immersed in the ebb and flow of the phenomenon being investigated. The participant observer may be overt or covert and perform a variety of passive and active roles, including membership, aimed at securing rapport and acquiring truthful information about the lifeways of societal members. Records of the participant observer's experiences and observations provide highly detailed descriptions and interpretations of social life. Participant observational studies are among the most enduring and frequently cited, and there is an extremely rich and growing body of such literature in sociology and many other fields today.
Polyandry
Authors: Hames Raymond , Starkweather Kathrine
Published: January 2023

Although polyandry is rare, it is not as rare as commonly believed, even though standard references claim it is permissible in about 0.7 to 1.1 percent of all societies in large cross‐cultural samples of preindustrial societies. However, it is found worldwide, most commonly in small‐scale societies. Given its prevalence among small‐scale societies, especially hunter‐gatherers, polyandry likely existed during early human history and should be examined from an evolutionary perspective. Analysis reveals that it may be a predictable response to a high operational sex ratio favoring males, as well as a variety of social factors that may make polyandry adaptive in a restricted set of circumstances.
Digital Media
Authors: Flew Terry
Published: January 2023

“Digital media” refers both to content that exists in digital forms that is distributed through networked personal computing, and to new types of media businesses, industries, and content. There are many debates about the extent to which digital media has empowered online users and transformed traditional media businesses and professions. With the rise of digital platforms in the age of Web 2.0, a key issue has been whether or not tech giants such as Google, Facebook, and Apple are increasingly taking the form of media publishers, and the implications for policy and regulation.
Consumerism
Authors: Rief Silvia
Published: January 2023

This entry covers the various layers of meaning of the term “consumerism.” It outlines its historical legacy as a term of critique, which has shaped the dominant understanding of consumerism as an ethic and way of life revolving around consumption. In recent debates, the meanings of the term have diversified. Consumerism is either seen as the ideology of conspicuous consumption, as an economic or political ideology, or refers to the collective organization of consumer interests and the institutionalization of consumer rights and policy. Despite the ongoing usage of “consumerism” as a term of criticism of excessive and obsessive forms of consumption, recent research discusses many varieties of consumerism, ranging from political, critical, ethical, green, financial, or queer consumerism to anti‐ or post‐consumerism.
Upward Mobility
Authors: Li Yaojun
Published: January 2023

Upward mobility refers to the situation where an individual holds a higher social position than their parents did or than they held in their own previous job. Greater upward mobility in a society indicates that more people from humble origins are moving up the social hierarchy, hence greater social justice. Given this, promoting upward mobility is a highly desirable goal to pursue. Yet, as social mobility takes place in a given occupational structure, upward and downward mobility is usually a zero‐sum game unless there is increased “room at the top.” People in higher positions have not only strong motivation but also superior resources to prevent downward mobility. The interplay between upward and downward mobility determines how fluid a society is. Over the past two decades or so, there has been heated debate over whether social mobility in Britain is in decline. As limited data were used in previous research, an updated picture is provided here, using nearly 50 years of data.
Lower Class
Authors: McDonald Maretta
Published: January 2023

The lower class is composed of people who are positioned at the bottom of a society's stratification or class system. Lower class is defined in different ways based on the criteria used to define class. There are several criteria used to categorize members of the lower class, both objective and subjective. Additionally, sociologists have developed different theories to explain the existence and persistence of the lower class. Even though class is socially constructed, many members of society experience a host of negative outcomes because of their lower‐class status. This overview examines these aspects of the lower class in sociological theory and research.
Islamism
Authors: Abbas Tahir
Published: January 2023

“Islamism” is a much‐used concept in the current climate, although its definitions are far from clear. Its antecedents exist in the historical understanding of political Islam, Salafism, or Wahhabism, with which it is often used interchangeably. This entry focuses on the historical evolution of the concept, the range of contemporary understandings it relates, and the implications of its usage for understanding the Muslim experience in both minority and majority settings.
Competitive Capitalism
Authors: Fellman Susanna
Published: January 2023

