bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Scientific Models and Simulations
Authors: Sundberg Mikaela
Published: September 2017

The term model is used in multiple ways in science and there are several different kinds of models. The most basic scientific models are material and conceptual analogues. They are copies that stand in for more opaque systems. Cloud chambers and cell cultures are examples of material models, whereas conceptual models are more abstract analogies that seek to render theories more comprehensible. Mathematical models are typically applications, approximations, or specifications of theories and principles that cannot be applied in their original form.
Scientific Norms/Counternorms
Authors: Turner Stephen , Mccreery Gregory
Published: September 2017

The classic sociological formulation of the “norms of science” was given by Robert K. Merton, in an article originally published as “A note on science and democracy” (Merton, 1942) and reprinted as “Science and democratic social structure” in hisSocial Theory and Social Structure(Merton, 1968 [1949, 1957]) and as “The normative structure of science” in hisSociology of Science(Merton, 1973 [1938]). The formulation is sometimes known by the acronym CUDOS, which stands for the four norms: communism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism. Merton's representation of the normative character of science has proved to be one of the most enduring of all sociological analyses. It has been discussed at length by both critics, who proposed the concept of counternorms, and sympathizers. In the late 1960s and early 1970s the Mertonian approach to the social study of science became emblematic. “Replication” is sometimes considered to be a “fifth norm.” More recently, John Ziman suggested that “originality” be added as a norm (Ziman, 2000), and, in many contemporary explanations of the acronym CUDOS, O is taken to stand for originality.
Scientology
Authors: Anderson Peter B.
Published: September 2017

Scientology, or officially the “Church of Scientology,” was founded by adherents of Lafayette Ron Hubbard (1911–86) in 1954, but the movement behind Scientology dates back to Hubbard's publication of the book
Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health
in 1950. Dianetics was a therapeutic system which Hubbard claimed could cure psychosomatic illness. Dianetics can be described as an attack on what Hubbard considered to be the materialistic position of psychiatry. Hubbard stressed that he wanted to overcome the unspiritual therapeutic strategies he saw in psychiatry and to deliver the techniques for everyone to reach mental wholesomeness. In his anthropology, man is basically good and strives for survival of various collectives termed “dynamics,” in Dianetics from the individual level to that of humanity, and in Scientology he added further levels up to the “urge towards existence as infinity,” termed the “God Dynamic.”
Scripting Theories
Authors: Whittier David Knapp
Published: September 2017

To articulate a sociological approach to human sexuality, William Simon and John Gagnon drew upon Kenneth Burke's dramatism and view that it is inappropriate and inaccurate to apply physical models to social phenomena. The “sexual script” concept (Gagnon & Simon 1973) summarizes their approach and their fullest articulation is known as “sexual scripting theory” (Simon & Gagnon 1986). The theory stresses three major areas of social life as significant for the production of sexuality: (1) cultural scenarios for sexuality, (2) interpersonal sexual scripting, and (3) intrapsychic sexual scripting. “Cultural scenarios” refers to definitions of and instructions for sex which can be found in social institutions and cultural materials. “Interpersonal scripting” refers to the social arrangement of actual sexual interactions. “Intrapsychic scripting” refers to the activity and content of the mind, like sexual thoughts, fantasies, beliefs, and emotions. Sexual scripting analysis is the examination of the separate roles and interrelationships of these three areas of social life as they help produce sexuality.
Sex Tourism
Authors: Wortmann Susan L.
Published: September 2017

Sex tourism is a multibillion dollar global industry wherein individuals (sex tourists) from industrialized, developed nations travel abroad with the distinct purpose of purchasing a variety of sexually associated services. Destinations vary, but most sex tourists seek the services of individuals from developing nations. Sex tourists' travel and consumption, facilitated by technology and an unequal and increasingly interconnected world system, have raised the profitability of this industry to a historically unprecedented level. Blending global race, ethnicity, class, gender, and age inequalities with capitalist consumption, sex tourism creates and perpetuates a range of problems for sex workers and host countries. A growing body of interdisciplinary studies reveals a complex blend of exploitation and agency involved in sex tourism, the links between local and global, the need for inclusive and further study of homosexual, transgendered and bisexual, as well as heterosexual sex tourism, and the importance of understanding rather than stereotyping workers and experiences.
Sexism
Authors: Lind Amy
Published: September 2017

