bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Learned Helplessness
Authors: Conlon Bridget , Rogalin Christabel L.
Published: September 2017

Learned helplessness is the group of motivational, cognitive, and emotional deficits that can result from repeated exposure to events if they are perceived to be uncontrollable. The phenomenon was discovered serendipitously in the laboratory of Richard Solomon by his students including Seligman, Maier, Leaf, and Overmier (Overmier & Seligman 1967; Seligman & Maier 1967). During experiments in which dogs in Pavlovian hammocks (harnesses used to restrict movement) were exposed to a tone (conditioned stimulus) paired with an electric shock (unconditioned stimulus), researchers realized that the dogs were unable to learn to escape shocks in a later controllable situation.
Leaving Home in the Transition to Adulthood
Authors: Goldscheider Frances , Torr Berna
Published: September 2017

The transition to adulthood is not a simple biological aging process but, rather, a complex social process that differs over time and across societies. Recent increases in education, nonfamily living, and age at marriage in industrialized countries have combined to create a period of “emerging adulthood” among those aged 18 to 29. This entry highlights many of the key factors and trends relating to this period of transition to adulthood including changes in education, union formation, and the economy. Also highlighted are key differences by gender and race/ethnic group in the transition to adulthood. Finally, a historical example of changes in living with parents versus living independently for the United States is provided. These data highlight the increase in young adults living with parents during the Great Depression of the 1940s and the Great Recession of the 2000s and the decline in living with parents during the baby boom.
Lemert, Edwin M. (1912–1996)
Authors: Stebbins Robert A.
Published: September 2017

Edwin M. Lemert was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He received his BA in sociology from Miami University (1934) and his doctorate from Ohio State University (1939), specializing in sociology and anthropology. He taught briefly at Kent State and Western Michigan universities. In 1943 he moved to the University of California, Los Angeles, and in 1953 to the University of California, Davis, from which, in 1980, he retired as professor emeritus. After formal retirement Lemert worked almost daily in his university office, writing scholarly material until his death in 1996.
Liebow, Elliot (1925–1994)
Authors: Chorbajian Levon
Published: September 2017

Elliot Liebow was born in Washington, DC. He served in World War II and received his high school equivalency diploma while in the Marine Corps. After the war, Liebow received his bachelor's degree in English literature from George Washington University. He studied ancient history at the University of Maryland and received his PhD in anthropology from Catholic University. Liebow was employed by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) for 25 years and rose to the position of chief of the Center for the Study of Work and Mental Health. In his last years of retirement from NIMH, Liebow held the endowed chair as Patrick Cardinal O'Boyle professor at the National Catholic School of Social Work at Catholic University.
Lifeworld
Authors: Fincher Warren
Published: September 2017

Lifeworld refers to the commonsense interpretive frames and logics by which individuals prereflectively conceptually organize their perceptions of everyday life. The concept of the lifeworld is central to two theoretical traditions – phenomenology and the critical theory tradition as articulated by Habermas – but the lifeworld is also an important concept in the sociological investigations into the construction of knowledge and the social body.
Lifeworld
Authors: Fincher Warren
Published: September 2017

Lifeworld refers to the commonsense interpretive frames and logics by which individuals pre‐refiectively conceptually organize their perceptions of everyday life. The concept of the lifeworld is central to two theoretical traditions – phenomenology and the critical theory tradition as articulated by Habermas – but the lifeworld is also an important concept in sociological investigations into the construction of knowledge and the social body.
Literacy/Illiteracy
Authors: Farkas George
Published: September 2017

Traditionally, literacy has meant the ability to read and write. As the cognitive skill requirements of work and daily life have increased, the definition has expanded. In the National Literacy Act of 1991, the US Congress defined literacy as “an individual's ability to read, write, and speak in English and compute and solve problems at levels of proficiency necessary to function on the job and in society, to achieve one's goals, and to develop one's knowledge and potential.” Consistent with this, the National Assessments of Adult Literacy, conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics, have measured literacy along three dimensions: prose literacy, document literacy, and quantitative literacy. Each was measured on a scale defined by the skills needed to succeed at daily and work tasks ordered from simple to complex.
Love and Commitment
Authors: Frieze Irene Hanson
Published: September 2017

Love is one of the most basic human emotions. Many have written about love experiences, both in popular writing and in more scholarly publications, especially as they apply to romantic relationships. As these writings indicate, there are many ways of thinking about love. Some of the types of love identified by researchers are reviewed below. Research about how people fall in love and why they choose one person over another to date or to marry also provides information about love. Much of the research on love and partner choice focuses on dating and the initial stages of relationships.
Luxemburg, Rosa (1871–1919)
Authors: Anderson Kevin B.
Published: September 2017

