bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse
Authors: Roman Paul
Published: September 2017

Evidence of alcohol use in human societies extends to the beginning of recorded history. Nearly all human societies have discovered and used some form of beverage alcohol (Heath, 2000). Ethanol, the genre of alcohol consumed by humans, occurs as a natural product of the fermentation of common foods. In decaying fruit, sugar converts to ethanol; likewise with grain, potatoes, milk, and honey where decay and fermentation move from starch to sugar to ethanol. Thus discovery of ethanol's psychoactive effects likely occurred accidentally when humans attempted to store food for later consumption. The discovery of the psychoactive effects of this substance likely led quite quickly to the deliberate production of alcoholic beverages.
Alienation
Authors: Hodson Randy
Published: September 2017

Alienation is the social and emotional separation between oneself and one's life experiences. Alienation is a concept originally applied to work and work settings but today is also used to characterize separation from the political sphere and from other aspects of life such as family. To be alienated is to live in a society but not to feel that one is a part of its ongoing activities.
Animism
Authors: Riccardo Gaetano
Published: September 2017

Already used by Stahl in 1707 in his work
Theoria medica vera
(
True Medical Theory
) to denote, in the medical field, the theory that identifies the soul with the life principle, in anthropology animism refers to Tylor's concept of religion, which he expounded in
Primitive Culture
(1871). In anthropology the term animism has also been used not to indicate a theory of religion but, more usually, the beliefs concerning the existence of many spiritual beings. Finally, in psychology, animism is conceived by Piaget as a typical concept of the world corresponding to a precise step in children's cognitive development.
ANOVA (Analysis of Variance)
Authors: Munroe Paul T.
Published: September 2017

ANOVA, or analysis of variance, is a statistical technique used for detecting differences between the means of groups within a sample. It is one of the simpler techniques that fall within the larger category called the general linear model.
Anthrozoology
Authors: Franklin Adrian
Published: September 2017

Anthrozoology is the study of human–animal relations. The field of human–animal relations is fast becoming one of the hot areas of debate in the social sciences and is beginning to forge the sort of attention once held only by “the environment.” A mere glance at the recent literature shows that this new area is advancing on several fronts. These include, for example, the philosophy and sociology of animal rights; genetically modified animals and “laboratory life”; histories of human–animal relations; animal foods, diets, and risk; animals, nature, and gender; consumptive relations in hunting and fishing sports; pets (or companion species) and health; companion animals, domestication, and human co‐evolution and animals and human representation.
Anti‐Semitism (Religion)
Authors: Bartkowski John P.
Published: September 2017

Anti‐Semitism (also antisemitism) consists of hostility or hatred directed at Jews. Anti‐Semitism may be manifested as prejudicial attitudes or discriminatory actions toward Jews because of their racial, ethnic, and/or religious heritage, as well as perceptions about their economic standing or political power. History records many incidences of anti‐Semitism, culminating in the attempted genocide perpetrated against Jews during the Holocaust prior to and throughout World War II.
Art Worlds
Authors: Crane Diana
Published: September 2017

One of the most influential ideas in the sociology of art, the concept of an art world provides the basis for a sociological orientation for understanding the arts, in contrast to artist‐centered approaches favored in other disciplines. Art worlds have both social and cultural components. The concept of an art world implies that art is a collective activity, rather than the product of solitary genius. The cultural bases for cooperation among actors in art worlds are shared commitments to artistic conventions that define what is considered to be art in a specific period and how it should be produced.
Atheism
Authors: Michel Patrick
Published: September 2017

An atheist is one who does not believe in the existence of God or who denies God's existence. The difficulty of defining atheism results from the whole range of nuances that the concept appears to subsume. Whether it results from active denial or whether it derives from a real or supposed vacuum, whether it is therefore “positive” or “negative,” atheism is fundamentally conceived as unbelief. But this only renders the problem more complex: how can one devise a history or a sociology of the “negative”? If atheism, placed as it is under the sign of privacy, is nothing more than the other side of belief, only the latter can be a positive concept. Atheism is thus an integral part of a system organized around a central reference to a religion which exhausts the concept of belief. Ultimately, any sociology of atheism is a sociology of religion.
Attitudes and Behavior
Authors: Pestello Frances G.
Published: September 2017

Since the early days of the twentieth century, scholars have pondered the role of mental conceptions and evaluations in guiding social action. This has been an enduring question in social psychology and one that has implications for all of sociology. Most social scientists have conceptualized this as the relationship between attitudes and behavior. Two competing paradigms have emerged to explain this relationship. They diverge theoretically and methodologically. One approach to the study of attitudes and behavior is grounded in positivism and deductive theorizing. The competing paradigm is inductive and phenomenological, emphasizing process and construction. The central disputes, in these competing approaches, involve the importance placed upon social context and how attitudes are conceptualized.
Auditing
Authors: Schwandt Thomas A.
Published: September 2017