Sexism is discrimination on the basis of sex and/or gender. It occurs at various levels, from the individual to the institutional, and involves practices that promote gender‐based prejudice and stereotyping of social roles. Most commonly, sexism refers to inequalities that exist among men and women, particularly where women are treated as unequal or inferior to men. Like other forms of discrimination, sexism can occur through blatant or covert actions, including outright displays of hatred or disdain for an individual or group; the privileging of one gender over another; or tokenism, where, for example, a woman is hired only because she is a woman, rather than because of her skills and experience. How sexism plays out varies according to the social location of the individual or group involved, particularly in regard to racial, ethnic, class, sexual, and/or religious background.
Sexual Identities: Gay, Lesbian, Queer
Authors: Plummer Ken
Published: September 2017

After outlining the concept of identity and the questions it poses generally for sociology, this entry applies the concept to the field of gay, lesbian, and queer identity. Earlier writing focused on the process of “coming out” and led to the emergence of a politics of identity. More recent work has focused on a multiplicity of changing identities. Connections are made to postcolonialism, intersectional studies, queer theory, and global research – all of which suggest a more complex and less unified form of identity.
Sexual Markets, Commodification, and Consumption
Authors: Plummer Ken
Published: September 2017

Modern sexualities have become constituted through massive markets. Consumption has become a key social characteristic of the late twentieth century (see Robert Bocock'sConsumption, 1993), and in parts of the world we are “born to shop.” Consumption has played a growing role in the lives of individuals around the (wealthier) world, and one aspect of this is the deep and pervasive ways in which human sexualities have come to be marketed, commodified, distributed, and consumed across the world. In contrast with what Foucault, in the first volume ofThe History of Sexuality, calledars erotica(and the presumed spontaneity of sex though influenced by religion), contemporary sexualities are structured increasingly in global capitalist markets (Altman 2000). This is no minor observation, although it is a much neglected one.
Sexualities, Cities and
Authors: Bell David
Published: September 2017

As part of a broader investigation of the connections between sexuality and space, researchers in a number of disciplines have explored the relationship between particular sexual practices and identities and urban space – either at a generic level or in terms of particular cities around the world. There are a number of intersecting strands to this work. First, there is research that explores the cultural construction of the city – the city as it is imagined and portrayed in popular culture – and that investigates how this construction shapes possibilities and limitations for sexual practices and identities. For example, in terms of western gay male practices and identities, Kath Weston (1995) shows how US metropolitan centers were (and still are) constructed as places more open to male homosexuality, stimulating “the great gay migration” in the post‐war United States. For other groups labeled as “deviant” the city may also be constructed positively, in terms either of its liberal atmosphere or of the possibility of anonymity. But this association can lead to the city itself being considered “deviant” or dangerous, and therefore as an unsafe place. This connection is forcefully articulated in relation to two issues: prostitution and (sexually transmitted) disease (STD). In nineteenth‐century England, for example, moral panics about prostitution centered on city streets as danger zones, and moral regulation served to limit women's access to urban public space. In terms of disease, similar moral panics over STDs, most notably HIV/AIDS, have brought about policies to “clean up” parts of the city associated with certain sexual practices – perhaps most famously in New York City during Mayor Giuliani's administration.
Sexuality, Religion and
Authors: Wilcox Melissa M.
Published: September 2017

Long perceived as major sources of social, political, economic, and even esoteric power, sexuality and religion are logical partners for sociological study. Although each is individually the subject of a significant subfield within sociology, in combination they have received less scholarly attention to date than they are due. Nevertheless, there is a significant body of work already in place on their many and varied connections – enough to point innovators in several fruitful directions. The key connections between these two powerful social institutions lie in religious ritual, social structure and social control, and boundary creation and maintenance.
Sexuality Research: History
Authors: Hall Lesley A.
Published: September 2017

Research on sexuality began as a complex and interdisciplinary endeavor. Although it was, like so many of today's fields, a product of the nineteenth‐century belief in the power of rational scientific investigation, it was very much a latecomer. F. H. A. Marshall commented in his 1910 synthesis,
The Physiology of Reproduction
, that physiologists had made comprehensive studies of all other bodily functions, but reproduction had not been the object of sustained research. Marshall was thus obliged to bring together scraps of evidence from diverse sources, from anthropology via medicine to animal husbandry. Research on sexuality was similarly affected by a scarcity of materials and taboos against investigation, and the threat of prosecution for publication.
Shadow Work (Ivan Illich)
Authors: Harney Nicholas DeMaria
Published: September 2017

