Central Social Institutions Research Articles

Education as a System: The Content of the Foresight Methodology

The article reveals the substantive aspects of the Foresight methodology of social forecasting of the devel­opment of the education system as a complex, dynamic, open system from the point of view of a systematic approach. It is assumed that the education system is a central social institution, which, being associated with the transmission of knowledge, has to, in order to form a holistic personality of human beings, also support its own systemic complexity, as well as correspond to the complexity of the entire structure of society. The paper emphasizes some substantive difficulties in the work of experts in the framework of Foresight studies, as well as the need to take into account the value aspect when predicting the education of the future.

Remembering Media and Journalism in Socialist Yugoslavia

In recent decades, memory studies have become a prominent interdisciplinary field of research, with several studies focusing on the specifics of socialist Yugoslavia and its demise. Less attention, however, has been paid to the media and journalism in the life and functioning of the state. This study explores what role these central social institutions played in everyday lives of the population, what level of trust they enjoyed amongst them, and how they influenced the proccesses of formation of collective and individual memory in socialist Yugoslavia. We address these issues by analysing 96 semi-structured oral history interviews with media audiences. Interviewees had personal recollections of this era, since they lived in socialist Yugoslavia most of their lives, and could therefore provide unique and valuable insights not available by other means. Interpretative analysis was done with deductive coding of the interviews and was separated into three parts: everyday media use; trust in the media and journalism; and perceptions of socialist Yugoslavia. We resorted to some broad generalisations, which enabled us to give a short overview of the dataset, while also indicating their value for future research. In general, this data provides a much more nuanced picture of the socialist past than it is usual in today’s polarised public discussion.

Contextualizing Educational Disparities and the Evaluation of Teacher Quality

Abstract Value added scores, statistical estimates of teacher quality, are representative of neoliberal logic. The higher average scores of teachers of socially advantaged students raise concerns that scores are inaccurate and unfair, and propagate decontextualized neoliberal understandings of the nature of learning and teachers’ work. This study uses longitudinal data from roughly 4,500 teachers in a large urban district between 2007–08 through 2012–13 to follow individual teachers as they switch into schools of different “performance levels” over time. Fixed-intercept models tracking individual teachers between 2007–08 and 2012–13 showed scores increased for teachers who switched into high-performing schools and decreased for teachers who switched into low-performing schools. Particularly indicative of scores biased by contextual factors outside teachers’ control, score changes for mobile teachers are partially attributable to shifts in the economic status and race of students in teachers’ classrooms and schools. Understanding how neoliberalism operates within education provides sociological insight into how neoliberalism is legitimated and perpetuated in other central social institutions, such as the criminal justice system, the environment, gender, sexuality, and health.

Fifty Shades of Socializing: Slosh and Munch Events in the Bdsm Community

All over the world, BDSM practitioners meet together in public, often in restaurants and bars. The socialization that happens at these events is a critical part of the BDSM lifestyle/community. However, no previous research has collected large quantities of data to learn about the event. In this article, we look into BDSM practitioners and their experiences and attitudes towards the munch and variations on the munch. What we find in this international survey on munches, and other similar nonplay BDSM events, is that it seems to be the central social institution of the BDSM lifestyle. Respondents report going to munches frequently and rate them highly as part of their lifestyle. The data also suggest that these events tend to be much less sexually charged and alcohol driven than many outsiders would expect them to be. In general, we see that these events seem to not only be a critical institution for those in the BDSM lifestyle but also works as an important conduit to newcomers, enabling them to integrate quickly and well into the BDSM lifestyle in a safe public environment.

Media and religion

There are two possible ways of presenting this themed issue: the media ... and religion, or religion ... and the media. We have ‘naturally’ preferred to privilege media as the first term with which to frame the topic, and we start from a socio-cultural perspective on the question of religion. Mediatization theory is a hot topic at the moment and has been much debated in recent issues of this journal. It serves as a useful entry-point into the relationship between the media and religion. In one influential account of this contested term, mediatization is a phenomenon of late 20th-century modernity and is primarily concerned with the impact and effect of the media system (the daily press and broadcasting services) as a central social institution on other key contemporary social institutions (e.g. politics and sport). Stig Hjarvard, the leading proponent of this approach, has examined religion from this perspective and provides a framework for its discussion by the other participants in the panel on the mediatization of religion which opens up this special themed issue.1 The context of this discussion is particular: all contributors are from northern Europe where Lutheranism is the dominant national religious church. The issues addressed, however, go well beyond this region and its particular institutionalized forms of religion. The conventional wisdom that religion is in decline, in Europe at least, undermined by a long historic trend toward the secularization of modern societies, is increasingly debatable, as Hjarvard acknowledges. But it is for sure, he argues, that the media are themselves modern, worldly, secular institutions whose overall impact has played a part in that decline. What percolates through the media is a diffuse representation of what, with a nod to Michael Billig’s concept of banal nationalism, Hjarvard calls banal religion. Not meant as a pejorative term, banal religiosity shows up in countless narratives about angels, demons, the supernatural, and the afterlife which circulate in TV dramas, movies, and best-seller popular novels of which The Da Vinci Code is exemplary. The leakage of the authority of the traditional churches stands in contrast with a diffuse spiritual sensibility in modern societies, the evidence for which is pervasively present in everyday popular culture.