The notion of auditing is associated with social science methodology and with social theory. Generally defined, auditing is a procedure whereby an independent third party systematically examines the evidence of adherence of some practice to a set of norms or standards for that practice and issues a professional opinion. Thus, for example, financial auditors examine a corporation's financial statements against a set of standards for generally accepted accounting practices and issue a professional opinion (called an attestation) as to the dependability, integrity, and veracity of those statements. This general idea has been borrowed from the discipline of accounting and adopted in discussions of social science method. An auditing procedure has been suggested as a means to verify the dependability (reliability) and confirmability (warrantability) of claims made in a qualitative study (Lincoln and Guba, 1985; Schwandt and Halpern, 1989). The researcher is advised to maintain an audit trail (a systematically organized documentation system) of evidence including the data, processes, and product (claims, findings) of the inquiry. A third‐party inquirer then examines that audit trail to attest to the appropriateness, integrity, and dependability of the inquiry process and the extent to which claims made are reasonably grounded in the data.
Author/Auteur
Authors: Simmons Laurence
Published: September 2017

The concept of authorship seemed uncomplicated, or was at least unexplored, until the second half of the twentieth century; since then it has become the site of much theoretical discussion. Modern literary criticism has not simply underwritten the authority of authors. The American New Critics of the 1930s and 1940s, Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, in their
Understanding Poetry
(Brooks and Warren, 1938), ruled out the study of biographical materials as a substitute for study of the literary text itself. They raised the issue of whether the reconstruction of an author's intention from the text was at all possible, and, if possible, whether it was even relevant. Soon after, in a famous essay entitled “The intentional fallacy,” the American critics William Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley (1954) forbade critics to refer to authorial intentions in the analysis of literature, arguing that the literary work itself contained all the information necessary for its understanding and that appeals to authorial intention or biography (disparaged as “Shakespeare's laundry list”) were at best irrelevant, at worst downright misleading.
Americanization
Authors: Marling William
Published: September 2017

“Americanization” is a particularly fraught term, often used casually to describe events or processes that are actually the effects of modernity or globalization, such as product branding and personnel practices. The spread of McDonalds or Starbucks and the global reach of films produced in the United States are examples: They represent franchising and distribution systems as much as cultural values. Used in this broad sense, “Americanization” may signify “capitalism,” “commercialism,” or “media‐oriented,” rather than specific cultural values.
Alzheimer's Disease
Authors: Jutel Annemarie
Published: September 2017

Diagnoses are more than pathophysiological facts. They are simultaneously the product of social negotiation and a social structure that will shape future engagement with health, illness, and normality. That is to say, even in the presence of a material physical dysfunction, extensive social interaction must occur before the condition is granted disease status, and, once such status is granted, other potential frames are discarded and the condition is naturalized. For a diagnosis to exist, the condition has first to be recognized as dysfunctional, there needs to be technology available to allow its identification, and the field needs to agree upon the diagnostic parameters, usually as a result of debate and consensus (Aronowitz, 2001). Then, the diagnosis is institutionalized by inclusion in disease classification systems, and henceforth earns its place in the public and medical consciousness. Furthermore, the diagnosis then reproduces its boundaries. The discussions and debates leading up to its creation are subsumed in the diagnosis which becomes reified as fact of nature, rather than as the product of technology, negotiation and politics.
Barthes, Roland (1915–1980)
Authors: Perry Nick
Published: September 2017

Roland Barthes is best known as a literary critic and essayist and as a member of that generation of internationally distinguished French intellectuals (
maîtres à penser
) that includes the philosopher/historian Michel Foucault, the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, and the anthropologist Claude Lévi‐Strauss. His relevance for sociology derives above all from the way his writings (1) served to construct linkages between semiology (the study of sign systems), ideological processes, and social structures; (2) made plain just how the possible objects of inquiry of such a “social semiology” might be massively extended; and (3) contributed to the interpretation of readership as social practice.
Beard, Mary Ritter (1876–1958)
Authors: Bartkowski John P.
Published: September 2017

Mary Ritter Beard was a historian, social critic, and first‐wave feminist. She was also a proponent of women's suffrage in the US during the early decades of the twentieth century. Beard's work highlighted women's contributions to American society and cultures across the world. She was also a social reformer who fought for women's rights and organized working women in early twentieth‐century America.
Benefit and Victimized Zones
Authors: Funabashi Harutoshi
Published: September 2017