Shadow Work
(1981) written by the polymath ex‐catholic priest Ivan Illich (1926–2002) critiques what Illich sees as the contrived structures of desire present in modern commodity‐intensive society. Shadow work refers to the “unpaid servitude” modern people tolerate to satisfy the desires experts suggest they need.
Shadow Work
extends his earlier critiques of the way institutions and professions in the modern industrialized world dehumanize by creating needs and controlling the satisfaction of those needs. In a series of polemical books written in the 1970s, Illich argued that there was a tendency for institutions to develop in ways opposite to their original intent. For example, in
Deschooling Society
(1973) he argued that contemporary educational practices discouraged learning and in
Medical Nemesis
(1976) that care was neglected by the organizational imperatives of the medical experts and institutions. He developed the principle of counterproductivity to label the transformation of a potentially positive ideal into a negative institutional arrangement because of the undesired externalities that came with the process of institutionalization. Illich was concerned with how technological advancement and “development” might work to destroy convivial human relationships, the human spirit, and the environment. In addition to critiquing modern institutions, experts and expert knowledge, Illich critiqued the commodification of activities, transforming, for example, knowledge or learning into a possession rather than a way of being in the world.
Shushin Koyo
Authors: Mouer Ross
Published: September 2017

Literally translated as “end‐of‐life employment,”shushin koyois commonly rendered as “lifetime employment.” The term has often been used out of context to refer to a practice of hiring employees at a young age and then continuously employing them until they die. This usage is associated with an emphasis on mutual commitment between the employer and the employee within a paternalistic framework. Some have argued that the employment relationship came out of the traditional sense of loyalty associated with thesamuraiin service to his master and the reciprocal obligations of the overlord to his retainers. Other factors commonly mentioned as supporting such a commitment at work include Japan's bureaucratic tradition in state‐run enterprises, the interests of management in retaining skilled employees, and the need felt by many ordinary Japanese males after Japan's defeat in the Pacific War to reorient their strong sense of identity which had previously revolved around the nation‐state.
Sibling Ties
Authors: Mauthner Melanie
Published: September 2017

Sibling ties are some of the most widespread and enduring intimate relationships. Located at the border of kinship and friendship, the sociology of siblings largely centers on childhood and old age, rivalry and social support. The role of sibling ties at other stages of the life course – youth and adulthood – and in relation to other topics such as mental illness, substance abuse, disability, and domestic violence (Sanders 2004) is neglected. Principally explored from an adult carer perspective and a policy and professional agenda rather than through a sociological lens, sibling ties are little understood. Exceptions include schooling, fostering, and adoption decisions, where the importance of sibling ties is recognized. Yet they continue to be viewed in relation to parent‐child bonds rather than as relationships in their own right.
Slavery
Authors: Coates Rodney
Published: September 2017

Perhaps the oldest form of human oppression is that of slavery. Slavery, with its roots in antiquity (e.g., Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Israel, and Greece), is defined as the forced labor of one group by another. The institution of slavery, where the slave was considered merely a piece of animate property or chattel, was first developed by the Greeks. Brutality, to include whipping, humiliation, and alienation, has been part of slavery from its inception. Slaves, stripped of their human dignity and title, were forced to abandon their family, culture, and personhood, as another owned their very being. Women, doubly exploited, were subject to sexual exploitation where they could be forced into prostitution or to submit to the sexual demands of their masters or their guests. Slaves during these periods, often accorded higher status, could be adopted and become legal heirs of the masters. Typically, these slaves were vested with special duties owing to their unique talents (such as teachers, actors, fighters, etc.). The modern system of slavery, a direct result of European imperialistic expansion, provided even harsher levels and degrees of exploitation, humiliation, and degradation.
Small, Albion W. (1854–1926)
Authors: Williams Joyce E.
Published: September 2017

Albion W. Small is known more for discipline‐building than for contributions to substantive sociology or to theory. He chaired the first department of sociology at the University of Chicago from its beginning in 1892 to 1924 and in that role influenced generations of American sociologists. In 1895 he established the discipline's first professional publication, the
American Journal of Sociology
. He helped to found the American Sociological Society in 1905 and served two terms as its president. As with most first generation sociologists in the United States, Small's training was in philosophy, theology, and history. He was instrumental in the dissemination of German social thought in the United States, having studied in Germany with social economists Adolph Wagner and Gustav Schmoller before earning his PhD at Johns Hopkins. Small saw himself as “above all else, a social reformer” (Christakes, 1978) although he was not a hands‐on reformer but a social theorist rather than activist. Much of his early scholarship was focused on developing a comprehensive systemizing scheme to make sociology a science that could predict the future, guide social reform, and shape society into an ethical and rational entity. He was critical of the early systematizing theories of Comte, Spencer, and Ward and advanced his own, influenced by German philosopher Gustav von Ratzenhofer. All of his work reflects an overarching concern with ethics and with what he termed “wishes” or “interests.” From human interests he moved to the social process which he saw in society as “an interrelated unity moving through time toward a future ideal” (Christakes, 1978: 111).
Smith, Adam (1723–1790)
Authors: Reisman D. A.
Published: September 2017