“Competitive capitalism” signifies a form of capitalism in which competition is the central element. The system is often equated with free market capitalism and was especially prevalent during early industrialization and in countries with a liberal state and strong bourgeois culture. Today, there are some highly competitive capitalisms. However, opinion on what is to be considered a competitive capitalist system has varied over time and in different contexts. In this entry we discuss the concept and give a brief overview of core debates concerning the competitive capitalist system. We also analyze the role of the state in safeguarding the competitive element and discuss the connection between liberal democracy and competitive capitalism.
Gender: Women's Labor Force Participation
Authors: Moore Sian , William Laura
Published: January 2023

Women's labor market participation is shaped by the household division of labor, gender divisions of paid work, and gender ideology. These relationships are not fixed but are continually renegotiated, although they are historically and industrially specific and linked to particular stages of capitalism. EU policies encourage women's labor market participation, and in a number of states women's paid work is at record levels. However, vertical and horizontal segregation and gender pay gaps persist. Occupational segregation means women are disproportionately concentrated in health and social care, education, and retail work. Gendered hierarchies are reproduced by organizational practices justified through narratives of women's reproduction, sexuality, and emotionality. The failure of equal pay legislation to close the gender pay gap has prompted further legal measures in a number of countries, while the wider context of COVID‐19, climate change, and extension of automation and artificial intelligence offer possibilities for the reorganization of both paid and unpaid work, including a shorter working week, that could finally challenge gender inequality in the labor market.
Citationality
Authors: Fenigsen Janina
Published: January 2023

Citationality connects semiotic events interdiscursively by embedding a semiotic form derived from one event within another. Citationality is never only about an iteration of the semiotic form itself. It carries its prior contexts, actors, and performances across the events, conjuring claims and realms of relations, identities, and social frameworks as emergent in the new event. Citationality is important because it is performative. The approach to citationality proposed here follows Jacques Derrida and Judith Butler in attending to iterability of semiotic forms beyond those particular to language so as to include other kinds of semiotic events. It differs from their formulations in limiting the concept of citationality to those instances of iterability only that are characterized by reflexivity of their iterative nature, that is, by pointing to themselves as having been uttered before.
Kropotkin, Pyotr (1842–1921)
Authors: Morgan Richard
Published: January 2023

Pyotr Kropotkin was a nineteenth‐ and early twentieth‐century Russian political philosopher, scientist, historian, explorer, and writer. He is best known for relinquishing his noble birthright for a life as an anarchist promoting social and economic revolution, his theory of mutual aid as a factor of evolution, and his attempt to develop a brand of so‐called “scientific” anarchism. His work spoke to a number of contemporary concerns and conversations, including crime and punishment, eugenics, evolution, war, the modern city, agriculture, industrialization, the modern state, and capitalism.
Patrimonialism
Authors: Bakker J.I. (Hans)
Published: January 2023

As an ideal type model for comparative historical sociological research, “patrimonialism” provides a useful framework for comparing complex societies. Especially important is the tendency for an “oscillation” of centripetal and centrifugal forces. Max Weber's oscillation thesis makes it clear he was not Eurocentric. The patrimonial state is based on a ruler and a traditional bureaucracy (with prebendal officials). The logic of Magna Carta (1225) requires that the monarch also accept a baronial class as having legitimate authority in addition to his own, but that only applied to England. Thomas Piketty utilizes patrimony to refer to the “heritage” of a bourgeois family in capitalist societies whereas Max Weber was interested in societies that existed long before the emergence of “modern capitalism” in its incipient phases in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Those premodern societies had long‐distance trade in luxury goods but only rudiments of modern capitalism. After the seventeenth century it became more and more common for the “imagined community” of the “nation‐state” to dominate in capitalist societies. But those societies often had overseas imperial interests and some established European settler colonies, such as England which established parts of South Asia as British colonies. Some use the term “neo‐patrimonial” to refer to contemporary societies.
Extended Case Method
Authors: Eliasoph Nina
Published: January 2023