The concept of a benefit zone refers to a social zone or space in which residents in the zone possess a unique opportunity to consume and enjoy various goods that are refused to those living outside of the zone. In direct contrast, in the victimized zone those inside are deprived of opportunities to satisfy their needs. In other words, a victimized zone is defined by the imposition of various external negatives (e.g., pollution and industrial diseases). Whereas the entry to a benefit zone has a barrier to keep others from getting in, a victimized zone is surrounded by a barrier to prevent victims from getting out. In this way, “the handicapped” become “the deprived” when they are refused entry to a benefit zone or they cannot escape from a victimized zone.
Bilingualism
Authors: Bartolomé Lilia I.
Published: September 2017

Bilingualism is succinctly defined by Uriel Weinreich in his book
Languages in Contact
(1953) as the ability to alternatively use two languages. He defined the person involved in using two languages as bilingual. Bilingualism is common throughout the world and results from various language contact situations including: (1) colonization – colonizer imposition of a language different from the native language; (2) residing in officially bilingual countries (e.g., Canada, where English and French are official languages, and Finland, where Finnish and Swedish are official languages); (3) growing up in a bilingual household where caretakers use two different languages; and (4) migrating to a new society where immigrants often continue to use their native language at home while learning the host country's dominant language and using it in official institutions. Bilingualism can occur at either the individual or societal level and can be examined using a variety of disciplinary lenses. For example, individual bilingualism is examined via disciplines such as neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and psycholinguistics. Societal bilingualism is studied by researchers representing various disciplines such as sociology, the sociology of language, sociolinguistics, and anthropology.
Bilingualism
Authors: Bartolomé Lilia I.
Published: September 2017

This entry defines bilingualism, the ability to use two languages, from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. In addition, it highlights distinctions between individual and societal bilingualism and describes various language contact situations that result in the use of two or more languages. The discussion around individual‐level bilingualism highlights factors that influence learner second‐language acquisition as well as key learning processes that often result in differing language proficiency levels. The examination of societal‐level bilingualism focuses on the interaction between language use and social organization. Characteristics of stable, unstable, and “diglossic” societal bilingualism are discussed. Finally, a language group's sociopolitical status and the concepts of “additive” and “subtractive” bilingualism, as well as language shift and language loss, are deliberated.
Biography
Authors: Hoskins Janet , Frank Gelya
Published: September 2017

The use of biography in the social sciences has come to new prominence in recent decades because of disciplinary shifts towards narrative analysis, reflexivity, phenomenology and hermeneutics, psychoanalysis, and postmodernism, as well as the persistence of Marxist and feminist thought. The longer history of biography goes back to humanistic portraits of “great men” enshrined in literary biographies and historical studies. Still earlier models in the Christian west embrace the lives of saints and religious exemplars.
Bisexuality
Authors: Klesse Christian
Published: September 2017

Definitions of bisexuality are manifold and heterogeneous. There are at least four seemingly contradictory meanings associated with the term. Firstly, in early sexology bisexuality was conceived of as a primordial state of hermaphroditism prior to sexual differentiation. Secondly, bisexuality has been invoked to describe the co‐presence of “feminine” and “masculine” psychological traits in a human being. The idea of androgyny has impinged to a certain degree on popular ideas about bisexuality. Thirdly, bisexuality has provided the concept to account for people's propensity to be sexually attracted to both men and women. This is currently the most common understanding of bisexuality. Fourthly, bisexuality is frequently seen as a pervasive “middle ground” (of merged gender, sex, or sexuality). This representation of bisexuality includes the notion that “we're all bisexual, really,” which may imply either an essential androgyny or a universal “latent bisexuality” in the sense of an abstracted potential to love people of both genders (or irrespective of gender) (Hemmings 2002).
Blau, Peter (1918–2002)
Authors: Lizardo Omar
Published: September 2017

Peter Blau is one of the most influential figures in post‐war American sociology. His long career and range of substantive interests span the range from small‐groups and social exchange theory to organizational theory, the analysis of status attainment, and finally general sociological theory. One significant legacy is his macrostructural theory, or as he referred to it in his landmark book
Inequality and Heterogeneity
(1977), his “primitive theory of social structure.”
Body and Cultural Sociology
Authors: Turner Bryan S.
Published: September 2017

Diverse theoretical traditions have been influential in the development of the contemporary sociology of the body, such as philosophical anthropology, Marxist humanism, and phenomenology. However, Michel Foucault (1926–84) has been a dominant influence in late twentieth‐century historical and sociological approaches. His research on sexuality, medicine, and discipline gave rise to a general theory of the government of the body. The distinction between the discipline of the individual body (“the anatomo‐politics of the body”) and regulatory controls (“a bio‐politics of the population”) in
The History of Sexuality
(1978) stimulated a general sociological investigation of “governmentality” (Burchell et al. 1991). Systematic sociological interest in the body began in the 1980s with
The Body and Society
(Turner 1984) and
Five Bodies
(O'Neill 1985). The journal
Body and Society
was launched in 1995 to cater for this expanding academic market.
Body and Sexuality
Authors: Chaplin Beverley
Published: September 2017