Adam Smith was born on June 5, 1723 in Kirkcaldy, a quiet fishing village north of Edinburgh. His father (whom he never knew) had been a Comptroller of Customs. Smith studied moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow, where his teacher, Francis Hutcheson, was emphasizing “the greatest happiness of the greatest number” even in the shadow of John Knox and Scottish Puritanism. Smith then spent six years at Oxford as a Snell Scholar. A crisis of faith, possibly brought on by an exposure to the epistemological skepticism of David Hume, led him to abandon his plan to become a clergyman.
Social Accountability and Governance
Authors: Spence Crawford , Carter Chris
Published: September 2017

Recent accounting scandals such as Enron, Parmalat, and WorldCom have concentrated attention on the accountability and governance of corporations. Social accounting has been described and critiqued from a variety of positions, ranging from right‐wing neoliberal critiques all the way through to Marxist and deep green critiques. The different positions taken on the desirability or otherwise of social accounting can be understood by considering the type of change that each theorist advocates. The majority of writing and work in the area has come from those who see social accounting as a means of bringing about evolutionary change in capitalism.
Social Capital
Authors: Edwards Rosalind
Published: September 2017

Social capital is a concept broadly referring to the ways people connect through social networks, common values within these networks such as trust and reciprocity, and how this constitutes a resource that equates to a kind of capital. Different theorists emphasize slightly different features within this broad definition.
Social Change
Authors: Sekulić Duško
Published: September 2017

Change can be defined as a succession of events that produce, over time, a modification or replacement of particular patterns or units by other, novel ones. In the history of western thought there are several models explaining societal change. One of the oldest is the model of growth, whereby an institution, nation, society, or civilization develops following intrinsic principles – that is, principles contained in its own nature. Such growth is usually directional and cumulative, in other words it is based on previous changes, it is irreversible, it has predetermined stages, and it has some goal or purpose. A subtype of the growth model is created by the analogy between social and cultural change and the growth manifested in the life cycle of an organism. A life cycle contains phases of growth and phases of decay. This was a dominant model in ancient classical Greek and Roman thinking. In the Christian view, the cycles are replaced by a single one, which starts in the Garden of Eden and, having passed through the miseries of human life, ends with the elects’ ascent to haven. Sociology as a discipline emerged in the middle of the nineteenth century, as an attempt to explain not only the great waves of change that swept across Europe in the form of industrialization and democratization, but also the observed gap between European and colonized societies.
Social Change, Southeast Asia
Authors: Hirschman Charles , Edwards Jennifer
Published: September 2017

Southeast Asia consists of the 11 countries that lie between the Indian subcontinent and China. On the mainland of Southeast Asia are Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Insular Southeast Asia includes Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, and Singapore and most recently East Timor. While most of Malaysia (Peninsular Malaysia) is on the mainland, it is usually considered part of insular Southeast Asia because the Malay population (the majority ethnic population of Malaysia) shares a common language and religion with much of the Indonesian population. The city‐state of Singapore (on an island connected by a mile‐long causeway to Peninsular Malaysia) was historically part of Malaysia, but because of its unique ethnic composition (three‐quarters of the population is of Chinese origin) it is more similar to East Asia than Southeast Asia.
Social Cognition
Authors: Mukerji Chandra
Published: September 2017

Studies of social cognition attempt to explain how thought or cognitive problem solving takes places in groups. While scholars generally agree that learning can be a collective activity, many are reluctant to accept that thinking itself could have a social dimension. Psychologists and cognitive scientists tend to consider thought as an internal brain activity. Sociologists generally avoid the problem by focusing on social behavior. When sociologists look at consciousness, they generally study how internal psychological processes have been shaped by external social demands. Media scholars examine patterns of persuasion, and political sociologists look at ideology and hegemonic practices. All agree that collective life proceeds through the mind as well as the body, but few consider social cognition or how thinking might take place through interaction. (Scribner & Cole 1974; Longino 1990; Hutchins 1995; Turnbull 2000; Rosental 2003)
Social Dilemmas
Authors: Sell Jane
Published: September 2017

A social dilemma is any setting in which there is a conflict between individual short‐term incentives and overall group incentives. Social dilemmas are pervasive and appear in all levels of interaction, from small face‐to‐face interactions to large‐scale global situations. The study of social dilemmas is prominent in all of the social sciences, and investigations have involved all types of methods ranging from case studies to experiments. Common examples of social dilemmas include the provision of public goods such as public education and international treaties and the maintenance of resources such as fisheries and other ecosystems.
Social Distance
Authors: Williams Joyce E.
Published: September 2017

