bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Structure and Agency
Authors: Stones Rob
Published: September 2017

The concepts of structure and agency are central to sociological theory. Structures are typically seen as the more fixed and enduring aspects of the social landscape. As used by Émile Durkheim and others working within a similar tradition,
structure
is a metaphor that denotes qualities in society that are akin to the qualities of the body skeleton in the field of anatomy or to those of a building's frame in architecture. Durkheim's work was heavily influenced by his desire to establish a sphere of study for sociology that would be distinct from the spheres of both biology and psychology. To this end, he insisted that there are structured ways of acting, thinking, and feeling that are general throughout a society and act as external constraints over its members. This approach was meant to emphasize the role of society in the process of causation, as opposed to individual or group agency. Some writers, taking issue with this position, went to the other extreme. Weber, for example, emphasized the role of individuals and rejected the idea that terms such as “society” or “group” could refer to any reality other than that of individuals and their actions.
Subculture
Authors: Muggleton David
Published: September 2017

A subculture in general terms is a group with certain cultural features that enable it to be distinguished from other groups and the wider society from which it has emerged. But before it is possible to attempt a more precise clarification of the concept of subculture, it is necessary to examine the wider and related term “culture.” The definition of culture that underpins the analysis of subculture is that which derives from the discipline of anthropology, and is concerned with the study of “a whole way of life” of a group or society. This widely encompassing and democratic definition does, however, raise the issue of what aspects of groups or societies are, or are not, “cultural.” Sociologists have always regarded both religious and secular systems of values and beliefs to be cultural, along with those “styles of life” that arise from patterned modes of consumption. More recently, the discipline of cultural studies has reserved the term culture for those “signifying practices” – including cinema, fashion and design, cuisine, popular recreations, advertising, music, and so forth – through which people communicate their tastes and give expressive form to their emergent identities.
Suburbs
Authors: Friedman Judith J.
Published: September 2017

In the United States, suburbs are defined as areas in urban use that surround a city. Incorporated places with their own governments fill much of this land. The size of the suburban area around cities varies, in part because of differences in when each city stopped annexing adjacent land. The suburban areas around cities have always been diverse in population and in economic activities, despite a common reputation for being residential and middle‐class. Their population diversity is increasing, in part because immigrants are more likely to move directly to the suburbs. Diversity in economic activities and in residential property values among the suburban municipalities of a given city creates substantial differences in the ability to fund local services.
Supply Chains
Authors: Lonsdale Chris
Published: September 2017

The term supply chain is actually a metaphor for a complex series of interactions between a set of organizations responsible for delivering a product or service to an ultimate customer. Indeed, this series of interactions has more recently been referred to as a network (Hakansson and Snehota 1990; Harland 1996). A supply chain starts with a set of raw materials and ends with the delivery of a finished product or service to the ultimate customer(s). Figure 1 provides a simplified representation of a supply chain.
Surveillance
Authors: Lyon David
Published: September 2017

Most of us take for granted today that our personal data are required for many purposes and that our images, scans, and traces are used by organizations. When we identify ourselves we usually need evidence to back up our claim: an ID card, a PIN, a drivers’ license, or a passport. We are not surprised to see video surveillance cameras in the street or the shopping mall and we are aware that our transactions, phone calls, and emails are logged and processed. Personal data are extremely valuable to many agencies today, from marketers to insurance companies to the police.
Sutherland, Edwin H. (1883–1950)
Authors: Geis Gilbert
Published: September 2017

Edwin H. Sutherland is generally regarded as the father of the scientific study of criminology in the United States. In 1924 he publishedCriminology, the first systematic textbook study of crime. Sutherland advanced the principle of differential association, a social learning construct that sought to interpret criminal behavior in theoretical terms. He also coined the term white‐collar crime in his 1939 presidential address to the American Sociological Society. In addition, Sutherland wrote a pioneering monograph on confidence scams, as well as highly regarded papers on the death penalty and prisons. He also published journal articles critical of sexual psychopath laws and psychiatric interpretations of illegal behavior.
Symbolic Interaction
Authors: Hall Peter M.
Published: September 2017

Symbolic interaction is a theoretical perspective that has roots in pragmatism with its emphasis on activity, processes, and dissolving dualisms. The perspective has two branches, social psychology and social organization, which have been merged into interactionism. The works of G.H. Mead, Herbert Blumer, and Everett Hughes have been foundational. The conceptual apparatus builds from joint action and situations to social worlds and social orders. A major strategy of practitioners is to transform structures into processes. Interactionists have studied a range of topics including identity, emotions, gatherings, power, mass media, and social problems. Dramaturgy remains an interest of many interactionists. Recent attention has been given to the body, the senses, sexualities, inequality, time, and space. Symbolic interaction has seen a major increase in international adherents across Europe and Asia.
Saturated Self
Authors: Gergen Kenneth J.
Published: September 2017