All cultures have mechanisms which serve to organize and regulate sexuality. This is affected through a range of social institutions with the (gendered) body integral to this organization. In terms of social sanction, the variety of human sexual practices comprise a hierarchy which runs in a continuum from those conforming to the dominant heterosexual model to practices which constitute areas of contestation. Sociological analysis of the body and sexuality thus constitutes something of a materialist‐discursive divide, with the former focusing on the physical, innate aspects of the body and sexuality, while discursive or representational analysis focuses on the cultural and communicative aspects of the body, a body as an “object” constructed within cultural discourses and practices. Feminist and poststructuralist challenges to materialist explanations point to the (particularly female) body as a “sign” or “symbol” within discourse. Consequently, materialist/discursive explanations of the body and sexuality roughly equate to a “masculinist”/“feminist” divide. There has, however, been little research conducted into the
experience
of embodiment per se – the body as “vehicle in being” (Merleau‐Ponty) and the relation of this to sexuality.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1930–2002)
Authors: Monnier Christine A.
Published: September 2017

Pierre Bourdieu was born in rural southern France and pursued an educational career that led to his enrolment at the École Normale Supérieure as a philosophy major. He spent his military service in Algeria, at the time a French colony, and engaged in anthropological work on Kabylia. There he examined for the first time the effects of power and stratification in the context of colonialism as it interacted with native cultural practices. From then on, his sociological work on the nature and dimensions of power in culture made him one of the most influential contemporary sociologists. For Bourdieu,
culture
is a symbolic order that provides the components of social domination and unconscious mechanisms of reproduction of such domination between social classes. Bourdieu was also a sociologist of practices, that is, how symbolic structures are incarnated in the actions of social agents. Whatever topics he engaged – education, cultural practices, or artistic productions – Bourdieu always considered how both culture and practices sustain forms of social domination. This approach was designed to resolve the traditional dilemmas of sociology: objectivism versus subjectivism, structure versus agency, determination versus freedom. For Bourdieu, those dilemmas could only be transcended by taking into account the existence of invisible objective structures and agents’ subjective interpretations of their circumstances.
Brand Culture
Authors: Schroeder Jonathan E.
Published: September 2017

Brand culture places brands firmly within culture to look at the complex underpinnings of branding processes. Much brand research emerged from the allied fields of management, marketing, and strategy, which generally hew toward positivistic models of brand “effects” driven by quantitative analysis. Recently, sociologists, anthropologists, and cultural studies researchers have looked at brands from historical, critical, and ideological perspectives, acknowledging the growing importance of brands in society (Koehn 2001; Lury 2004). An emphasis on brand culture forms part of a larger call for inclusion of sociological issues within the management and marketing research canon, joining in the contention that culture and history can provide a necessary contextualizing counterpoint to managerial and information processing views of branding's interaction with consumers and society.
Brands and Branding
Authors: Muñiz Albert M.
Published: September 2017

According to the American Marketing Association (2014), a brand is a “name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.” Brands can be distinguished from the more generic constructs of products and services, which can be defined as anything offered for sale to a market to satisfy a need or a want. Unbranded products and services are commodities (flour, soap, beer, banking). Brands allow for the differentiation of generic products and services by associating them with particular producers, meanings, and qualities. A brand is the total constellation of meanings, feelings, perceptions, beliefs, and goodwill attributed to any market offering displaying a particular sign. Branding refers to the advertising, marketing, and managerial practices designed to develop, build, and sustain the characteristics, properties, relationships, and signifiers of a particular brand.
Bureaucracy and Public Sector Governmentality
Authors: Clegg Stewart
Published: September 2017

While bureaucracy stretches back into antiquity, especially the Confucian bureaucracy of the Han dynasty, the modern rational legal conception of bureaucracy emerged in France in the eighteenth century. Indeed, the word is French in origin: it compounds the French word for an office –
bureau
– with the Greek word for rule. In the nineteenth century, Germany provided the clearest examples of its success because of the development of a disciplined bureaucracy and standing army, inventions that became the envy of Europe.
Baudrillard, Jean (1929–2007)
Authors: Kellner Douglas
Published: September 2017