The concept of social distance dates back to Georg Simmel's discussion of the stranger in hisSoziologie(1923). According to Simmel, the stranger represents the union of newness and remoteness, moving out of one social circle and striving for acceptance in another. Robert Park, a student of Simmel, popularized the concept of social distance as the grades and degrees of understanding and intimacy that characterize personal and social relations (1924). Social distance is based on social norms that differentiate individuals and groups on the basis of race/ethnicity, age, sex, social class, religion, and nationality. The greater the social distance between individuals or groups, the less they influence each other. Building on Park's work, Emory Bogardus operationalized and measured social distance by asking participants about their willingness to admit members of different racial and ethnic groups: to kinship by marriage, as fellow club members, as neighbors, as workers in their same occupation, to citizenship in their country, as visitors only to their country, and as persons to be excluded from their country. The Bogardus Social Distance Scale (1925, 1933) is a cumulative, Likert‐type scale, based on the assumption that at the highest level of acceptance the respondent would admit members of the designated group to all steps below that level. Social scientists have applied variations of the scale to social classes, religious, occupational, and other groups for over three quarters of a century, and it is assumed to be a reliable measure of the level of acceptance of one group by another (Parrillo and Donoghue, 2005). There are questions, however, as to whether the scale measures group status or social intimacy and whether the concept has been reduced to metaphoric distance with a loss of the geometric space initially conceptualized by Simmel (Ethington, 1997).
Social Identity Theory
Authors: Callero Peter L.
Published: September 2017

Social identity theory offers a social psychological explanation of intergroup prejudice, discrimination, and conflict. Its origins lie in the work of Henri Tajfel (Tajfel and Turner, 1979) and his associates who have been instrumental in the development of a distinctly European approach to psychology. This approach is broadly concerned with the relationship between self and society. For Tajfel, the key to understanding prejudice, discrimination, and intergroup conflict is found in an individual's social identity as defined by group membership. Social identity theory rejects explanations based on individual defects of physiology, personality, or attitude. In this regard, it represents a challenge to more traditional psychological theories and has generated nascent interest among sociologists. Tajfel's experimental findings on group affiliation and personal bias were first published in the 1960s and, since then, social identity theory has generated an immense body of empirical research in support of its basic hypotheses. Over the years, social identity theory has been elaborated and extended to encompass issues of group leadership, organizational psychology, deviance, and political action. Today, social identity theory stands as one of the most influential theoretical perspectives within psychological social psychology.
Social Indicators
Authors: Land Kenneth C.
Published: September 2017

This entry commences with definitions of objective, subjective, and composite social indicators. It then reviews the historical development of the social indicators movement across the decades from the 1960s to the present. Next, three types of social indicators (policy/welfare/criterion indicators, subjective well‐being indicators, and descriptive indicators) are defined and illustrated. A final section describes two functions of social indicators, namely, the enlightenment function which encompasses the monitoring of changes over time in a broad range of social phenomena/quality‐of‐life indicators that extend beyond the traditional economic indicators, and the policy analysis function, including problem definition, policy choice and evaluation of alternatives, and program monitoring.
Social Justice, Theories of
Authors: Hegtvedt Karen A.
Published: September 2017

Issues of justice and injustice are ubiquitous in groups of all sizes. Sociological concerns with social justice pertain to differences and disadvantages characterizing groups (e.g., income inequality, racism, sexism) as well as individual‐level processes regarding perceptions of and responses to injustice. This entry reviews social psychological approaches to defining justice, perceiving injustice, and responding to unfairness in distributions, procedures, and interpersonal treatment. Theories differentially highlight the role of motivations, cognitions, affect, and social comparisons in justice assessments, which in turn affect the nature of cognitive and behavioral responses. The inevitable differences that emerge in perceptions play into an understanding of social justice, conflict, and change more generally.
Social Movement Organizations
Authors: Armstrong Elizabeth A. , Bartley Tim
Published: September 2017

Social movements organize people, resources, and ideas for social change. Many do this through formal organizations, and most sociologists recognize the social movement organization (SMO) as a key factor in the study of movements. SMOs can be defined as formal organizations that take the collective pursuit of social change as a primary goal. This concept is trickier than it may initially seem, since it relies on two concepts that are themselves difficult to define. Scholars generally define social movements as contentious forms of collective action operating at least partly outside institutionalized politics. Yet scholars disagree about how significant the desired change needs to be and what it means to work outside of institutionalized politics. Common definitions of organizations – as goal‐directed, boundary‐maintaining, and rule‐governed groups – are somewhat less contentious.
Social Movements
Authors: Jasper James M.
Published: September 2017