The concept of the saturated self (Gergen 2001 [1991]) refers to the dramatic expansion in the range of relations (real, virtual, and imagined) in which the individual is increasingly engaged. This expansion is largely attributed to the accumulation of twentieth‐century communication technologies, including (but not limited to) radio, television, the Internet, the World Wide Web, and cell phones. The resulting transformation in everyday life includes an expansion and complexifying of the individual's repertoire of “ways of being” (e.g., attitudes, values, opinions, moralities, styles of relating), a compounding of evaluative standards applied to the self, an infinite expansion of opportunity, and an expanding sea of obligations. One becomes
multiphrenic
. As a general orientation to life, the expansion in the range of realities, reasons, and moralities to which one is exposed leads to a consciousness of construction. Increasingly suspect are traditional claims to truth, objectivity, and reason. On the interpersonal level, the condition of saturation leads to a receding sense of authenticity, and a diminishing in the time and attention devoted to any particular relationship. The result is a loss of enduring emotional intensity and commitment.
Self‐Serving Bias
Authors: Corra Mamadi
Published: September 2017

The “self‐serving bias” refers to people's tendency to attribute positive outcomes or successes to internal or personal factors (such as effort or ability) and to attribute negative outcomes or failures to external or situational factors (such as task difficulty or luck). Variously labeled as “defensive,” “egocentric,” or “egotistic” attribution, the bias accounts for people's greater tendency to take credit for success than failure (e.g., having a perfect score in school examinations because of innate intelligence or hard work as opposed to having a low score because of unfavorable test conditions; doing well in a boxing match because of exceptional strength and skills as opposed to doing poorly because of unfair rules). The bias is also evident in people's tendency to assess morally ambiguous situations in ways that are concordant with their interests; or in people's perceptions of fairness – namely when they arrive at judgments of what is fair or right that favor self‐interest. More generally, the bias is said to involve a cognitive/perceptual process distorted by the need to maintain and enhance self‐esteem (Forsyth, 2008). It is hence said to be influenced by both motivational (e.g., self‐enhancement) and cognitive (e.g., locus of control) factors (Shepperd, Malone, and Sweeny, 2008; Tetlock and Levi, 1982; Twenge, Zhang, and Im, 2004; Tyler and Devinitz, 1981; Wichman and Ball, 1983).
Spokespersonship
Authors: Pels Dick
Published: September 2017

In modern communication‐ and media‐driven cultures, spokespersonship has increasingly become professionalized, offering an indispensable vehicle for advocating the identity and interests of persons, groups, and institutions. But, on a deeper level, we all act as spokespersons, by “presenting” that which is not immediately at hand (persons, things, ideas) in current face‐to‐face situations. All such representational acts crucially depend on belief and credit, and hence on the authority and credibility of the spokesperson. Representation therefore comes with a permanent risk of usurpation: spokespersons may take the place and appropriate the power of “their” subjects and objects. A critical theory of spokespersonship must be on permanent alert for such “identitarian” forms of representation and the symbolic power yielded by them.
Sexism, Sexual Harassment, and Sexual Assault: Toward Conceptual Clarity
Authors: Harris Richard J. , Firestone Juanita M.
Published: September 2017

Sexism and sexual harassment have been used to keep individuals in their place within many organizational models. A sexist environment is one that facilitates both environmental and individualized sexually harassing behaviors; in such climates assault is far more likely to occur. Active policy efforts to reduce sexist and harassing behaviors can make a major difference in the likelihood of such events. This suggests that a focus on environmental harassment might be very effective because such public, visible actions are identifiable and subject to policy intervention.
Sociocide
Authors: Doubt Keith
Published: September 2017

Sociocide is a term first coined in the 1980s by Johan Galtung. Sociocide can be defined as the deliberate destruction of social infrastructure. It is the killing of the social, encompassing the fundamental matters pertaining to society, for example, group solidarity, national, ethnic, and gender identity, the family, and social institutions.
Status Shield
Authors: Kolb Kenneth
Published: September 2017

Arlie Hochschild coined the term “status shield” in her influential book,
The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling
, to describe how status serves to protect individuals from the “displaced feelings of others” (Hochschild 1983: 163). To articulate this concept, Hochschild cited the experiences of flight attendants in relation to upset travelers. She argues that male flight attendants, because of their relatively greater social status as men, were shielded from passengers’ anger and frustration in ways that their female colleagues were not. As a result, the female flight attendants found themselves to be “easier targets” (1983: 163) and “the complaint department, the ones to whom dissatisfaction is fearlessly expressed” (1983: 181). Hochschild also argues that this phenomenon is not exclusive to gender: “persons in low‐status categories – women, people of color, children – lack a status shield against poorer treatment of their feelings” (1983: 174).
Social Bond
Authors: Chriss James J.
Published: September 2017