On March 6, 2007, Jean Baudrillard died in Paris at the age of 77 after a long fight with cancer. Associated with postmodern and poststructuralist theory, Baudrillard is difficult to situate in relation to traditional sociology and social theory. (For my earlier takes on Baudrillard, see Kellner, 1989a; Best and Kellner, 1991; Kellner, 1994; Kellner, 1995, Chapter 8; and Best and Kellner, 1997, Chapter 3.) His work combines philosophy, social theory, and an idiosyncratic cultural metaphysics that reflects on key events of phenomena of the epoch. A sharp critic of contemporary society, culture, and thought, Baudrillard is often seen as a major guru of French postmodern theory, although he can also be read as a thinker who combines theory and social and cultural criticism in original and provocative ways, and a writer who has developed his own style and forms of writing. He was an extremely prolific author, having published over fifty books and commented on some of the most salient cultural and sociological phenomena of the contemporary era, including the erasure of the distinctions of gender, race, and class that structured modern societies in a new postmodern consumer, media, and hi‐tech society; the mutating roles of art and aesthetics; fundamental changes in politics, culture, and human beings; and the impact of new media, information, and cybernetic technologies in the creation of a qualitatively different social order, providing fundamental mutations of human and social life.
Caregiving
Authors: Drentea Patricia
Published: September 2017

Caregiving is the act of providing unpaid assistance and support to family members or acquaintances who have physical, psychological, or developmental needs. Caring for others generally takes on three forms: instrumental, emotional, and informational caring. Instrumental help includes activities such as shopping for someone who is disabled or cleaning for an elderly parent. Caregiving also involves a great deal of emotional support, which may include listening, counseling, and companionship. Finally, part of caring for others may be informational in nature, such as learning how to alter the living environment of someone in the first stages of dementia.
Censorship
Authors: Hills Matt
Published: September 2017

Censorship has generally been of interest to social theorists when considered as a matter of state control over “free speech” and/or mass‐mediated content. This governmental censorship has tended to focus on notions of protecting “vulnerable” (young/lower‐class/female) audiences from representations of sex, violence, and criminality which, it is assumed, may deprave, corrupt, or desensitize them (Dewe Mathews 1994).
Certeau, Michel de (1925–1986)
Authors: Buchanan Ian
Published: September 2017

Born in 1925 in Chambéry, France, Michel de Certeau obtained degrees in classics and philosophy at the universities of Grenoble, Lyon, and Paris. Joining the Society of Jesus in 1950, he was ordained in 1956. He completed a doctorate on the mystical writings of Jean‐Joseph Surin at the Sorbonne in 1960 and taught in Paris and San Diego. He died of stomach cancer in 1986.
Child Custody and Child Support
Authors: Walker Janet
Published: September 2017

Since the 1960s, growing proportions of children worldwide have been experiencing their parents’ separation at an increasingly early age. Parental separation entails a series of transitions and family reorganizations, including changes in parenting arrangements, residence, family relationships, and standard of living, that influence children's development and adjustment over time. All pose risks for children.
Childhood
Authors: McNamee Sally
Published: September 2017

What is now known as the “new paradigm” of the sociology of childhood grew out of a rejection of traditional sociological and developmental psychological theories of childhood. Children in earlier sociological accounts were subsumed into accounts of the family, or the school – in other words into the major sites of socialization. Children were, therefore, most visible when they were being socialized. Socialization, which is sociology's explanation for how children become members of society, parallels developmental psychology, in that children progress from incompetent to competent adulthood through the process of acculturation or socialization. In both socialization theory and developmental psychology there was no view of children as active social agents; rather, children were seen (if they were seen at all) as passive recipients of socialization. In addition, both socialization theory and developmental psychology fail to see the child as existing in the present – instead the focus is on what children
become
. It has been said that socialization theory ignores children's role in socializing both themselves and others. In fact, it fails to take account of the child as a competent social actor. What was missing from sociology, then, was an account of the socially constructed nature of childhood which focused on children as social actors rather than passive “becomings.” The historian Phillipe Ariès (1962) noted that childhood as a concept has not always existed in the same way. Ariès discusses the development of the
idea
of childhood through reference to diaries, paintings, and other such historical documents and traces the changes in attitudes to children from those based for example on indifference, to coddling (the child as a plaything) to the development of psychological interest in childhood. The historical childhoods described by Ariès are very different from the modern, particularly western, conception of childhood to which we subscribe.
Christianity
Authors: Oviedo Lluís
Published: September 2017

As a basic description, Christianity is the religious faith grounded on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Beyond this point, the scholarly understanding of that concept has been the object of much discussion in modern times, particularly in the realm of the social sciences. In an attempt to put some order into the social, religious, historical, and ideological reality that corresponds to the term “Christianity,” a synthetic account may be offered, covering its history and the main dimensions.
Chronic Illness and Disability
Authors: Charmaz Kathy , Belgrave Linda
Published: September 2017