Although scholarly definitions vary, common usage portrays social movements as sustained and intentional efforts to foster or retard social changes, primarily outside the normal institutional channels encouraged by authorities.Sustainedimplies that movements differ from single events such as riots or rallies. Their persistence often allows them to develop formal organizations, but they may also operate through informal social networks.Intentionallinks movements to culture and strategy: people have ideas about what they want and how to get it, ideas that are filtered through culture as well as psychology. Movements have purposes, even when these have to do with transforming members themselves (as in many religious movements) rather than the world outside the movement.Foster or retard: although many scholars have a Whiggish tendency to view movements as progressive, dismissing regressive efforts as countermovements, this distinction seems arbitrary and unsustainable (not to mention the unfortunate effect that different tools are then used to analyze the two types).Non‐institutionaldistinguishes movements from political parties and interest groups that are a more regular part of many political systems, even though movements frequently create these other entities and often maintain close relationships to them. Most movements today deploy some tactics within mainstream institutions and non‐institutional protest is itself often quite institutionalized. Unsurprisingly, each of these claims about social movements has been subject to controversy and differences in emphasis.
Social Movements, Networks and
Authors: Diani Mario
Published: September 2017

Since the interest in social movements started to develop in the 1960s, networks have been analyzed from two main perspectives (Diani and McAdam, 2003). On the one hand, they have been treated as important facilitators of individuals’ decisions to become involved in collective action, in the context of the debate inspired by Mancur Olson's seminal work
The Logic of Collective Action
, published in 1965. On the other hand, analysts have looked at social movement networks as the structure of the links between the multiplicity of organizations and the individualness of activists committed to a certain cause. From this perspective, movement networks have been treated as the consequence rather than the precondition of collective action, a specific instance of the broader processes through which actors modify social structures through agency. More specifically, looking at the configuration of movement networks has provided observers with a clue to grasp the logics by which movement actors choose their partners, thus generating broader and more complex organizational fields. In their most basic sense, social networks consist of sets of nodes, linked by some form of relationship and delimited by some specific criteria. In social movement networks, nodes usually consist either of the individuals who mobilize or sympathize with a certain cause or subscribe to certain alternative lifestyles, or of the organizations that promote collective action on such issues or encourage alternative cultural practices. Analysts have looked at both direct and indirect ties. Direct ties are present when two nodes are directly linked in explicit interaction and interdependence – for example, when two activists know each other personally or two organizations jointly promote a rally. Indirect ties are assumed to exist between two nodes when the latter share some relevant activity or resource – for example, interest in certain issues or in the same campaigns – yet have no face‐to‐face interaction.
Social Movements, Political Consequences of
Authors: Amenta Edwin , Caren Neal
Published: September 2017

Scholars have increasingly turned their attention to the political or state‐related consequences of social movements. They refer to movements' attempts to change political institutions and their processes and outcomes as potential “external” consequences. In comparison to mobilizing supporters, fashioning identities among them, and choosing strategies, most macropolitical consequences of challengers are not directly implemented by them. But transforming movements from an object of explanation to an explanation sets up obstacles to developing a coherent and cumulative scholarship. Notably, scholars have had to revise their initial hypotheses that the strategies, organizational forms, and political contexts that aid mobilization will also aid in exerting political influence. In addition, movements and their organizations are defined as lacking in power and thus it is better to start with the null hypothesis that movements are not influential unless demonstrated otherwise. Moreover, most scholarship has consisted of case studies that are chosen mainly on the basis of the assumed significance of the movement or the interest of researchers in studying it. Scholarship has been working around and through these obstacles.
Social Movements, Relative Deprivation and
Authors: Mariel Lemonik Arthur Mikaila
Published: September 2017

The relative deprivation model aims to explain individuals’ decisions to join or start social movements and is based on a certain set of psychological ideas (Gurr 1970). Relative deprivation itself refers to “the gap between what one has and what one expects” (Brusch 1996), particularly in comparison to some specific reference group. The concept of relative deprivation has its roots in the early “frustration‐aggression hypothesis” of John Dollard, which suggested that when individuals respond to frustration and do not receive a response that relieves their frustration, such individuals will respond with aggression. Relative deprivation has been used as the mechanism to explain where this frustration emerges from.
Social Movements, Repression of
Authors: Earl Jennifer
Published: September 2017