Following Parsons (1968), Habermas (1984) is correct in noting that sociology is the science primarily concerned with explaining human cooperation. Explanations of the forms of human cooperation have preoccupied philosophy, the humanities, and science since the time of the ancient Greeks. It was not until philosophy was able to separate itself from religious doctrine, beginning with Hobbes (the state) and Locke and Rousseau (the social contract), that a search was launched for the mechanisms that hold persons together or drive them apart (Eder 2007). Building upon the thought of Vico, Mill, and Comte, by the late 1800s sociology was finally positioned to conceptualize and research human sociality, bringing to bear the latest statistical and methodological techniques.
Skinner, B. F. (Burrhus Frederic)
Authors: Morris Edward K.
Published: September 2017

B. F. (Burrhus Frederic) Skinner (1904–90) was the most eminent psychologist of the twentieth century. In philosophy, science, and technology, he sought to naturalize psychology to improve the human condition. His legacy is the discipline and profession of behavior analysis (http://www.abainternational).
Stonewall Riots
Authors: Armstrong Elizabeth A. , Crage Suzanna M.
Published: September 2017

Around 1:20 a.m., early on Saturday, June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a homosexual bar on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village in New York City. Customers included homeless teens, drag queens, and others. Patrons initiated a riot that lasted into the night and resumed the next day. Rioters blocked the street and taunted police. Activists happened upon the riot. One helped escalate it, another called contacts at New York newspapers. The event received unprecedented coverage Saturday morning, including reports of nearly a thousand rioters and several hundred police. That day, people gathered to see the bar. That evening, riot police returned and another riot followed. On Sunday, activists distributed flyers calling the riots “the first time that thousands of Homosexual men and women went out into the streets to protest” in New York City (Teal 1995). Another account labeled the riots “The Hairpin Drop Heard around the World.”
Takata, Yasuma (1883–1972)
Authors: Seiyama Kazuo
Published: September 2017

Yasuma Takata was a prominent neoclassical economist in the pre‐war era. He was also a tanka poet and published several collections of original poems.
Taoism
Authors: Tong Chee‐Kiong , Lee Cheuk‐Yin
Published: September 2017

Taoism takes its name from the concept of Tao, or Way. In Chinese, the word “Tao” (or
dao
in
hanyu pinyin
) is made up of two components, one depicting a human head, the other a motion verb meaning to pass, go through, or walk. The earliest and most important work on Taoism is a short book of some 5,000 characters known as
Daode Jing
(
Classic of the Way and Virtue
) by the legendary Laozi (literally, Old Master, around sixth century
bce
). The oldest manuscripts of the
Daode Jing
, unearthed in 1973 from an ancient tomb in Changsha, Hunan province, China, dated to about 200
bce
. Next to the Bible, it is probably one of the most translated works in the world, with close to 100 translations in English (see Lee et al. 1994).
Taylorism
Authors: Prechel Harland
Published: September 2017

Taylorism was developed by Frederick Taylor in the 1880s. By the 1920s, together with other forms of scientific management, Taylorism was widely adopted in the US and other industrial societies. Taylor was raised in a prominent Philadelphia family, but rejected his parents’ plans for a Harvard education and became an apprentice in a metal‐working plant. Later, he obtained a technical degree. Despite his career focus, Taylor retained the ideological bias of his upper‐class background that incorporated dimensions of socio‐Darwinism and utilitarianism. This doctrine provided the ideological context for Taylor's system of scientific management, which emphasized the idea that economic success is caused by superior abilities and those abilities can be learned.
Teamwork
Authors: West Michael A. , Richardson Joanne
Published: September 2017

Real teams are a particular form of work group. They are groups of people who work closely and interdependently together toward clear shared objectives which the team agrees upon and is committed to. Real teams are also recognized as “teams” by the wider organization in which they are embedded. Members have a clear idea about who belongs to the team and the specific role they occupy. Real teams also reflect upon their processes and effectiveness on a regular basis and have a degree of autonomy to manage their own work.
Terrorism
Authors: Kellner Douglas
Published: September 2017

The term terrorism derives from the Latin verb
terrere
, “to cause to tremble or quiver.” It began to be used during the French Revolution, and especially after the fall of Robespierre and the “Reign of Terror,” or simply “the Terror,” in which enemies of the Revolution were subjected to imprisonment, torture, and beheading, the first of many modern examples of state terrorism.
Theoretical Research Programs
Authors: Wagner David G.
Published: September 2017