Rosa Luxemburg, one of the greatest theorists in the Marxian tradition, was part of the generation after Marx. She was also a political leader, a common situation in the Marxist movement of the early twentieth century. Others who held such positions were the more reformist Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein in Germany, as well as the more radical‐minded Russians V. I. Lenin and Leon Trotsky. However, Luxemburg was the only woman to attain such a position in this period. Her most sustained teaching position was at the German Social Democratic Party's Central Party School in Berlin, where she taught political economy and social history from 1907 to 1914.
Majorities
Authors: Jackson Shirley A.
Published: September 2017

Majorities is a term that refers to the dominant group in a society, and can be defined as members of a group who hold power in a society and have access to resources. They need not be the numerical majority. They differ from minorities in that minorities do not hold power, be it economic, political, or social. Additionally, majorities develop the laws which define the rights of majority and minority group members. South Africa during the apartheid era is an excellent example of majorities (the Dutch), who were much smaller in number, oppressing the numerical majority. Historically, men prevented women from voting or from being able to handle their legal affairs. Women still receive less pay than their male counterparts for the same job.
Majorities
Authors: Jackson Shirley A.
Published: September 2017

Majorities is a term that refers to the dominant group in a society, and can be defined as members of a group who hold power and have the greatest access to resources. A majority group does not necessarily imply a numerical majority. This distinction is most clear with the example of the former apartheid system in South African where the numerical white minority were the majority and the numerical majority, blacks, the minority group. Majorities are different from minorities in that minorities do not hold power – whether economic, political, or social. The majority, or dominant group, develop the laws that define the rights of minority and majority group members. For instance, historically, in many countries, men have prevented women from voting or being able to handle their own financial or legal affairs. Women may receive less pay than their male counterparts for similar jobs and are often prohibited from participating in activities considered the domain of men in many countries. This is the case even when women, the numerical majority group, outnumber men, the dominant majority group.
Management Discourse
Authors: Rhodes Carl
Published: September 2017

Management discourse commonly refers to the institutionalized ways in which the management and the organization of work are understood through language. The term “discourse” suggests that the culturally embedded linguistic patterns that people use in order to speak and write about management influence the possibilities for management action and decision‐making. Here words are not seen as being in opposition to action or practice; rather it is through language that meaning is constructed, and the possibilities of practice emerge from that meaning. Studies of discourse have examined how management knowledge develops in relation to how it is instantiated through particular uses of language in practice and in relation to how such uses of language are informed by socially available or dominant ways of understanding. Central to this cluster has also been the way in which the subjectivity or identity of people at work is influenced by dominant modes of management discourse.
Management Improvisation
Authors: Pina e Cunha Miguel
Published: September 2017

Management improvisation can be defined as the conception of action as it unfolds in an organizational context, drawing on the available material, cognitive, affective, and social resources. It is an individual practice which takes place in light of concrete circumstances. People improvise to solve practical problems which emerge as a result of specific and unplanned circumstances. In this sense, improvisation can be neither managed nor controlled. To improvise or not to improvise is an individual prerogative, resulting from the interaction between the person and his or her circumstances. That is why organizations are not able to manage or to control improvisation. All they can do is to nurture or facilitate it.
Management Networks
Authors: Pitsis Tyrone S.
Published: September 2017

A network is a broad concept whose definition is generally a function of its disciplinary context. The interest in contemporary networks research and theory has had broad interdisciplinary appeal. Network theory and research has been conducted in sociology, communications, psychology, economics, biology and medicine, and organizational behavior. It has been applied to a broad range of natural and synthetic systems such as sociopolitical systems, neural networks, disease epidemiology, terrorism and anti‐terrorism, and transport. More recently, the term “network” has been popularized and most associated with information technology and the Internet and taken to mean the connection of people and organizations through computer‐mediated communications technologies aimed at enabling and facilitating efficient and effective communications and transactions between them. Generally, however, the conception of networks is not far removed from its sociological roots, and a search through most sociological works will show that a network has a number of defining features. First, a network requires a group or system of individual people and/or agencies. Second, a network requires these groups or systems to be interconnected in some way. Third, the network must share common goals, interests, or values. Finally, there is an assumption that the individual and/or agencies maintain at least some level of autonomy.
Mannheim, Karl (1893–1947)
Authors: Ruef Martin
Published: September 2017