The repression of social movements refers to attempts by groups, individuals, or state actors (e.g., militaries, national police, and local police) to increase the costs associated with social movement participation or otherwise limit social movement activity. Commonly studied forms of repression include police action at public protest events, such as arrests and police violence, military suppression of protest events, “disappearances” of activists, arrests and/or imprisonment of social movement participants, infiltration of social movements by government informants, covert counterintelligence programs against social movement organizations and participants, restrictions of free speech and assembly, assaults on human rights, and murders of social movement activists, among other tactics.
Social Pathology
Authors: Büchs Milena
Published: September 2017

The concept of social pathology applies the medical metaphor of pathology to describe and explain social problems. From this perspective those individuals and groups who deviate from social norms, or institutions that do not fit with core social norms, are “sick” or pathologic and a risk to the society's “health.” Social pathology was a very influential model in nineteenth‐century American and European sociological writings on social problems. The concept is closely related to those of social disorganization and deviance. However, social disorganization focuses on the malfunctioning of social institutions and structures rather than on the individual. The concept of deviance became popular in the 1950s. It was strongly influenced by the concept of anomie (Durkheim, Merton) and is similar to social pathology in that it focuses on the individual criminal. When the concept of social pathology became famous, many authors using this concept also applied Darwinist and evolutionary models to the analysis of society. They aimed to contribute to social progress and regarded every kind of behavior or social phenomenon that appeared as obstacles to social progress as pathologic and therefore inferior.
Social Structure
Authors: Hunt Stephen
Published: September 2017

The term social structure denotes a more or less enduring pattern of social arrangements within a particular society, group, or social organization. Nonetheless, despite its widespread usage, there is no single agreed concept of social structure that exists in sociology or related disciplines. An early attempt to theorize the notion of social structure was seen in the work of Lévi‐Strauss, the French social anthropologist, who attempted to discover the universal rules that underpin everyday activities and custom through cultural systems (Lévi‐Strauss 1967). Within sociology, however, the term has been employed in various ways according to the theoretical approach within which the concept is used. For instance, in one of the earliest uses of the term, Herbert Spencer related “social structure” to increasing differentiation and specialization of the biological organism as society “evolved.”
Social System
Authors: Hunt Stephen
Published: September 2017

There is a sense in which a “social system” may be defined as two or more people engaged in ongoing social interaction. What might be said to be the aspect of interaction which makes it specifically a “system” is that a high degree of regularity or recurrence is conducive to more or less permanent structural arrangements. This normatively defined categorization of a social system came to be largely identified with particular schools of sociology generally located within the framework of mid‐twentieth‐century structural functionalism and the speculative theories of its leading exponents.
Socialist Medicine
Authors: Field Mark G.
Published: September 2017

The term socialist medicine applies to a health care delivery system designed to provide preventive, diagnostic, clinical, rehabilitative, educational, and custodial services to a designated population free of charge at the time of the service. The prototype of socialist medicine is also known as Soviet socialized medicine.
Socialization, Gender
Authors: Rohlinger Deana A.
Published: September 2017

As children grow up they develop a sense of who they are, how they should relate to others, and the role they play in a larger society. The lessons children learn and the processes through which cultural norms are passed from one generation to the next is known as socialization. The focus on gender socialization highlights that there are roles, or cultural expectations and norms, which are associated with each sex category (“male” or “female”). Sociologists make distinctions between sex and gender. While sex is based on biological categories, gender is the result of cultural processes that construct different social roles for men and women. Gender socialization, then, is the process through which boys and girls learn sex appropriate behavior, dress, personality characteristics, and demeanor.
Socialization, Primary
Authors: Wasson Leslie
Published: September 2017

Socialization is the process by which humans learn ways of being and doing that are expected and are considered appropriate in their social environments. We call it primary socialization when the individual is a newly added member of society and is therefore experiencing this process for the first time. Primary socialization has the social psychological characteristic of primacy, meaning that its position as first in the acquisition of social knowledge renders it a filter and a foundation for the subsequent information internalized by the fledgling social being. Primacy also makes early socialization remarkably resilient, in that it is much more difficult to change primary habits and beliefs than those learned later.
Society and Biology
Authors: Franklin Adrian
Published: September 2017

Society and biology is one of the new transdisciplinary fields of sociology that emerged in the 1990s. Owing to its strong links with genetic research, medicine, health, agriculture, environment, and science and technology, it has developed a number of important research centers, such as Bios (Center for the Study of Bioscience, Biomedicine, Biotechnology, and Society) at the London School of Economics, the Center for Biology and Society at Arizona State University, the Center for Science Studies at the University of Lancaster, and the Department of Biology and Society at the University of Amsterdam.
Socioeconomic Status, Health, and Mortality
Authors: Rogers Richard G. , Saint Onge Jarron M.
Published: September 2017