The extended case method (ECM) is a broad approach to ethnographic research. Like all ethnographic methods, the ECM examines people in the course of “real‐life” action, in their own times and places, rather than in interviews or laboratories. Like other ethnography, the ECM emphasizes understanding people's own interpretations, as helping to constitute our shared reality. The ECM adds an emphasis on comparisons (between, for example, different actors, moments in the flow of action, organizations, or national contexts); on seeing connections between different field sites; on entering with, and revising, a theory; and on reflexivity to one's own social position with openness to dialogue. The goal is not to locate an ultimate truth, but to find the ways that multiple, varied realities, dispersed across multiple places and times and people, create each other over time.
Riskdemic
Authors: Buoncompagni Giacomo
Published: January 2023

COVID‐19 was undoubtedly an exceptional global event, locking billions of people in their homes, leaving them out of work or shut out of schools and public offices, and causing hospital systems in small and large cities alike to collapse. This health crisis is one of many global shocks we have experienced recently, following on from the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 2008 financial and economic crisis, and one of the side effects of living in a global society that we need to learn to accommodate ourselves to in a stable way. The pandemic has radicalized tensions already present in the background of our society: unresolved issues such as the relationship with otherness, the illusion of freedom and control, the (sub)culture of surveillance, vulnerability, and lack of risk. Some of the pillars of social life and the foundations of our ontological security have collapsed. With the coronavirus in circulation, suddenly the world no longer seems to be a safe reality endowed with meaning, continuity, and stability, but a place of “riskdemic.”
Media Happiness
Authors: Buoncompagni Giacomo
Published: January 2023

According to the
Oxford Dictionary
, the term
happiness
generally indicates “a state of pleasurable satisfaction of mind,” “a deep pleasure or contentment with one's circumstances.” When Paul Watzlawick, founder of the Palo Alto school, launched the formula “You cannot not communicate,” he did not only intend to enhance communication, but also to ascertain a reality. Communication, both interpersonal and mediated, has become not only a means of resolving conflicts and misunderstandings, but a way in which everyone can achieve his or her humanity and happiness. The secret lies in learning to dose our media use.
Abolitionism
Authors: Francione Gary L. , Charlton Anna E.
Published: January 2023

Abolitionism in animal ethics focuses on the idea that, if animals matter morally, humans are obligated to recognize that animals have a prelegal, moral right not to be used as property. Recognizing this right requires the abolition, and not the regulation, of animal use. Central to abolition is adoption of veganism, or the rejection of eating, wearing, or using animals exclusively as resources. Abolitionism also recognizes the connections between human rights and the rights of nonhumans, and rejects violence.
Animal Rights Movement
Authors: Peggs Kay
Published: January 2023

The origin of the animal rights movement (ARM) is usually traced to nineteenth‐century anti‐vivisectionist campaigns in Britain. After a lull, the ARM re‐emerged in the twentieth century and is now found across the world. Like other social movements, the ARM uses various methods to influence views and mobilize support. This entry explores the complexities of the ARM as a social movement, including origins, membership, and media responses. It considers the notion of “rights” and examines the differences between “abolition” and “welfare” – issues that are so important to our understanding of the ARM.
Arcades
Authors: Nguyen Duy Lap
Published: January 2023

Originating in Paris in the 1820s, arcades were decorative passages or walkways through blocks of buildings. Typically glass‐roofed and supported by ornate ironwork columns, arcades served as a form of interior street: a site of consumption for the wealthy, and a place of marvel and spectacle for the poor. In sociological terms, the importance of the Parisian arcades lies in their purported role as progenitor of modern consumerism and, more tangentially, as a prototype of the contemporary shopping mall. The unearthing of the arcade as a site of sociological and philosophical importance is closely associated with the work of the German literary theorist Walter Benjamin.
Adoption
Authors: Fonseca Claudia
Published: January 2023