Karl Mannheim was born in Budapest, Hungary, but developed his academic career in Germany (in Heidelberg and Frankfurt) and England (at the London School of Economics). He was the earliest proponent of the
sociology of knowledge
, a branch of theory concerned with the influence of social context on our way of perceiving, interpreting, and forming claims about the world. Although Mannheim began his career as a philosopher with an interest in epistemology, he became increasingly fascinated by the impact of society on thought processes, with particular emphasis on culture, intellectual competition, and intergenerational dynamics. In his most influential book,
Ideology and Utopia
(1936 [1929]), Mannheim distinguished between two forms of belief systems:
ideological
systems, which seek to ensure inertia in beliefs through an emphasis on the past; and
utopian
systems, which embrace change in beliefs through an emphasis on the future. After being forced from Germany in 1933, Mannheim's writings turned toward the contemporary crisis generated by fascism, examining the role of planning and the possibility of a democratic society.
Marginality
Authors: Dennis Rutledge M.
Published: September 2017

The concept of marginality was first introduced by Robert Park (1928) and explained, almost as a minor theme, in Park's analysis of the causes and consequences of human migrations. In his article, Park referred to a “new type of personality” which was emerging out of rapid human migratory patterns during the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, and how they would affect present and future relations between groups. The most interesting feature of this essay was Park's discussion of this new personality, which would be a “cultural hybrid, a man living and sharing intimately in the cultural life and traditions of two distinct peoples … a man on the margin of two cultures and two societies, which never completely interpenetrated and fused.” Edwin Stonequist (1937) probed the marginality concept more extensively than Park, but he highlighted the personality features of marginality and focused his critique into an assessment of the mental state of those marginalized. So closely allied are the views of the two that we can without distortion discuss their views as the Park–Stonequist model of marginality. It became the predominant model and a reference point for studies of marginality (Dennis 1991: 4) until Dickie‐Clark (1966) introduced the term “marginal situation” and moved the discussion from the personality of the marginalized to a more pointedly sociological reference point. Dickie‐Clark concluded that the Park–Stonequist model, largely Stonequist's extension of Park's early model, subverted and distorted the sociology of marginality by creating an exclusive model of the marginal who became permanently stereotyped as “irrational, moody, and temperamental.”
Marital Quality
Authors: Custer Lindsay
Published: September 2017

Marital quality is a dynamic concept, as the nature and quality of people's relationships change over time. There have been two major approaches to conceptualizing and measuring marital quality: looking at the relationship itself (examining patterns of interaction, such as the amount and type of conflict) and looking at individual feelings of the people in the relationship (evaluative judgments of happiness or satisfaction). Marital quality and related concepts – adjustment, happiness, and satisfaction – are the most frequently studied variables in marital research. Despite the wealth of literature examining these constructs, there is a continuing lack of consensus among marital researchers on how to conceptualize and measure marital quality, as well as an absence of a unifying theoretical approach to studying this construct.
Marx, Karl (1818–1883)
Authors: Antonio Robert J.
Published: September 2017

Karl Marx's critique of capitalism and economic inequality and his appeal for social justice have inspired leftwing political parties, labor movements, and insurgencies worldwide. His ideas have often been fused with local political cultures and interpreted and employed in diverse ways. His call for global revolution and totemic status among communists has made him a very controversial thinker. In wealthy capitalist countries, he has been mostly an oppositional reference point. For much of the twentieth century, most western sociologists viewed him as an ideologue, marginal to their discipline. During the later 1960s and 1970s, however, sociological interest in Marx increased, spurred by anticolonialist uprisings, student activism, leftist politics, and increased awareness of gaps and unaddressed problems in the disciplinary mainstream. In North American sociology, a new generation of theorists portrayed him as a founder of “conflict theory” or “critical sociology” and, together with Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, one in the troika of modern social theory's and sociology's founders. Later critics held that this canon was too narrow and Eurocentric and that the postmodern cultural shift, the new social movements (e.g., women's, racial and ethnic, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender [LGBT]), and the collapse of communism rendered Marx irrelevant. Others countered that later twentieth‐century globalization and deregulated neoliberal capitalism made him more relevant than ever.
Material Culture
Authors: Dant Tim
Published: September 2017

Material culture refers to the physical things that human beings surround themselves with and which have meaning for the members of a cultural group. Sometimes these things are simply gathered from the natural world but usually material resources are manufactured into forms that are useful or attractive or both. The clothes, tools, utensils, gadgets, ornaments, pictures, furniture, buildings, and equipment of a group of people are its material culture and for disciplines such as archaeology and anthropology provide the raw data for understanding different societies. These various types of things mediate social relationships between individual people and their society, and industrialization transformed the role of things in shaping societies. Sociology has traditionally focused on cultural forms such as ideas, images, practices, beliefs, and language that can be treated as independent from any specific material substance. But developments in three fields of sociological interest – technology, consumption, and Marx's materialism – during the last quarter of the twentieth century stimulated research on contemporary social relations with things.
Materialism
Authors: Katz‐Fishman Walda , Scott Jerome , Gomes Ralph
Published: September 2017