A theoretical research program has three components: a set of interrelated theories, a set of substantive and methodological working strategies used to generate and evaluate these theories, and a set of models for empirical investigation and analysis based on these theories. Theoretical research programs provide accounts of social phenomena as diverse as affect control, status organization, network exchange, resource mobilization, revolution, and coalition formation in political action. Berger and Zelditch (1993, 2002) present detailed discussion and analysis of these and many other programs. Wagner (1984) discusses the source of the concept in the work of philosopher of science Imre Lakatos (1968, 1970) on scientific research programs.
Time‐Space
Authors: Slevin James
Published: September 2017

All social life is ordered over time and through space. However, when sociologists attend to the “situated” character of social life, they do not treat time‐space as simply the temporal and spatial environment of the phenomena they study. They see social life as not just being “in” time‐space, they see time‐space as central to all social interaction. The “situatedness” of social life involves time‐space as a constitutive feature in the construction and reconstruction of what people do and in the way they do things together. The ordering of social life comes about because social practices are routinely made to come together across time‐space as shared experiences. This binding of time‐space is expressed in the ways in which societies, institutions, and individuals organize time‐space.
Tocqueville, Alexis de (1805–1859)
Authors: Binkley Sam
Published: September 2017

Born into a French aristocratic family in 1805, Alexis de Tocqueville was a French political theorist, sociologist, and cultural and historical commentator whose contributions are equally claimed by the disciplines of sociology, political science, American studies, and American history. In 1831, together with his colleague Gustave de Beaumont, Tocqueville embarked on a tour of the nascent American democracy in an effort to understand the inner workings of the democratic spirit in the everyday lives and social institutions of the American people. On returning to France he wrote his famous two‐volume investigation,
Democracy in America
(1835). Tocqueville uncovered within American society a tension between democracy's conflicting imperatives: the egalitarian character of democratic societies, while successfully eliminating forms of despotism identified with feudalism, did not provide sufficient integration of the individual into the social fabric. Hence, democratization, if extended unchecked and in irresponsible ways, could produce excessive individualism (a term Tocqueville coined for this purpose), and ultimately new forms of despotism. In a comparison of the American and French experiences with democracy, Tocqueville pointed to the dangers posed by the French case, in which a sudden leveling of social hierarchies following the French Revolution eliminated the intermediary institutions that maintained the integration of individuals within the larger social fabric, leading to revolutionary despotism, a theme developed more completely in his other major work,
The Old Regime and the Revolution
(1856).
Transgression
Authors: Langman Lauren
Published: September 2017

Transgression, violating a formal rule and/or moral principle, crossing a boundary of acceptable conduct, or exceeding a social limit, is central to understanding social life in general and deviance in particular (Jenks 2003). Although there is no clear‐cut distinction between the criminal and moral, few societies ignore theft while publicly breaking wind or picking one's nose is not usually punished as a criminal offense. At various moments, insanity, masturbation, homosexuality, and adultery have been considered transgressions that have been deemed criminal and/or pathological. At some times, imputed transgressions such as witchcraft were harshly punished. A great deal of social history has concerned the attempts of competing groups to legislate morality – and most of these have been futile.
Transition Economies
Authors: Lang Rainhart
Published: September 2017

The termtransition economiesapply mainly to post‐socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe, and also in East Asia, despite its wider use in the economic or sociological literature. The termtransitionis used to describe the process through which a society or economy introduces the institutional facets associated with advanced capitalist economies, such as the legal system, ownership structures, institutions of financial and labor markets, the party system and the institutions of the independent and democratic state. Whilst the termtransitionis often restricted to a small time span of an economic change in which new economic institutions are formed and established, or relates only to an economic view of post socialist societies, or describes the fixed result of the changes as “the” Western type of a market economy or capitalism, the termtransformationhas been more widely used in the sociological literature, especially in Europe. The latter term covers a social process of fundamental political, economic, technological, and cultural change, both managed and evolutionary, or selforganized, in structures and values, including all areas and levels of the society, organizations, and the individual and collective actors. At the societal level,institution transfersversusinstitution building, or re‐institutionalization of social processes has been at the center of interest, including conflicts between inherent values of the transferred institutions and the local national value systems. Different transition strategies, ranging from early shock therapy to an incremental change have finally led to a distinctive mixture between public and private enterprises, and with a the strong influence of social networks and groups with particular interests that have underpinned economic activities and institutions. The emergent, or newly embedded, institutions are therefore the result of a “recombination” of properties or “bricolage” based on the culture of the past and transformation experiences with the transferred institutions. At the level of individual and collective actors, the emergence and shape ofnew social groups of actors, especially entrepreneurs or managers and their influence on the development of new organizational forms, values, and the (re‐)construction of new institutions can be stated based on an elite reproduction instead of a radical change within the economic elite. The terms “East European Capitalism” or “Chinese Capitalism” and propositions of specific types and characteristics of related national business systems for the transitional economies refer to the stabilization of an emergent pattern of social‐economic activities and its various forms of integration into the world economy.
Transition from School to Work
Authors: Bernardi Fabrizio
Published: September 2017