Adoption, broadly defined as the assumption of parental status in relation to individuals who were begotten by others, is an age‐old phenomenon. Although adoption, as a means to formalize the status of a person's material and spiritual heirs, has been legislated by different societies at least since the Roman Empire, it was only in the mid‐twentieth century that it became institutionalized in its present, commonly identified form of modern, plenary adoption. This entry outlines how, since the end of World War II, social forces have changed the face of child adoption, introducing new dimensions such as those involved in transracial and transnational adoptions. Presenting adoption as a multidisciplinary theme, we point out distinct perspectives while raising elements that continue to animate debates.
Bankruptcy
Authors: Maroto Michelle
Published: January 2023

Bankruptcy is a legal process that permits the voluntary discharge of debt by both individuals and businesses. Bankruptcy laws fluctuate across time and place, determined by need and ideology. Although most non‐business bankruptcies occur after individuals experience adverse events and many recent laws emphasize the importance of a “fresh start,” bankruptcy still remains on a person's credit report for many years, which can limit opportunities later on.
Bisexuality
Authors: Maliepaard Emiel , Baumgartner Renate
Published: January 2023

In current sociological work, bisexuality predominantly refers either to the sexual orientation of people who are attracted to people of more than one sex or gender, or to the sexual identity of people who have same‐sex and different‐sex sexual and/or romantic attraction. This entry discusses the different meanings of bisexuality throughout history but mainly focuses on the current meanings, main themes of bisexuality research, achievements, and challenges that bisexuality research is facing in order to become part of mainstream sociology and sexuality scholarship.
Black Feminist Thought
Authors: Harris Tina M. , Harris Rockia
Published: January 2023

This entry explains the conceptblack feminist thought(BFT). It is a tool of empowerment for oppressed women forced to live a life of double consciousness. The basic assumptions of BFT are discussed in addition to a few exemplar studies using it to explain African American women's experiences with racism, classism, and sexism. Directions for future research are also discussed.
Aging Body
Authors: Calnan Michael
Published: January 2023

This entry focuses on the sociology of the body in the context of older age. It begins with a brief overview of sociological perspectives on the body and why it has become topical of late. This provides the context for understanding some sociological insights about the aging body and the implications of changes in bodily appearance, bodily functioning, and bodily control. The decline of the body has implications for caring practices and providing dignified care. It is argued that the adoption of a social model of disease in health services appears to be more appropriate for the care of people in later life.
Capital, Secondary Circuit of
Authors: Ward Callum
Published: January 2023

The secondary circuit of capital is the sphere of commodity circulation, exchange, and consumption. It is a major theme in urban studies because it highlights the structural economic dynamics of capitalist urbanization, especially the role of real estate bubbles and financial crises. The primary/secondary circuit distinction between productive and unproductive labor has also meant this framing is highly relevant to Marxist feminist debates. Recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in the secondary circuit of capital as scholars use it as a framework to cast insight on the role of distributional struggles in contemporary political economic issues.
Class, Status, and Power
Authors: Bland Timothy , Chen Victor Tan
Published: January 2023

Power is the ability to realize one's will in spite of resistance from others. Max Weber argued that three types of social resources – distributed on the basis of class (economic), status (sociocultural), and party (political) – could be employed to exert power. Karl Marx had earlier asserted the primacy of class, defined as a person's relationship to the means of production, but Weber complicated this picture through an analysis of the ways that social, cultural, and political considerations could both deepen and subvert class stratification. The global spread of democracy and capitalism initially increased social mobility and dispersed power more widely, including to groups that lacked economic resources but wielded power derived from prestige or the support of political organizations. In modern societies, however, elites have increasingly been able to parlay their economic advantages into cultural and political influence, renewing the interlocks between these spheres of power.
The Social Meaning and Relations of Cloning
Authors: David Matthew
Published: January 2023