Materialism is the philosophy that explains the nature of reality and the world – physical, social, cultural, and so on – in terms of matter. Philosophical materialism stands in opposition to the philosophy of idealism – that ideas, thought, and mind are the essential nature of reality and the world of matter is a reflection of these. The economic, political, social, and intellectual ferment of the 1700s and 1800s gave rise to several streams of social thought informed by materialism and the scientific method. The most important are mechanical materialism and dialectical and historical materialism (i.e., historical materialism). Empiricism and positivism presented itself as science based in materialist methodology, but was rooted in philosophical idealism. Mechanical materialism analyzes social life and culture in terms of material conditions, but is static in its worldview and offers no theory of human agency or future beyond capitalism. Historical materialism critically analyzes capitalism and its antecedents, and views the capitalist system as a transient stage of social development that will be negated through contradictions and antagonisms that give rise to socialism and communism. Key materialist and historical materialist scholars of the twentieth and twenty‐first centuries are discussed, including those addressing the current systemic crisis of global capitalism.
Materiality and Scientific Practice
Authors: Zeiss Ragna
Published: September 2017

Studies of scientific practice were the first to investigate scientific practice and science‐in‐the‐making empirically, something that had not been done by philosophers and historians of science. The outcomes of these studies opposed the standard view of science and instead showed how science and scientific knowledge are produced locally and scientists, instruments, computers, and other heterogeneous elements have to work together in order to co‐construct science. They have stressed the importance of materiality in scientific practice and provided material for debate between different ways of studying materiality.
Math, Science, and Technology Education
Authors: Suter Larry E.
Published: September 2017

This entry defines a sociological approach to the study of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education as an established body of research and outlines key areas of future research. Sociological research in STEM education is largely concerned with the causes and consequences of student interest in, and knowledge of, STEM fields. Educational sociologists examine how social institutions and the individuals' experiences within these institutions affect educational processes and social development through the development of research techniques. They examine careers and international cultural differences in educational practices and outline future areas of research that have been recently developed through modern technologies.
Mead, George Herbert (1863–1931)
Authors: Athens Lonnie
Published: September 2017

Despite starting out as a philosopher, George H. Mead evolved into one of the titans in sociology. Mead, who lived from 1863 to 1931, was reared in a white, Protestant, middle‐class family. Although not from a wealthy family, he did come from a culturally privileged background. His mother taught at prestigious New England preparatory schools and at Oberlin College. While later serving as president of Mount Holyoke College, she oversaw its transition from a female seminary to a prestigious women's college. His father, a former pastor, held a special chair in Oberlin College's theological seminary for more than a decade. After graduating from Oberlin College in 1883 with an AB degree, Mead worked as a secondary school teacher, tutor, and surveyor. Unable to find satisfying work, Mead enrolled in 1887 at Harvard University, where he was most influenced by the romantic idealist Josiah Royce. After earning his second AB degree in Philosophy at Harvard in 1888, he went to Germany to obtain his PhD – enrolling first at the University of Leipzig and later at the University of Berlin. Although Mead never finished his doctorate degree, he did study with several famous German scholars – Wilhelm Wundt, Herman Ebbinghaus, and Wilhelm Dilthey.
Measures of Centrality
Authors: Goetz Ernest T.
Published: September 2017

Measures of centrality (or central tendency) are statistical indices of the “typical” or “average” score. They constitute one of three key characteristics of a set of scores:
center
,
shape
, and
spread
. Three measures of centrality are used in social science: mode, median, and mean.
Media, Network(s) and
Authors: Austrin Terry , Farnsworth John
Published: September 2017

Networks have been described as one of the most significant features of the modern world. So central and pervasive are they that Manuel Castells (2000), for instance, has dubbed contemporary society the “network society.” More than that, a network society is one in which the media play a preeminent role because of their capacity to distribute and disperse information, and their facility in traversing, and even reconfiguring, space and time zones. Media networks can be regarded, then, as becoming foundational to the way modern societies function.
Media and the Public Sphere
Authors: Carpentier Nico
Published: September 2017

The reflections on media and the public sphere draw heavily on the interpretation given by Habermas to the latter concept. The alternative models that have been developed, such as Nancy Fraser's counterpublics model, also build on the Habermasian approach, although the influence of a more Mouffean agonist approach is increasing. The field of communication and media studies uses the public sphere concept to make sense of the role of communication in noninstitutionalized politics characterized by three dimensions: the normative versus the neutralized‐descriptive, the media‐centric versus the society‐centric, and the structural(ist) versus the cultural(ist).
Mediation
Authors: Nicholls Brett
Published: September 2017