Research on the transition from school to work focuses on the relationship between the level of education and the first job achieved upon entry into the labor market. This has traditionally been a central topic in social stratification and social mobility research. As such, the study of the transition from school to work has reflected the main theoretical positions that have dominated research on social stratification since the end of World War II. Under the influence of functionalist theory, the relationship between education and the first job has been studied in terms of the classical achievement/ascription dichotomy. Thus, scholars were mainly interested in establishing the relative weights of achieved and ascribed factors in the process of status achievement, in particular with regard to the first job. The key research question was whether or not access to better jobs was increasingly dependent on achieved factors, such as education, and less and less dependent on ascribed factors such as the characteristics of the family of origin. In the same period, economists developed the theory of human capital, which assumes that formal education increases individual productivity by providing the skills and knowledge required for the most demanding occupations. According to this theory, individuals can improve their productivity by investing in their own education. Moreover, employers can dispose of perfect information about school leavers’ productivity by considering their level of education. Thus, this theory predicts a direct relationship between level of education and quality of the first job achieved.
Transnational and Global Feminisms
Authors: Desai Manisha
Published: September 2017

Transnational feminism refers both to the practices of women's movements around the world and to a theoretical perspective in which women theorize and strategize for women's rights and gender justice across national boundaries, work in collaboration with women from other countries, and frame their activism in terms that are both local and global. Thus, transnational feminism refers to the flow of ideas, issues, strategies, organizations, and activists across national boundaries. As practice it dates back to the mid‐ and late nineteenth century when women activists from the US and Europe worked in collaboration around the abolitionist and suffrage movements in those countries, when women from colonizing countries such as England worked together with women in India and other colonies to advance women's rights, particularly suffrage and education, as well as when European women in the communist and socialist parties worked to develop women's organizations around the world on issues of women's economic rights (Rupp 1997). This earlier practice of transnational feminism was limited in several ways: the issues addressed were restricted to suffrage, education, and workers’ rights; the nation‐state was still the center of activism; the flow of ideas, strategies, and activists was primarily, though not exclusively, from the North to the South; there were few international organizations, all of which were hierarchical in nature; and the practice was neither widespread nor the dominant mode of feminism. While this practice continued, primarily in its communist and socialist manifestations, it was not until the 1970s when the United Nations declared 1975 as International Women's Year and 1975–85 as International Women's Decade and organized women's world conferences – in Mexico City in 1975, Copenhagen in 1980, Nairobi in 1985, and Beijing in 1995 – that the practice took off and has now become a dominant strategy of women's movements around the world.
Transnationalism
Authors: Remennick Larissa
Published: September 2017

The concept of transnationalism, described as an integral part of the globalization process, is becoming increasingly popular in social and political sciences (Glick Schiller et al. 1995; Guarnizo & Smith 1998; Portes et al. 1999). Originally coined in international economics to describe flows of capital and labor across national borders in the second half of the twentieth century, this concept was later applied to the study of international migration and ethnic diasporas. The transnational perspective became increasingly useful for exploring such issues as immigrant economic integration, identity, citizenship, and cultural retention. Transnationalism embraces a variety of multifaceted social relations that are both embedded in and transcend two or more nation‐states, cross‐cutting sociopolitical, territorial, and cultural borders. The ever‐increasing flows of people, goods, ideas, and images between various parts of the world enhance the blending of cultures and lifestyles and leads to the formation of “hyphenated” social and personal identities (Chinese‐American, Greek‐Australian, etc.).
Triangulation
Authors: Denzin Norman K.
Published: September 2017

Triangulation refers to the application and combination of several research methodologies in the study of the same phenomenon. The concept of triangulation, understood as in the action of drawing a triangle, may be traced back to the Greeks and the origins of modern geometry. Introduced in the social sciences in the 1950s (Campbell and Fiske, 1959), then heavily criticized in the 1980s (see Silverman, 1985; Lincoln and Guba, 1985; Guba and Lincoln, 1989) and in the 1990s (Flick, 2004, 2007), triangulation is a postpositivist methodological strategy. It has recently returned to favor, as a new generation of scholars is drawn to a mixed, or multimethod, approach to social inquiry (Teddlie and Tashakkori, 2003; Creswell, 2011). When the term was introduced in the social sciences, the method designated by it functioned as a bridge between quantitative and qualitative epistemologies. It was seen as a way of helping qualitative researchers become more rigorous, perhaps by allowing them to address a methodological inferiority associated with “a kind of stepchild complex” (Kamberelis and Dimitriadis, 2004: 2). Advocates of mixed‐methods research argue that it allows them to answer questions that other methodologies, taken singly, cannot. Further, it provides “better inferences based on a greater diversity of divergent views” (Teddlie and Tashakkori, 2003: 14–15).
Tribalism
Authors: Trencher Susan R.
Published: September 2017