Chronic illness lasts. A chronic illness has a lengthy duration, uncertain outcome, and unpredictable episodes, often with intrusive symptoms and intermittent or progressive disability. Having a chronic illness poses life problems such as following a medical regimen, managing ordinary responsibilities, and experiencing stigma and discrimination. A disease, in contrast, may remain silent for years without eliciting a diagnosis or causing noticeable symptoms and life disruptions. Experiencing chronic illness makes disease real. Sociological definitions of chronic illness start with the experience of disruption and impairment. In contrast, early disability theorists defined disability as starting from the lack of societal accommodation to individuals’ needs, thereby resulting in disadvantage and discrimination. This definition of disability presupposed that people had static, visible physical conditions with predictable and sustained needs, such as those with certain neuromusculoskeletal conditions. Many researchers have long viewed disability as fluid, often invisible, and leading to unanticipated changing needs. Hence they also study people with a wide range of conditions such as mental illnesses, autism, developmental disabilities, learning disabilities, and multiple chemical sensitivities. In the past decade, the sociological definition of disability has become an increasingly contested area. Disability theorist Tom Shakespeare (2014) has rejected the social definition of disability and acknowledges the significance of impairment, as medical sociologists have demonstrated for decades (Bury, 1982; Charmaz, 1995; Simon, 1999; Strauss
et al.
, 1984). Chronic illness and disability first emerged as fields of sociological inquiry in early ethnographic studies such as Roth 1963, Goffman 1963, and Davis 1963. These sociologists’ depiction of patients’ actions and interactions with professionals contrasted with Talcott Parsons's (1953) theoretical concept of the sick role which assumed recovery from illness, successful medical intervention, and passive patients. Parsons's concept of the sick role fit neither the treatment goals for chronic illness and disability nor their corresponding treatment roles. Illness continues, disability persists. Hence, physicians treat symptoms rather than causes, attempt to minimize complications, and rely on patients and their caregivers for information, but monitoring and managing occur at home.
Class Conflict
Authors: Hunt Stephen
Published: September 2017

Marx famously stated “the history of all societies up to the present is the history of the class struggle.” In his interpretation, the term class is used to refer to the main strata in all stratified society as constituted by a social group whose members share the same relationship to the forces of production. This was evident, according to Marx, in western societies which developed through the epochs of primitive communism, ancient society, feudal society, and industrial capitalism. Primitive communism, based on a communal mode of production and distribution, typified by a subsistence economy, represents the only example of a classless society. From then on, all societies are divided into essentially two major classes that are in an antagonistic relationship: masters and slaves in ancient society, lords and serfs under feudalism, and bourgeoisie and proletariat under the capitalist order. During each historical epoch the labor power required for production was supplied by the majority subject class. While, for Marx, class conflict arises in the exploitative situation evoked by the relationship to the forces of production, it is also evident through the development of such forces by an emerging class. The superiority of the capitalist forces of production, by way of illustration, led to a rapid transformation of the social structure, but only after the revolutionary triumph of the emergent class over the feudal order.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger)
Authors: Miller Monica K. , Clark Jordan D. , Jehle Alayna
Published: September 2017

Cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957) posits that individuals seek to maintain consistency among multiple cognitions (e.g., thoughts, behaviors, attitudes, values, or beliefs). Inconsistent cognitions produce unpleasant states that motivate individuals to change one or more cognitions to restore consistency with other cognitions (i.e., consonance). Cognitive dissonance was one of many theories based on the principle of cognitive consistency that grew from early theories such as balance theory (Heider, 1946, 1958). Unique to Festinger's approach was the proposal that cognitive dissonance is an aversive mental state that motivates individuals to reduce the dissonance. Although the original conception of cognitive dissonance theory was intended to apply to a broad range of psychological phenomena, subsequent research tended to focus on attitudes and behavior.
Collective Deviance
Authors: Goode Erich
Published: September 2017