The term mediation has historically functioned in four distinct ways. First of all, the concept has been employed as a third term in a triadic structure, mediating between one state of reality and another. Secondly, the concept refers to the technical transmission of messages, such as mass media. In this case, the sense of reality that the transmission conveys is under scrutiny. Thirdly, the concept refers to the dominance of media in contemporary constructions of knowledge. In this case the concept is analogous to mediatization. And fourthly, mediation refers to the process of linking nodal points in a network or an assembled structure, where reality is produced or performed. The first understanding has been the main focus of critical thought. The second developed in the context of industrial forms of mass media. And the third and fourth emerged recently as a consequence of post‐industrial or postmodern processes and the subsequent transformation of society.
Medical School Socialization
Authors: Hafferty Frederic W. , Michalec Barret
Published: September 2017

The study of medical education as a process of professional socialization/formation, once the crown jewel in medical sociology's tiara, has fallen on relatively hard times. What once had helped to legitimate an emerging field of study in the 1950s and 1960s has largely ceased to be a fixture of sociological concern. Today, cutting‐edge work on socialization is more likely to be found in journals like Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, and the Journal of Organizational Behavior than in sociology journals – where many of the earlier studies were published. Even when we restrict our focus to “medicine,” studies of health professions training and identity formation are now more apt to be found in the study of occupational groups such as nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, physical therapy, mortuary science, and athletic training than medicine.
Medical Sociology and Genetics
Authors: Dingwall Robert
Published: September 2017

The rapid progress in genetic science associated with the Human Genome Project has attracted considerable interest among medical sociologists (Conrad & Gabe 1999; Pilnick 2002a). The basis of genetics is the observation that the biological constitution of all living things – plants, animals, fish, insects, bacteria, humans, etc. – is shaped by a chemical called DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) found in the nuclear material of the cells from which they are all made. The various ways in which this chemical can be made up carry the instructions for the construction, articulation, and operation of cells. A gene is a segment of DNA that carries a particular set of instructions to perform a particular task in relation to cell assembly or functioning. The totality of genes found in an organism is called its genome. The human genome is made up of about 30,000 genes, whose instructions combine to produce the varied bodies recognizable as members of our species,
Homo sapiens
.
Medical Sociology and Genetics
Authors: Dingwall Robert
Published: September 2017

The rapid progress in genetic science has attracted considerable interest among medical sociologists (Conrad & Gabe 1999; Pilnick 2002a). The basis of genetics is the observation that the biological constitution of all living things – plants, animals, fish, insects, bacteria, humans, etc. – is shaped by a chemical called DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) found in the nuclear material of the cells from which they are all made. The various ways in which this chemical can be made up carry the instructions for the construction, articulation, and operation of cells. A gene is a segment of DNA that carries a particular set of instructions to perform a particular task in relation to cell assembly or functioning. The totality of genes found in an organism is called its genome. The human genome is made up of about 30,000 genes, whose instructions combine to produce the varied bodies recognizable as members of our species,
Homo sapiens
.
Medicine, Sociology of
Authors: Usher Carey L.
Published: September 2017

Sociology of medicine is the sociological investigation of medicine as a subsystem of society. This label is given to the traditional study within medical sociology of the influences social forces have on the sciences, practices, and teachings of medicine, and how these components of medicine, in turn, affect society. Thus, the sociologist of medicine aspires to contribute to the development of sociological knowledge using medicine as a social institution worthy of study in itself. In the pure versus applied dichotomy of the social sciences, the work of the sociologist of medicine represents the academic or pure pursuit of knowledge. The sociologist of medicine is most often positioned outside the medical setting, in contrast to the position of the medical sociologist working in collaboration with medical or health organizations. The dichotomy of sociology of medicine and sociology in medicine was formalized by Robert Straus in 1957, in an effort to identify the affiliations and activities of medical sociologists in the United States for creation of a communication network among this newly institutionalized professional group. The distinction is in part based on the structural position of the scholar, on where the basic professional affiliation of the scholar is held. Sociologists of medicine are likely to hold academic appointments in sociology departments.
Megalopolis
Authors: Gotham Kevin Fox
Published: September 2017