Tribalism refers to customs and beliefs transmitted and enacted in groups (tribes) sharing a common identity and in which centralized political organization and authority are absent. Academic and public references to tribalism have been expanded to refer to behaviors and beliefs associated with diverse populations, including those that share any one of, or all of, the following: race, ethnicity, language, religion, ways of life, kinship, attitudes, worldview, and generation. Sociological interest focuses on aspects of ethnicity and stratification
Trust
Authors: Cook Karen S.
Published: September 2017

The issue of trust is central to theories of social order, and attempting to understand trust has become a major enterprise in the social sciences. Trust fosters (although is not essential to) co‐operation and reduces the need for monitoring and sanctioning. Trust is most likely to emerge in ongoing social relations and much less likely to emerge in settings in which the parties are strangers. Global networking and the rapid progress of technology impacts the formation of social contacts and therefore trust relationships.
Tattoos
Authors: Halnon Karen Bettez
Published: September 2017

The word tattoo derives from the Tahitian word
tatau
, which means to mark something. Tattooing, the practice of inserting colored materials beneath the skin, has been traced across a vast historical, cultural, and geographic plain, ranging from Australian Aborigines ca. 60,000 bce and Nubian, predynastic, and eleventh‐dynasty Egypt to Thracian Greek aristocracy, 400 bce, and fifth‐century Roman Gallic warriors (Camphausen 1997).
Thomas, Dorothy Swaine (1899–1977)
Authors: Bannister Robert C.
Published: September 2017

Dorothy Swaine Thomas, sociologist and demographer, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of John Knight and Sarah (Swaine) Thomas. A graduate of Barnard (BA 1922) and the London School of Economics (PhD 1924), she held academic positions at several leading universities and research institutions. In nine books and more than 70 articles, she studied the business cycle, population, and migration in Sweden and the United States, and the forced evacuation and internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Appointed at the University of Pennsylvania in 1948, she became the first woman professor at the Wharton School and, four years later, the first woman president of the American Sociological Association. In 1958 she was also elected president of the Population Association of America.
Think Tanks
Authors: Medvetz Thomas
Published: September 2017

A think tank is a half‐century‐old notion commonly invoked in political discourse to refer to civil society organizations specializing in the production and dissemination of knowledge related to public policy. In recent decades, the number and apparent political significance of think tanks have increased worldwide, making them a focus of growing scholarly and popular attention. Even so, ambiguities surrounding the proper definition of a think tank and the appropriate classification of their affiliated “policy experts” have hampered the development of a general theory of their political effects.
Think Tanks
Authors: Medvetz Thomas
Published: September 2017

The term “think tank” refers to a half‐century‐old political folk concept denoting a civil society organization specialized in the production and dissemination of policy‐related knowledge, rhetoric, and advice. The concept's entry into the political lexicon was made possible by the formation, typically at the national level, of relatively stable institutional niches in which organizations compete to produce relevant “policy research.” In recent decades, the number and seeming impact of think tanks have increased worldwide, making them a focus of growing scholarly and popular attention. Even so, ambiguities concerning the proper definition of a think tank and the characteristics of their affiliated “policy experts” have hampered the development of a general theory of their effects.
Unions
Authors: Stepan‐Norris Judith
Published: September 2017

Unions are collections of workers who join together for the purpose of defending their common interests as employees. In capitalist societies, union representation provides many workers with their only potential for meaningful input in their workplaces. These workers benefit from unions because employers alone possess legal rights and authority over their property (both land and machinery), and therefore any single worker has limited bargaining power vis‐à‐vis an employer. In the unionized workplace, the hegemony of capital is manifested in a regime of production based on collective bargaining agreements, which are reinforced by the state. Still, capital's control over the workforce is never complete. Workers struggle and negotiate with employers over the terms of the regime.
Urban Community Studies
Authors: Gafford Farrah
Published: September 2017

Urban community studies consist of a range of case studies, comparisons, and local analyses that explore the local cultures, relationships, interactions and identities. As cities in the US experienced rapid growth during the early twentieth century, sociologists speculated about how the interactions and relationships in these urban settings would be influenced by a swelling population, advanced technology, and a mounting flow of immigrants. With the population of urban centers like Chicago approaching a population of 2 million in the early 1900s, urban centers provided sociologists with an opportunity to examine how inhabitants would adjust to the growing populations and the diversity within these spaces. The result of these early inquiries would be the establishment of a premier American school of urban sociology and a long tradition of urban community studies in the field of sociology.
Urban Political Economy
Authors: Nevarez Leonard
Published: September 2017