Claude Lévi‐Strauss's
Myth and Meaning
discusses the cultural significance attached to twins in nonliterate societies. Twins are invested with ambivalent feelings, embodying abundance and loss, security and threat, natural and unnatural, good and evil. Twins also challenge the “identity” of being one thing or the other. The spliced‐lipped, incipient twin, hare, as messenger/transgressor between binary opposites, is also the mythical carrier of order and mishap. Being born feet first, wanting to move too fast, to get ahead of oneself or one's twin at the expense of mother and nature, is also invested with moral significance. Mythic thinking is about projecting the desire for social order onto nature. Yesterday's twins are today's clones. Advocates of cloning, and in particular human cloning, are united in the claim that their critics engage in scientifically illiterate mythic thinking, but, as Lévi‐Strauss concluded, belief in the inevitability and moral superiority of change, progress, and history also represents a form of “mythic thinking” in modern “scientific” cultures. This entry highlights the mythic constructions of all sides of the cloning debate. It suggests the socially based nature of beliefs in general.
Commodities, Commodity Fetishism, and Commodification
Authors: Skotnicki Tad
Published: January 2023

Commodities seem to be trivial, obvious things; trivial and obvious in that they are everywhere and generic. They seem to describe something that has always existed in human civilizations. Yet commodities and the process of commodification also seem to have become particularly relevant to social life over the last several centuries. This entry traces the lineage and prospects for the study of commodities and commodification, with special attention given to the tension between their abstract, generalizing and concrete, particularizing dimensions – a matter that Karl Marx brought to the fore with the notion of commodity fetishism.
Constructionism
Authors: Weinberg Darin
Published: January 2023

This entry provides a concise statement of the history, key ideas, and scope of constructionist research.
Consumption, Youth Culture and
Authors: Paterson Mark
Published: January 2023

A new breed of teenage and young adult consumers emerged after World War II with the ability to spend allowances or wages. Marketing companies invented the “teenager” to address this newly wealthy and vibrant demographic. As the decades progressed, young consumers had to deal with more complex social mechanisms than their adult forebears had experienced, such as the need to exhibit some form of “authenticity” in identity construction, and the maintenance of status through highly socialized consumption practices among peers and subcultural groups. Subcultures (or “scenes”) formed based around the consumption of certain types of goods that were initially tied to geographic space and localized peer groups, but the advent of the Internet has brought entirely new structures of status and ushered in a more eclectic form of global youth culture.
Creolization
Authors: Tibère Laurence
Published: January 2023

The process of creolization is linked to the movements of globalization that have occurred with the processes of colonization since the seventeenth century. Populations were displaced and disseminated, and their social and cultural worlds coexisted with new ones, often intermingling. This gave rise to unique socio‐anthropological patterns on the level of both tangible and intangible cultures and in ways of living together. Within certain limits, the concept offers rich perspectives for analyzing contemporary human mobilities and their social and cultural configurations and recompositions.
Biosocial Theories of Crime
Authors: Lonergan Holly A. , Nedelec Joseph L.
Published: January 2023

The complexities of human behavior require explanations that incorporate multiple areas of inquiry. While the field of criminology has often relied on solely sociological explanations, a biosocial perspective is expansive and relies on the consilience of empirical findings from several disciplines. Biosocial criminology is a perspective that argues
both
environmental factors and biological factors are necessary to explain crime and criminal behavior. This entry outlines three main areas of biosocial criminology (behavioral genetics, molecular genetics, and neurocriminology) as well as describing how biosocial criminology can inform and improve correctional treatment.
Cultural Capital in Schools
Authors: Barone Carlo
Published: January 2023