The World Health Organization broadly defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well‐being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (WHO 1948). Health can be assessed in a number of ways, but generally includes subjective health, physical impairment, vitality and well‐being, and chronic disease. Health is a measure of the quality of life, whereas mortality defines the risk of death and can be used to measure length of life. Socioeconomic status (SES) exerts a profound influence on all dimensions of health and mortality. Individuals who are situated in elevated positions in the social hierarchy tend to experience superior levels of health and survival.
Sociology
Authors: Delanty Gerard
Published: September 2017

Sociology is a form of social inquiry that takes wide‐ranging forms. As is the case with many disciplines, it is contested and there is no generally accepted definition of what constitutes sociology. But we should not draw the conclusion that the contested and diverse nature of sociology amounts to the absence of any sense of self‐understanding and that the discipline has lapsed into irreversible fragmentation. Sociology can be partly defined by citing examples of what sociologists actually do, but it can also be defined by referring to some of the major intellectual statements of the discipline, such as classic works or theoretical and methodological approaches that are characteristically sociological. To begin, it is helpful to look at sociology in terms of its subject matter, its approach, and some of the classical works that have shaped the discipline.
Sociometry
Authors: Meeker Barbara F.
Published: September 2017

The word “sociometry” was coined in the early twentieth century by Jacob Levi Moreno (1889–1974). Moreno, one of the pioneers of psychotherapy, is also credited with developing psychotherapeutic techniques such as psychodrama. To him, sociometry was a way of uncovering the underlying emotional structure of a small group by asking group members which other members they would choose or reject as partners in specific roles such as roommate or fellow team member for a work project. Moreno believed that if group activities were set up according to these preferences the task performance and morale of the group would be maximized and individual group members would experience satisfaction and personal growth. Jointly with Helen Hall Jennings (Moreno, 1934) he applied his methods to assignment of girls to residential cottages in the New York Training School for Girls, concluding that the predicted positive results did occur. Moreno also founded a journal namedSociometryto promote his research. This journal eventually became an official journal of the American Sociological Association where it has been for many years the primary outlet within sociology for social psychological research. Reflecting this more general interest it changed its name and is nowThe Social Psychology Quarterly.
Speaking Truth to Power: Science and Policy
Authors: Lezaun Javier
Published: September 2017

“Speaking truth to power” refers to the belief that scientists, unimpeded by economic self‐interest or partisan bias, will deliver honest and often uncomfortable truths to those in positions of power.
Species‐Being
Authors: Beamish Rob
Published: September 2017

Species‐Being
(Gattungswesen)
, a controversial Feuerbachian‐inspired term refashioned in Marx's critique of Hegel's idealist philosophy, is central to Marx's conception of alienation and true communism. Hegel had argued the form and substance of knowledge developed historically. The conscious mind
(Geist)
initially experiences reality as external and separate; it does not know that alien world. From its first sensory encounter, the mind becomes conscious of itself and through a complex, dialectical subject/object interaction process develops an increasingly comprehensive intellectual grasp of reality, culminating in an Absolute Spirit
(Geist)
. Overcoming the original perception of separation – alienation – mind's full potential is actualized in the totality of Absolute Being.
Spencer, Herbert (1820–1903)
Authors: Turner Jonathan H.
Published: September 2017

Herbert Spencer was the most widely read sociologist of the nineteenth century, but by the second decade of the twentieth century his influence had declined dramatically, prompting Talcott Parsons in 1937 to ask “who now reads Spencer?” Today, very few sociologists read Spencer, who, through sociology's biased eyeglasses, is seen as a political conservative and as a crude functionalist. This contemporary conception of Spencer is not only incorrect but, more fundamentally, it also keeps present‐day sociologists from realizing the power of Spencer's ideas. The other classical figures in sociology have been canonized, with each generation of sociologists continuing to read the canon with the same dedication as biblical scholars. In contrast, Spencer is ignored, to the detriment of the cumulative sociological theory (Turner 1985). Nowhere is Spencer's genius more evident than in the topic of social change. Spencer developed several models of social change. One is a stage model of societal evolution from simple to complex forms; another is a dialectical model emphasizing the transformative effects inherent in the centralization and decentralization of political power; still another explores “selection” as a force behind social change; and a final model deals with the rise and fall of empires and interstate systems.
Spirituality, Religion, and Aging
Authors: Atchley Robert C.
Published: September 2017

Religion and spirituality are enduring aspects of the human condition. Some of the earliest human records were accounts of the spirituality and religious culture of the day. Religion and spirituality have also fueled human conflict for thousands of years. Our concern here is how religion and spirituality interact with aging: how aging affects religion and spirituality, and how religion and spirituality affect aging.