Urban political economy is a paradigm that takes up two venerable questions in urban sociology: what causes urbanization and who governs the city. A parsimonious explanation of these two evidently distinct issues as well as its flexibility as a critical framework with which to investigate a variety of urban phenomena attest to its status as a prevailing paradigm in urban sociology and urban studies more generally. Broadly speaking, “political economy” examines how material processes of production and exchange shape, and are shaped by, decisions and activities from economic and political institutions; by adding “urban,” the focus narrows to material production of and
within
cities. Urban political economy contends that the city's form, economy, and political structures comprise a dynamic, contradictory mechanism for the appropriation of wealth.
Urban Poverty
Authors: Rucks‐Ahidiana Zawadi , Harding David J.
Published: September 2017

Most research on urban poverty focuses on racial and ethnic minorities living in segregated, high‐poverty neighborhoods in central cities and inner‐ring suburbs. Urban poverty research attempts to understand the roots of dilemmas such as crime and delinquency, unemployment, low levels of education, and single motherhood, as well as the causes and consequences of spatially concentrated poverty and the transmission of poverty over generations. Due to the wide range of research topics, the study of urban poverty lies at the intersection of urban sociology, race and ethnicity, stratification, sociology of education, and immigration, and draws theoretically on the areas of social capital, networks, and culture. A recurring debate in the field is whether income inadequacy causes problem behavior or whether problem behavior causes income inadequacy.
Urban Renewal and Redevelopment
Authors: Crowley Gregory J.
Published: September 2017

The built environment deteriorates with the passage of time and the stresses of use and neglect. Unemployment, poverty, shortages of affordable housing, health epidemics, and transportation problems often accompany physical decay in modern cities. Attempts to relieve these social problems through the maintenance, rehabilitation, and rebuilding of the physical environment are known as urban redevelopment.
Urban–rural population movements
Authors: White Michael J.
Published: September 2017

The movement of the population between rural and urban areas is both a major consequence and a major determinant of social change. From a sociological vantage point, this movement offers potential for significant transformation in sending and receiving communities alike, as various types of individuals (differentiated by age, sex, education, ethnicity, etc.) are added and subtracted from the community. For the individual, the relocation may bring attendant challenges, even as it brings new opportunities. Within the research community, the study of urban–rural population movement would be seen as a subdivision within the broader study of internal migration, urbanization, population redistribution, or migrant adjustment.
Urbanism/Urban Culture
Authors: Hadjicostandi Joanna
Published: September 2017

“With a year‐old son and a husband who traveled several days a week, she knew she wanted something more than a neighborhood. She wanted a community” (Richards 2005: 64).
Utopia
Authors: Lovell David W.
Published: September 2017

Utopia is a type of imaginary ideal society. It generally takes a literary form, but it plays a role in social and political thought. From being playful, “utopian” has become a term of opprobrium, warning that a proposed scheme for improvement is not just impossible, it is perfidious. For there is a wide range of (different and often incompatible) notions of what is “ideal,” and attempting to realize one person's dream may become another's nightmare.
Validity, Qualitative
Authors: Lather Patti
Published: September 2017

Validity is not just one of many issues in science but the crux of the issue: the claims of science to a certain privilege in terms of authoritative knowledge. How scientific knowledge is made credible is, hence, a longstanding issue. If one looks at validity as a social construction, one sees how the very calculus of credibility of what is deemed “good science,” the very determination of warrants of validity, has shifted across time, place, and various fields.
Values
Authors: Giordan Giuseppe
Published: September 2017

Values represent beliefs and ideals which form the basis for choices and preferences, both at an individual and collective level. Generally speaking, a value is defined as that which is “good” and which is desired and is able to make one happy. Such long‐lasting and immaterial ideas regard both current conduct and one's ultimate objective in life: they are different from simple interests, which are not particularly characterized by duration, and also from moral laws, which indicate what is the “right thing to do.” Values propose a certain lifestyle and “how to be” rather than purely concrete rules of behavior.
Variables, Dependent
Authors: Goetz Ernest T.
Published: September 2017