Sociologists of deviance tend to harbor an individualistic bias: their unit of analysis is, typically, one or more persons who enact non‐normative behavior. Much deviant behavior is indeed enacted on an individualistic basis, though in analyzing and writing about deviance sociologists never lose sight of group or collective influences; but they often pay insufficient attention to the actions engaged in by entities substantially larger than the acting individual or individuals (Simon, 2012).
Collective deviance
refers to the putative untoward actions of large collectivities whose members act in co‐ordination, as a whole. When an automobile manufacturer knowingly makes and sells cars with remediable defects that demonstrably cause injury or the loss of human life, the corporation has engaged in collective deviance, since its actions, if exposed, are likely to generate negative reactions from the buying public, the media, and sectors of the government. When governments authorize and mandate human rights abuses – when a larger, more powerful nation illegally seizes the territory of a smaller, weaker one, when authorities warrant and operatives carry out the torture of prisoners or captives, or when a government rigs and steals a supposedly democratic election – we have, again, an instance of collective deviance on our hands, since relevant audiences or members of other collectivities such as human rights agencies, the public at large in democratic regimes, progressive politicians, or sectors of the media are likely to become aware of and denounce such actions. When a criminal organization uses the threat of illegal violence to earn profits that it could not otherwise realize in order to sell illegal goods, for example illicit drugs, to corrupt police and public officials, to intimidate witnesses, and to ensure that victims do not seek redress from legal authorities, that organization is engaged in collective deviance. In such cases the individual acting parties enact the relevant behavior, but they do so within a dense, constraining, and compelling network whose leadership, authority structure, and hierarchy brook no refusal to act in the illegitimate fashion. In other words, it is the institution that acts – the corporation, the nation‐state, the criminal mob – and not merely separate and dispersed individuals.
Collective Identity
Authors: Whooley Owen
Published: September 2017

Within social movement theory, collective identity refers to the shared definition of a group that derives from its members’ common interests, experiences, and solidarities. It is the social movement's answer to who we are, locating the movement within a field of political actors. Collective identity is neither fixed nor innate, but rather emerges through struggle as different political actors, including the movement, interact and react to each other. The salience of any given collective identity affects the mobilization, trajectory, and even impacts of social movements. Consequently, collective identity has become a central concept in the study of social movements.
Conflict Theory
Authors: Sanderson Stephen K.
Published: September 2017

The term “conflict theory” came into wide use in sociology during the 1960s, when it was seen as an alternative to and rival of functionalism. Initially, the term seemed merely to identify a more politically neutral Marxian perspective, but for some it meant something much broader. The strongest contemporary advocate of conflict theory is Randall Collins. For him, conflict theory includes not only Marx and the Marxists, but also Weber and a number of other social theorists extending back to earlier times. He sees as early forerunners of modern conflict theory such thinkers as Machiavelli and Pareto. Collins (1974), (1975) has done more than any sociologist to develop a synthesized conflict theory that owes more to Weber than to any other sociologist. Sociologists have often regarded Lewis Coser's
The Functions of Social Conflict
(1956) as a version of conflict theory, but it is more a functionalist analysis of the role of conflict in social life than a use of conflict propositions to explain various social phenomena.
Confucianism
Authors: Chee‐Beng Tan
Published: September 2017

It is widely acknowledged that Confucianism has a dominant influence in Chinese culture. But what is religion in the Chinese context? Chinese scholars writing in Chinese generally see Confucianism (ruxueorrujiathinking) as a school of Chinese philosophy, and the question of whether Confucianism is a religion or not does not arise. Western scholars on religion, however, often regard Confucianism as a religion. Indeed, Weber's famous work on Chinese religion is entitledThe Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism(Weber 1951). It is worth noting that, historically, Chinese do not make a clear distinction between moral teaching and the western concept of religious teaching, these being referred to asjiaoor “teaching.” Thus,sanjiao, referring to Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, is better translated as “three teachings” rather than as “three religions,” for in the Chinese understanding ofjiao, it is not an important issue whether Confucianism is a religion or not.
Confucianism
Authors: Chee‐Beng Tan
Published: September 2017

It is widely acknowledged that Confucianism has a dominant influence in Chinese culture. Chinese scholars writing in Chinese generally see Confucianism (ruxueorrujiathinking) as a school of Chinese philosophy, and the question of whether Confucianism is a religion or not does not arise. Western scholars on religion, however, often regard Confucianism as a religion. Indeed, Weber's famous work on Chinese religion is entitledThe Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism(Weber 1951). It is worth noting that, historically, Chinese do not make a clear distinction between moral teaching and the western concept of religious teaching, these being referred to asjiaoor “teaching.” Thus,sanjiao, referring to Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, is better translated as “three teachings” rather than as “three religions,” for in the Chinese understanding ofjiao, it is not an important issue whether Confucianism is a religion or not.
Conservatism
Authors: Gamble Andrew
Published: September 2017

Conservatism has been one of the principal ideologies of the modern era. It was first articulated in its contemporary form in opposition to liberalism and specifically to the cataclysm of the French Revolution, which challenged the principles and values of the old order, and the authority of monarchs and priests. The deep‐seated crisis of the European
ancien régime
, and the sudden appearance of revolutionaries prepared to act out utopian fantasies and inaugurate an entirely new kind of society, prompted a profound intellectual and political response, and laid the foundation for the modern conservative outlook.
(Constructive) Technology Assessment
Authors: Zeiss Ragna
Published: September 2017