Megalopolis refers to a cluster of densely populated cities stretching over a large region. The late geographer Jean Gottmann (1915–94) popularized the term in the early 1960s to classify the region from Washington to Boston, including New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Gottmann urged researchers to view the megalopolis as a novel urban form that is multinucleated and multifunctional. Population growth fueled suburbanization and suburbs later became their own independent and autonomous regions that merged with the central city to form an extensive metropolitan region on the United States East Coast. In 1950, the megalopolis had a population of 32 million inhabitants. Today, the megalopolis includes more than 44 million people, 16 percent of the entire US population. Four of the largest CMSAs (Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Areas) in the United States overlap with the megalopolis and account for over 38 million of the megalopolis's population. The four CMSAs are New York–Northern New Jersey–Long Island, Washington–Baltimore, Philadelphia–Wilmington–Atlantic City, and Boston–Worcester–Lawrence. The implication of Gottmann's study of the megalopolis was that “[w]e must abandon the idea of the city as a tightly settled and organized unit in which people, activities, and riches are crowded into a very small area clearly separated from its nonurban surroundings. Every city in this region spreads out far and wide around its original nucleus; it grows amidst an irregularly colloidal mixture of rural and suburban landscapes; it melts on broad fronts with other mixtures, of somewhat similar though different texture, belonging to the suburban neighborhoods of other cities” (Gottmann 1961: 5).
Mental Disorder
Authors: Tausig Mark
Published: September 2017

Sociologists who study mental disorder work from a number of assumptions that define and distinguish their approach from other ways of understanding mental disorder. First, sociologists may view mental disorder as a normal consequence of social life caused by structured inequality rather than as a form of individual dysfunction. Second, they may regard mental disorder as the outcome of social processes that include the labeling of deviant behavior and stigmatic societal reactions to those labels. Third, they may define the object of study as psychological distress rather than as specific psychiatric disorders. Fourth, they may view the mental health treatment system as an institution for the social control of deviant behavior. Finally, the sociological perspective is concerned with properties of groups and populations and it is less informative regarding individual and clinical concerns. Although not all sociologists employ all of these assumptions in their research and some of these assumptions have generated considerable debate, collectively they represent what is distinctive about the sociological study of mental disorder.
Mesostructure
Authors: Ulmer Jeffery T.
Published: September 2017

As the name suggests, mesostructure refers to the social processes and ordering that occur between the macro and micro levels of social organization. Mesostructure is the level of social analysis within which more macrostructural or cultural arrangements shape and condition situations of interaction between individuals or groups, and within which the latter in turn maintain, modify, or change the former. Mesostructure also provides a perspective from which to study social organization and structure without compromising an emphasis on the importance of interaction process and human agency. Mesostructure therefore extends Herbert Blumer's insight that people collectively and individually act in situations, and situations are conditioned (though not determined) by larger social structures and processes, but the latter are produced and potentially changed by the former.
Methods, Case Study
Authors: Wolff Kristina
Published: September 2017

Case study methods encompass a range of research techniques that are used to examine social phenomena. Researchers primarily focus their study on the micro level, concentrating on individuals, groups, organizations, institutions, and/or events. The analysis is aimed at investigating contemporary issues or events within their real‐life setting. A case study is considered a specific approach or strategy that can be used as a unit of analysis and also the means by which data have been gathered, organized, and presented.
Metropolis
Authors: Dickinson James
Published: September 2017

Metropolis
broadly refers to the largest, most powerful and culturally influential city of an epoch or region. Historically, the metropolis is a city which is relatively open, attracts commercial and other forms of exchange, and offers opportunities for sophisticated living.
Migration: Undocumented/Illegal
Authors: Hadjicostandi Joanna
Published: September 2017

Illegal migration involves people moving away from a country of origin to another country in which they reside in violation of local citizenship laws. Entry into the receiving country can be legal (student, temporary work, or tourist visas) or illegal (crossing the border from places other than the legal entry ports). Illegal immigration has been studied widely and systematically only in the past two decades, partly because of the difficulties involved in obtaining information. The literature shows that illegal immigrants in most countries share certain characteristics closely related to their position of insecurity, fear, and precarious existence. Multiple reasons lead to people's movement from their country of origin to another illegally. Typically, illegal immigrants seek better livelihoods for themselves and their families, or seek to avoid persecution. Lack of and/or poor statistical recording systems and the illegal status and high spatial mobility of migrants make the measurement of numbers extremely unreliable. Nonetheless, examples from Southern Europe, the US, and Canada here will illustrate a few commonalities as well as differences.
Military Research and Science and War
Authors: Woods Brian
Published: September 2017