Research involves identification and description of characteristics of organisms, objects, events, and locations. When these characteristics can take on different values (e.g., when they differ between people or from one time to another for the same person), they are referred to as
variables
. The variables involved in any particular research study are determined by the interests and intentions of the researcher. Much research focuses on the relationships between variables, particularly
causal relationships
. In such research,
dependent variables
are the presumed outcomes or effects of
independent variables
. In research about causal relationships, measurement (i.e., systematic assignment of numerical values to variables) of the dependent variable (or multiple dependent variables) is used to determine if the independent variable had the hypothesized effect or predicted relationship. For example, people's income might be measured to see if it is dependent on or predicted by their occupation. Their occupation, in turn, might be measured to see if it is dependent on or predicted by their education level. Thus, depending on the focus of a study or model, the same variable may function as a dependent variable or independent variable (Pedhazur & Schmelkin 1991).
Variables, Independent
Authors: Delucchi Michael
Published: September 2017

Quantitative methods are used in sociology to identify causal relationships that explain human social behavior. This requires sociologists to specify the independent variable (cause) and the dependent variable (effect). The independent variable produces the effect in a causal relationship and must occur in time before the dependent variable. An independent variable is the treatment (or stimulus) within a quantitative study design that is hypothesized to affect the dependent variable. Only the simplest sociological research includes just one independent variable, whereas most studies contain multiple independent variables hypothesized to predict a single dependent variable. These other variables, referred to as control variables, are a special type of independent variable included in sociological studies because they represent other potential causes of the dependent variable.
Video Games
Authors: De Peuter Greig
Published: September 2017

Video games are played via a dedicated console connected to a television (e.g., Sony's Play Station) and computer games are played on a personal computer, or PC. These two forms of digital play comprise a lucrative sector of the global entertainment complex, an immersive, simulation‐based interactive medium, a high‐profile domain of youth‐oriented popular culture, and a preferred leisure activity for millions of media consumers. Emerging early in the new millennium, game studies is the field of multidisciplinary scholarship devoted to the analysis of video and computer games.
Video Games
Authors: Hunsinger Jeremy
Published: September 2017

This entry introduces issues in the political economy of video games using both historical and contemporary evidence. It shows that video games can be understood in myriad productive ways in sociology. It demonstrates the significance of video games across all sectors of our lives, as they replace prior forms of education, training, play, and other activities. As video games extend further into our social worlds, human subjectivities are changing in relation to them. These changes will have ramifications throughout the social world in which we live, work, learn, and play.
Violence Among Athletes
Authors: Young Kevin
Published: September 2017

Aspects of violence among athletes, including behaviors encompassed within the rules as well as outside the rules of sport, have traditionally been condoned in many settings as “part of the game.” This is witnessed in the way that aggressive, high‐risk, or injurious practices that would be socially and/or legally intolerable apart from sports are encouraged and expected to occur in connection with sports. Further, in many countries, sport is immersed in fervent
cultures
of aggression that may serve to compromise participant safety and limit the possibility of change. Such cultures may also have influenced sport scholarship, since sociologists have paid far less attention to violence among athletes than to violence among fans.
Welfare State, Retrenchment of
Authors: Kangas Olli E.
Published: September 2017

Retrenchment of the welfare state pertains to various cost containment efforts governments have tried to introduce. Retrenchment has taken different forms in different countries and different policy areas. It can include cuts in generosity and increasing qualification conditions to make benefits less universal and restrict the number of recipients. Also, changes in the form of financing can be used. In many countries financial responsibilities have been transferred to individuals themselves. The state has limited its role and citizens have more responsibility for their own welfare. The naming of the policies varies. Sometimes retrenchment is used synonymously with cutting, rolling‐back, restructuring, reforming, recasting, recalibrating, and dismantling the welfare state.
Writing as Method
Authors: St. Pierre Elizabeth Adams
Published: September 2017

Writing as a method of inquiry refers to a research practice of foregrounding and investigating how researchers construct knowledge about people, themselves, and the world by writing. This concept, introduced by Laurel Richardson (2000 [1994]) and developed by Elizabeth St. Pierre (Richardson & St. Pierre 2005) and others, brings the idea that writing is thinking from the humanities to the social sciences.
Whole Foods Market
Authors: Johnston Josee
Published: September 2017

Whole Foods Market (WFM) is the world's largest retailer specializing in natural and organic foods. The chain began with one store in Austin, Texas in 1980, and by 2008 had over 270 locations – mainly in the United States, with a handful of locations operating in Canada and the United Kingdom. Since the meaning of terms like “natural” and “organic” are broadly contested, it is important to be more specific about what WFM sells: the stores carry a wide range of USDA‐certified organic foods, the chain is the country's only certified organic grocer, and their own literature states that they do not sell products containing harmful additives, artificial colors, preservatives, sweeteners, and hydrogenated fats (WFM 2008a). A WFM quality standards team maintains a list of chemicals that are banned from the store, and meat benchmark standards specify that meats are produced without antibiotics, growth hormones, or under inhumane conditions (e.g., no beak trimming for broiler chickens).