Cultural capital theory provides a structural explanation for the persistence of educational inequalities in affluent western societies. According to Bourdieu and Passeron, upper classes manage to impose their cultural conventions as superior and more legitimate cultural expressions, which are then transmitted and valued by educational institutions, thus generating a structural advantage for upper‐class children, who enjoy a higher cultural proximity between the family and the school environment. Qualitative and quantitative research has only partially supported this explanation and has opened the way to several reformulations of the original theory.
Culture: Conceptual Clarifications
Authors: Stewart Simon
Published: January 2023

There is no single definition that is able to capture the complexity of the concept of culture. Therefore, to gain clarity, culture is considered as a means of human cultivation and “civilization”; as an agent of change; as a source of objective and subjective development; as an aspect of human existence on which humans confer meaning; as a way of life common to a particular group of people; as artistic practices and products; as a source of capital and power; as a means of social reproduction of the existing order; and as a source of value.
Concessions
Authors: Harris Katy A. , Feeley Thomas H.
Published: January 2023

Concessions are a communication strategy used to elicit a desired action or to gain compliance from another without placing overt pressure on the other individual. The potential underlying mechanism of reciprocity is discussed in this entry, and examples of using concessions in interactions are provided.
Consumer Society
Authors: Sassatelli Roberta
Published: January 2023

The notion of “consumer society” emerged after World War II and was made famous by authors such as Arendt, Marcuse, Galbraith, Packard, and Baudrillard. It was used to suggest that the society in which we live is a late variant of capitalism characterized by the primacy of consumption over production. In contemporary societies, because of the separation of production and consumption, we find ourselves confronted with objects whose meaning is beyond our everyday life and yet we are mobilized as “consumers” to use these objects in meaningful ways. Furthermore, consumer acts and emotional life have become closely linked. Identity and consumption are strictly entwined, consumer practices involving social actors as both rational and emotional beings.
Demography
Authors: Poston Dudley L. , Heo Nayoung
Published: January 2023

This entry discusses the definition of demography and the meaning of “population.” It examines some of the early writings about population, paying particular attention to the work and contributions of Malthus, but also considering other population theorists. It covers the major theory of demography, demographic transition theory, that was developed by demographers to help our understanding of overall population change that societies experience as they transitioned from high fertility and mortality rates to low fertility and mortality rates. This theory has been revised into extensions involving the second and third demographic transitions.
Deviance, Theories of
Authors: Rock Paul
Published: January 2023

The most influential sociological definition of deviance was issued in 1963 by Howard Becker who emphasized its most important characteristic, not as a property of an act or actor, but as a designation bestowed by a social audience. The sociology of deviance itself had its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s when it appeared to be a serious rival to criminology proper, but it was then eclipsed or sublated to become, for many, not much more than another strand in the larger discipline.
Disability Sport
Authors: Brittain Ian
Published: January 2023

This entry describes what “disability sport” is, some of its origins and why it came into existence, its importance as a tool to promote both physical well‐being and societal inclusion, and some of the issues that arise from this process. The entry is split into four parts: a description of what disability sport is, who it is for, and a definition of the difference between impairment and disability; a brief history of disability sport and a description of the reasons why it was conceived of as such an important tool in the rehabilitation and inclusion of people with disabilities; an outline of some of the issues in using disability sport as a tool for inclusion; and the importance of the classification system in promoting fair competition in disability sport and some of the issues and complexities associated with it.
Domestic Violence
Authors: Plava Annalisa
Published: January 2023

Domestic violence (DV) or intimate partner violence (IPV) arises when there is violent, abusive, or intimidating behavior in a relationship in order to control the victim physically, psychologically, economically, and/or sexually. Furthermore, the digital environment and new technologies seem to favor and legitimize forms of violent communication‐action. A systemic perspective tries to frame the complexity of the phenomenon, considered a public health problem. The right of every person to live free from DV needs to be implemented for the victims, for society, for all humanity.
Ecological Problems
Authors: Preisendörfer Peter , Diekmann Andreas
Published: January 2023