Analogical Reasoning (Qiyas) and the Commodification of Women: Applying Commercial Concepts to the Marital Relationship in Islamic Law

Analogical reasoning (qiyas) is one of the four sources of Islamic jurisprudence. It is recognised that the outcomes of qiyas are generally speculative in nature. However, a vast portion of the corpus of Islamic law is derived based on qiyas. One such area is marital relationship and mutual rights of the spouses. In several areas of marital relationship and mutual rights, the Islamic jurisprudents have applied concepts and tools that are related to commerce or business (tijarah). Such terminologies include bay’ (exchange/buy/sale) and ijarah (lease). This article examines such employment of business-related framework in the area of marital relationship and mutual rights. Based on both classical and post-classical legal sources, the author analyses the legalistic tendency underlying the legacy of the traditional Islamic law, as exemplified in using business-related framework in an overreaching manner. This article also offers an explanation of how the traditional Islamic view on slavery might be closely connected to this commodified view. Furthermore, it sheds light on how such commodification can impact on family as a central social institution.

Qiyas (Analogical Reasoning) and Commodification of Women: Applying Commercial Concepts to Marital Relationship in Orthodox Islamic Law

Analogical reasoning (Qiyas) is one of the four sources of Islamic fiqh. It is recognized that the outcomes of Qiyas are generally speculative in nature. However, a vast portion of the corpus of Islamic law is derived based on Qiyas. One such area is marital relationship and mutual rights of the spouses. In several areas of marital relationship and mutual rights, the Islamic jurisprudents have applied concepts and tools that are related to commerce or business (tijarah). Such terminologies include bai’ (exchange/buy/sale) and ijarah (lease). This paper examines such employment of business-related framework in the area of marital relationship and mutual rights. Based on both classical and post-classical legal sources, the author analyzes the legalistic tendency underlying the legacy of the traditional Islamic law, as exemplified in using business-related framework in an overreaching manner. Such tendency is akin to commodification of women, which is inconsistent with the values and spirit of Islam, as enshrined in the primary two sources, the Qur’an and Sunnah.A broad range of gender-related issues is related to such commodified view of woman. Also, this paper offers an explanation of how the traditional Islamic view on slavery might be closely connected to this commodified view. Furthermore, it sheds light on how such commodification can impact on family as a central social institution. The paper identifies some of the relevant areas, where the use of Qiyas has been overstretched in Islamic law and strong circumspection is called for in employing such business-related framework to marital/gender relationship.

Associações de Pais, interculturalidade e clivagem sociológica: algumas questões

Escola e família constituem duas instituições sociais centrais das nossas sociedades. A família, de algum modo, sempre o foi. A escola, porém, constitui ainda hoje uma miragem para muitos (incluindo crianças), quando pensada à escala planetária. Famílias e escolas têm vindo, assim, a ser objecto de crescente atenção por parte das ciências sociais, dando, desde há cerca de um século, origem a ramos especializados (história e sociologia da família, história e sociologia da educação, por exemplo). A interface escola-família demorou mais algum tempo a tornar-se objecto de estudo, mas as últimas décadas têm trazido a lume excelentes contributos para a sua análise, sobretudo por parte das ciências da educação, em particular por mão da sociologia.Palavras-chave: escola e família, sociologia da família, sociologia da educaçãoAbstractAssociations of Parents, Interculturality and Sociological division: Some questionsSchool and family represent two central social institutions in our societies. Family, to a certain extent, has always had this role. School, on the other hand, is still today a mirage for many (including children), when the planetary scale is considered. Thus, for almost a century, families and schools have received more attention from social sciences, giving origin to specialized subjects, such as family history and sociology, the history and sociology of education. The school-family interface took longer to become a subject of study, although excellent contributions which have analysed it have been studied over the last decades, especially in education science, and particularly sociology. Key words: school and family, family sociology, sociology of education