The relationship between science, technology, and war has a long history. Studies of catapults, for example, have highlighted the important role of science and technology in ancient society and in ancient warfare. The rise of advanced catapults not only attracted the interest and financial support of “governments,” but also combined early studies of geometry, physics, and technology, and led to the rise in the visibility and status of the engineers that worked on them. The medieval period also saw advancements in arms and armor, artillery, fortifications, and warships. Unlike the Roman Empire, which had centralized its arms manufacture, producing standardized weapons, it seems that the medieval arms industry was made up of a diverse array of artisans forging personalized weapons.
Millenarianism
Authors: Fulton John
Published: September 2017

The term millenarianism, and its alternatives millennialism and chiliasm, are derived from the last book of the Christian Bible, Apocalypse (or Revelation), in which the prophet John recounts his vision of a thousand‐year godly kingdom, the return of Christ, and the end of time itself (20:1–7). In the social sciences, the term is applied to all movements and organizations that hold as a central belief the imminent arrival of a divinely inspired and this‐worldly society, whether a religious golden age, messianic kingdom, return to paradise, or egalitarian order. Such movements can take on an active or passive, violent or peaceful, even revolutionary role. They are found the world over and throughout recorded history. Some writers extend the term to deep‐seated beliefs in secular utopias such as revolutionary communism, certain environmental and scientistic‐technological movements such as eugenics and cryonics (Bozeman in Robbins & Palmer 1997), and racist movements such as white supremacy. Jewett and Lawrence (2003) argue for the existence of a contemporary form of millenarianism in the United States that reunites the secular and religious, calling it “millennial civil religion.” They find it in popular culture, the politics of the New Right, Reaganism, Bushism, and the “war on terror.”
Modernization
Authors: Inglehart Ronald , Welzel Christian
Published: September 2017

Modernization is an encompassing process of massive social changes that, once set in motion, tends to penetrate all domains of life, from economic activities to social life to political institutions, in a self‐reinforcing process. Modernization brings an intense awareness of change and innovation, linked with the idea that human societies are progressing.
Moral Economy
Authors: Mau Steffen
Published: September 2017

Moral economy can be defined as a common notion of the just distribution of resources and social exchange. The concept has been developed and is used in the context of political and social analysis to understand, for example, various systems of social exchange or instances of rebellion. It is claimed that social communities tend to invoke a moral repertoire for all kinds of social exchanges and transfers that leads them to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate social practices. The transition from traditional to market economies is emphasized by many authors, in particular, because this transition challenged traditional communal norms and values and can lead to social and political unrest. In more recent accounts, moral economy contends that economic activities are insufficiently understood in narrow economic terms. Rather, they need a broader understanding of how economic and normative motives are blended and how markets are permeated by social norms and values. The centerpiece of the moral economy argument claims that human action is embedded within the wider social environment and institutions and is therefore deeply colored by non‐economic considerations.
Moral Shocks and Self‐Recruitment
Authors: Mariel Lemonik Arthur Mikaila
Published: September 2017

Many analysts of social movements are interested in how it is that people come to participate in social movement activity. The decision to participate is not a simple one – social movement participants may face significant risks and personal costs, such as arrest or violence, if they become involved. In addition, individuals often perceive social movements as being able to obtain desired goals without their own personal action, a dilemma that has come to be known as the “free‐rider” problem. Some popular explanations for individuals’ decisions to join social movements have included biographical availability (McAdam 1986) and mobilization through preexisting social networks. However, there are individuals who participate in social movements without being connected to any existing networks or being in any significant way biographically available. The moral shocks perspective shows how these individuals, often ignored in research about participation in social movements, can recruit themselves into social movement activity due to their experience of a moral shock.
Mosca, Gaetano (1858–1941)
Authors: Weiler Bernd
Published: September 2017

Along with Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923) and Robert Michels (1876–1936), Gaetano Mosca is commonly regarded as the main representative of the so‐called Italian School of Elitists. After graduating in law from the university of his hometown, Palermo, Mosca combined the life of a scholar, teaching constitutional law, administrative law, political economy, and political theory at the universities of Turin (1896–1923), Milan (1902–23), and Rome (1924–33), with a political career as editor of the proceedings of the Chamber of Deputies (1887–96), as deputy (1909–19), as Under‐Secretary for the Colonies (1914–16), and, from 1919, as senator. In December 1925, the 67‐year‐old Mosca, who had been a staunch conservative, fierce critic of the parliamentary system, and moralistic pessimist throughout his life, delivered a famous speech to the Senate opposing the bill that was designed to strengthen the “prerogatives of the head of the government” and that actually granted dictatorial powers to Benito Mussolini. Shortly afterwards, Mosca retired from active politics to concentrate on his academic work.
Multiculturalism
Authors: Modood Tariq
Published: September 2017