Although human beings have overused natural resources throughout history, today's ecological problems are relatively recent phenomena. In addition to local environmental risks (such as noise and air pollution in metropolitan areas), global ecological problems (such as climate change and loss of biodiversity) in particular are urgent societal and political issues. This entry portrays the three areas of research in which environmental sociologists most actively contribute to the study of ecological problems: theories of the emergence of ecological problems; environmental attitudes and behavior of the general public; and environmental behavior of corporate actors (businesses, environmental movement organizations, and the state).
Economy, Religion and
Authors: McCleary Rachel M.
Published: January 2023

The modern study of religion and economics begins with Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). Smith applied his economic analysis to several aspects of religion that researchers have since developed with quantitative research. Smith's fundamental contribution to the study of religion was that religious beliefs and activities are rational choices. As in commercial activity, people respond to religious costs and benefits in a predictable, observable manner. People choose a religion and the degree to which they participate and believe (if at all).
Care to Older Adults with Chronic Health Problems
Authors: Keating Norah , Donalds Shanika
Published: January 2023

Care to older adults with chronic health problems or disabilities has two components: “care as doing” involves providing tasks and services to the older person; “care as being in relationship” involves changes in relationships and networks in the context of doing care. Family caregivers provide care because of a personal relationship with the cared‐for person; care workers because of an agency–client relationship. Changing policy landscapes have signaled large‐scale withdrawal of social programs. Families may be left with little choice but to step in as alternatives are removed. Care research is moving toward diverse methodologies to create deeper understandings of the experiences of caregivers and of the frail older adults for whom they care. Analyses of the interactions of family/friend, formal, and community networks are needed in order to achieve a more complete view of the contexts and sources of care.
Ethnic Enclaves
Authors: Forrest James
Published: January 2023

Ethnic enclaves are urban neighborhoods with economic, social, and cultural characteristics different from other neighborhoods. They reflect the experience of nineteenth‐ and twentieth‐century immigrant streams to the New World. For these largely unskilled, poor immigrants, they provided temporary homes and work opportunities among their own community members prior to structural, behavioral, and spatial integration into their new host society – and still do now for refugees from economic and political strife. Global economic restructuring in the 1970s, however, led to migrants now being selected for their skills and entrepreneurship. The inner‐city ethnic enclave is giving way to the suburban “ethnoburb.” Ethnoburb ethnic group members are less concentrated. Their businesses operate as an integral part of the global economy. They are a more permanent feature of the urban landscape.
Eugenics
Authors: Raz Aviad E.
Published: January 2023

“Eugenics” is the idea of improving the gene pool of a population. This could be done through selective breeding or genetic enhancement (“positive” eugenics) and/or by preventing the birth of undesirable offspring or preventing them from reproducing (“negative” eugenics). A word with horrific connotations but an indeterminate meaning, eugenics has seen a remarkable pendulum shift between its utopian and dystopian images since the late nineteenth century. While the “old eugenics” is seen as authoritarian (and hence dystopian, following the lessons of history), the “new eugenics” is regarded from this viewpoint as voluntary, liberal, and even liberating, and hence constructive and desired. The debate about eugenics played an important role in the development of the profession of genetic counseling, which regained social legitimacy by building itself, from the 1960s, on an ethos of “non‐directiveness.” Human (medical) genetics is different from eugenics because it is premised on reducing human suffering and increasing the reproductive choices of individuals genetically at risk. Socioanthropological research on the uptake of and attitudes toward prenatal genetic testing critically suggests the possibility of new, more implicit regimes of eugenics.
Evolution
Authors: Hodgson Geoffrey M.
Published: January 2023

With its multiple meanings and conflicting connotations, the term “evolution” has been associated with controversy for over two centuries. Much of this dispute has concerned the relationship between the social sciences and biology. While in the nineteenth century this relationship was close, there was a dramatic parting of the ways in the twentieth century, when words like “evolution” were used less frequently. But in recent decades, evolutionary thinking in biology has had a greater impact on the social sciences. Links include the possibility that social and biological evolution might share some abstract common principles, despite the big differences between social and biological phenomena in detailed terms. In addition, empirical and theoretical studies have revealed important interactions between genetic and cultural evolution.
Experiment
Authors: Krohn Wolfgang
Published: January 2023