Technology assessment (TA) refers to the study and evaluation of new technologies. The need for technology assessment was first articulated in the late 1960s when growing numbers of people became concerned about the consequences of new technologies and new large technological projects. In this period of environmental, anti‐nuclear, and democratization movements, societal problems were regarded as complex and interrelated and could not be solved by simple policy measures. Technology assessment was seen as a way to assess and analyze (adverse) social, economic, legal, political, cultural, and ecological effects of a given technology on society and to give society time to reflect upon these impacts and take appropriate measures.
Consumption, Green/Sustainable
Authors: Rumbo Joseph D.
Published: September 2017

Green/sustainable consumption refers to various disciplines, discourses, policy initiatives, and practices concerning the design, implementation, and popularization of consumption practices and production innovations that seek to curtail any of the negative environmental and social effects of human economic activity. Moreover, whereas some have linked it to better physical and mental health and an enhanced quality of life, green/sustainable consumption also involves distinctively social psychological aspects (Myers 2003).
Consumption and the Internet
Authors: Livingstone Sonia
Published: September 2017

The study of consumption within the social sciences has a history stretching over a century or more, and has only recently been extended to the study of consumption of and on the Internet. The arrival of the Internet as a mass market technology in the early to mid‐1990s throughout western countries and beyond has posed new questions for the multidisciplinary study of consumption and consumer culture, particularly as the Internet seems to facilitate the shift from mass consumption to increasingly specialized, flexible, and geographically dispersed forms of consumption.
Consumption Rituals
Authors: Esposti Piergiorgio Degli
Published: September 2017

Consumption rituals such as holidays, wedding celebrations, and birthdays are examples of events where there is usually intensive or excessive consumption of goods and other services. These occasions enable people to engage in often formal, serious, and intense consumption and other behaviors. These rituals are different from other mundane consumption‐laden activities as they provide opportunities for individual and social transformations which can be temporary and/or permanent. Consumption rituals also often entail an exchange of gifts, which typically involves imperfect communication between the giver and recipient. The dynamics of various gift‐giving occasions in many cultures has been the subject of research.
Controversy Studies
Authors: Mukerji Chandra
Published: September 2017

Controversy studies have been an important part of the sociology of science since the late 1970s when Merton's more institutional approach to the field began to be displaced by the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK). Inspired by Kuhn (1970), the new sociologists of science were determined to show empirically what Kuhn had suggested conceptually: that knowledge‐making was a social process. Controversy studies were important to this project because they focused on moments of change between more stable regimes of knowledge. Kuhn had argued that researchers during most historical periods engaged in “normal science” based on a shared paradigm. This kind of collective practice was particularly productive of new knowledge because researchers worked with recognized techniques on puzzles of common interest. They could learn from and build on what others were doing and collaborate more easily because they shared many assumptions about their research. But paradigms had limits that became increasingly visible over time. In moments of revolutionary change, new paradigms were developed to make sense of these anomalies, displacing the old regime of normal practice. In the transition period, scientists engaged in controversies about elements of the paradigm.
Conversation Analysis
Authors: Peräkylä Anssi
Published: September 2017

Conversation analysis (CA) was started by Harvey Sacks and his coworkers at the University of California in the 1960s. It is a method for investigating the structure and process of social interaction between humans. Focusing on talk as well as on the nonverbal aspects of interaction, CA studies use video or audio recordings of naturally occurring interaction and identify words, vocalizations, and body movements that are composed in ways that make them recognizable to the participants. CA studies can focus either on ordinary conversations, that take place between acquaintances or family members or on institutional encounters where participants accomplish institutional tasks through their interaction.
Cool
Authors: Polesana Maria Angela
Published: September 2017

Cool is a semantically complex English term. Literally it means “somewhat cold” and suggests a comfortable and pleasant temperature, but if it is related to people and actions it suggests detachment and self‐control. Its African roots go back to itutu philosophy, which identifies various positive qualities such as self‐control, composure, detachment, beauty, and inner peace. With this meaning, it arrived in America with slavery and for African Americans became the best defense against exploitation and discrimination. In the 1940s, the term, meaning “controlled and relaxed in style,” identified itself with jazz music. From the 1960s, subcultures used coolness as a tool of distinction from the mainstream whose rules they rejected. Therefore, it became an expression of individualism and protest against dominant values. Trendsetting industries then picked up the manifestations of coolness from subcultures and turned them into marketable goods, establishing an even deeper relationship with consumerism. Today “cool” belongs to the common language, not only in the Anglo‐Saxon world, and it is used both in daily life and in advertising and popular culture. Elements such as authenticity, self‐expression, trendsetting, and self‐confidence are all attributed to the term cool. However, “cool” is not found in objects themselves, but it is subjective and is strongly linked to the zeitgeist.