Multiculturalism, or the political accommodation of minorities, became a major demand in the last quarter of the twentieth century, especially in Anglophone countries, particularly in relation to postimmigrant groups; by early into the twenty‐first century in Western Europe it was associated with Muslims, and as a result its demise was announced. Yet it is doubtful if Western Europe can integrate its growing Muslim population without some element of top‐down, if not bottom‐up, religiomulticulturalism.
Multimedia
Authors: Chesher Chris
Published: September 2017

Multimedia is the integrated use of more than one medium of communication, usually mediated through digital computing technologies. “Multimedia” is a term with a complex and ambivalent history that risks being either too narrow or too broad in its meaning. In its narrower sense, it was closely associated with the dead‐end that was CD‐ROM interactive multimedia in the mid‐1990s. In its broad sense, multimedia can refer to any text, technology, or event that combines more than one medium of communication: a meaning so broad that it fails to denote any distinctive cultural form. Any definition of multimedia therefore needs to operate between these limits. Multimedia has specific meanings in different contexts, including performance, libraries, social semiotics, and computer science. In spite of these complications, recent attention on multimedia has raised some significant wider questions about media and communication.
Multinucleated Metropolitan Region
Authors: Kim Chigon
Published: September 2017

The multinucleated metropolitan region is an emerging spatial configuration characterized by massive regional sprawl and the presence of multiple specialized activity centers outside of the downtown central business district (CBD). This concept is useful for understanding both changes in metropolitan spatial structure and the dynamics of metropolitan life. It underlines the interactive character of the metropolitan region tied together by the complex webs of communications and traffic flows. As a pattern of settlement space, it suggests that urban life is organized into multiple centers spreading across an extensive metropolitan region.
Multivariate Analysis
Authors: Baur Nina , Lamnek Siegfried
Published: September 2017

Multivariate analysis procedures are statistical analysis procedures used in quantitative research in order to analyze more than two variables. Multivariate analysis procedures can be classified in different ways. Two common ways are on what scale variables have to be measured in order to apply the model and what kind of theoretical model underlies the analytic procedure. Among the analytical problems multivariate analysis can address are (a) identifying latent classes; (b) causal analysis; (c) identifying patterns in time; (d) network analysis; (e) multilevel analysis; and (f) spatial analysis. All multivariate analysis procedures have in common typical analysis steps, namely framing the research question, selecting the right statistical model, verifying that assumptions and prerequisites, preparing data for the specific analysis, computing the model, and interpreting and presenting the results.
Museums
Authors: Dorst John
Published: September 2017

In its modern application, the term “museum” has become the umbrella for a bewildering array of institutions. At a minimum, these institutions share the functions of preserving and putting on display cultural goods deemed by some social group to be especially valuable, noteworthy, representative, unique, or otherwise deserving of public attention. Beyond this basic commonality, it is difficult to generalize about cultural institutions that range from comprehensive, flagship organizations addressing the arts, the sciences, and history (e.g., the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian museums) to local collections of memorabilia and oddities from nature that, in some cases, closely resemble the premodern cabinets of curiosity frequently cited as one point of departure for what we think of today as museums. Between these extremes lies a seemingly endless array of general or specialized, meagerly or opulently supported, fully or barely professionalized, well‐known or obscure institutions devoted to collecting and displaying cultural goods.
Music
Authors: Peterson Richard A.
Published: September 2017

Music has been a focus of sociological inquiry since the earliest days of the discipline. Max Weber, for example, used the development of the system of musical notation as a prime illustration of the increasing rationalization of European society. Nevertheless, music has not become the locus of a distinctive fundamental approach in sociology as have topics like socialization, deviance, and the like. While no musical sociology has developed, and there is no comprehensive text on the sociology of music, numerous aspects of music making and appreciation have been the substantive research site for addressing central questions in sociology. Five ongoing research concerns can be identified.
Myth
Authors: Wasson Leslie
Published: September 2017

A myth is a story that has a parallel structure linking the past to the present and suggesting directions for the future. A myth may be a cautionary tale, as in the urban myths that teenagers tell about the dangers inherent in parking on dark side roads. A myth may also be a moral tale, as in morality plays and bedtime stories. Myths also may be about idealized behavioral standards, as in hero myths. As a sociological term, however, the primary use of the word myth has been rather casual. Sociological writers are likely to refer to the “myth” of masculinity (Pleck 1981), the “myth” of self‐esteem (Hewitt 1997) or the “myth” of the mommy role (Douglas & Michaels 2006). This use of the term imputes a less‐than‐factual status to the topic of reference and calls into question the veracity of others’ accounts and theories. However, sociology currently lacks a clear concept of myth such as is found in anthropology or cultural studies.