Experiments in the broadest sense are trial‐and‐error practices common in all cultures. As a method, experimentation is the distinguishing feature of modern science. Depending on objects and instruments, the method varies greatly and it serves different epistemic values. Its central place is the laboratory; however, real‐world and field experiments are no less important. Beyond science, experimentation has become an integral part of societal modernization.
Figurational Sociology and the Sociology of Sport
Authors: Liston Katie
Published: January 2023

This entry provides an overview of the origins and development of figurational sociology and the sociology of sport. It discusses the overlapping principles of this sociological tradition, and gives an overview of the intellectual ambition of its founder, Norbert Elias, best encapsulated inThe Civilising Process, and some examples of the ways in which his ideas have been tested, refined, refuted, and expanded by subsequent generations. Overall this work retains a marginal outsider status in the sociological canon, but not in sport. Elias, with Eric Dunning, established the case for understanding sport as a thoroughly social and sociological phenomenon and their work was a significant breakthrough in this regard. The development of research by figurationalists of sport since the 1980s is also previewed here, demonstrating that figurational sociology was not tantamount to an analysis merely of violence and aggression, in sport and society. This corpus of work on sport has not only contributed to understanding figurational sociology itself but has made important contributions to other areas of knowledge and has also impacted positively on the work/ideas of other theoretical and disciplinary proponents of research on sport.
Financial Sociology
Authors: Vitt Lois A.
Published: January 2023

Financial sociology is the study of the many relationships between finance and human society. Although it overlaps economic sociology, the two disciplines are distinct. Finance is also unique in its global character. Whereas economies are typically localized and depend upon national regulatory frameworks, policies, and interventions, the financial system can largely be considered a world structure rather than that of nations. The financialization of economies is considered together with the vast increase in the size of the financial system and its markets. Work in financial sociology effectively deepens the study of societal policies on every level, since finance has always been both social and political. It also illuminates how the influx of credit and financial products and information allows affluent families to gain flexibility and wealth while many middle‐ and lower‐income individuals and families face heavy debt burdens and struggle to make ends meet.
Friendship: Interpersonal Aspects
Authors: Rumens Nick
Published: January 2023

Sociologists have focused on how friendships are social relationships, supplementing a traditional view of friendship as a spontaneous and voluntary relationship. The interpersonal aspects associated with friendship are diverse, although ones that are commonly associated with friendships and studied (e.g., similarity, intimacy, reciprocity, and trust) hark back to Aristotelian friendship ideals. Similarity remains an influential organizing principle in friendship making, but friendships can develop around and transpire across human differences, such as gender, race, and ethnicity. The presence of intimacy in friendship can determine how friendships are understood. A dichotomous view of men's and women's friendships as either deficient in or possessing a surfeit of disclosing intimacy has been problematized by sociologists. Reciprocity in friendships implies that friends can give and take without maintaining a balance sheet of exchanges. Relying on a friend for future support is underwritten by trust, seen by some as corroded under modern capitalism. Yet trust remains evident in some friendships that act as strong social bonds in people's personal communities. The relationship between interpersonal aspects and context remains relevant in friendship research, noted in recent scholarly interest in online friendships and the new ways of “friending,” suggesting that friendships are in a state of transition.
Gender and Development
Authors: Bose Christine E.
Published: January 2023

Since the 1960s, different theoretical frameworks have been used to understand how women are located in global economic processes, and each has had a concomitant strategy to enhance women's positions. Modernization approaches were common in the mid‐twentieth century, but these strategies were criticized by dependency theorists. By the 1970s, such male‐focused arguments were largely supplanted by women in development, and, more recently, by a wide range of gender and development approaches.