The "New" Criminal Justice System: State Repression from 1968 to 2001

Consider again the numbers: in the last twenty years the Justice Department's budget grew by 900 percent; over 60 percent of all prisoners are in for non-violent drug crimes; an estimated one-in-three black men between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine are under some type of criminal justice control or sought on a warrant; nationwide some 6.5 million people are in prison, on parole or probation. From the left it is clear that the United States is an over-policed, surveillance society that uses prison as one of its central social institutions. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

East-West Dialogue in Social Work for Older People and Their Families

This paper examines issues of family care in eastern and western societies. Through a discussion of the notion of “filial piety”, it is argued that the family remains the central social institution providing care for those older people who are in need, both in eastern and western societies. From this analysis, it is suggested that there are comparative lessons to be learned in the way social work with older people and their families is conceptualised. Attention to “indirect” forms of practice, especially in supporting family carers, and to gender issues in family care, are seen to be important for the future development of social work in this field.

Narratives of age and uprootedness among older Cambodian refugees

This article examines Cambodian refugees' beliefs and traditions about age from the perspective of the cultural life course. Drawing on a study of 39 Cambodians between the ages of 50 and 79, the article explores the process of life reorganization from the standpoint of social liminality. The narratives of these refugees illustrate how cultural traditions shape views of who is old. Moreover, these narratives illustrate how gender roles and their loss, as well as factors that mitigate role loss, shape the experience of old age. It is concluded that (1) subscribing to the traditional cultural template for the Cambodian life course provides a sense of continuity in the face of disruption, and (2) the Cambodian family, as a central social institution, serves as a vehicle for role continuity, role loss, and the management of conflict. The extended family thus continues to be a primary source of meaning as elders reorganize their lives in old age.

Ethnic diversity and national identity

During the last two decades, there has been a striking and, so far as socio logical theory is concerned, largely unanticipated resurgence of religious fundamentalism and primordial ethnic loyalties across the world. We have witnessed the dissolution of formerly inclusive but ethnically diverse states into ethnically more 'homogeneous' nations, the breakdown of social solidarity due to competing ethnic claims, and a repugnant process called ethnic cleansing. We have also seen the resurgence of religious fundamentalism and, in most industrialised countries, the marginalisation of minority groups from a central social institution (the paid labour market) as a result of high unemployment. The threat, and the reality, of ethnic conflict is now widespread. In culturally diverse countries such as Australia, ethnic diversity is sometimes seen as a threat to national unity. It is therefore important to examine the extent to which Australians today share a common civic culture that binds a culturally diverse citizenry together. This article examines recent data on the sources of national identity, its variation across ethnic sub-groups, and its relation to ethnic prejudice and to views about immigrants and immigration.

Inventing Secondary Education: The Rise of the High School in Nineteenth-Century Ontario

Inventing Secondary Education is the first contemporary examination of the origins of the Ontario high school, and one of the very few which focuses on the development of secondary education anywhere in Canada. The authors chart the transformation of the high school from a peripheral to a central social institution. They explore the economic and social pressures which fuelled the expansion of secondary education, the political conflicts which shaped the schools, and the shifts in curriculum as new forms of knowledge disrupted traditional pedagogical values. By the late nineteenth century the high school had acquired a secure clientele by anchoring itself firmly to the educational and professional ambitions of young people and their families. Drawn from an enormous amount of empirical data derived from school records, census manuscript material, assessment rolls, and literary and biographical sources, Inventing Secondary Education enriches our historical understanding of schooling in nineteenth-century Ontario society and illuminates some of the roots of modern educational dilemmas.

The South Asheville Colored Cemetery, 1840-1943

The South Asheville Colored Cemetery 1840-1943 Wilburn Hayden, Jr. As a people trying to regain our history, African-Americans often have to look to religious institutions, tax records of property, a major racial incident, or a distinguished black person of considerable accomplishments. Seldom do we find an opportunity that looks at the past from an ordinary African-American perspective . This writing is such an account. It examines blacks as a people meeting basic needs. The South Asheville Colored Cemetery serves as a focal point, linking to us a small piece of the culture as it was during the early 1900s. In 1840 Asheville was a small town with regulations regarding where burials took place. Where does one bury slaves? Since it was unacceptable for slaves to be buried in the white cemeteries of the day, the McDowell family of Asheville provided land in the area we now call the South Asheville black community. This land became the burial ground for Asheville black slaves. George Avery, one of the McDowell family s slaves, was responsible for the care of the cemetery . He served as the cemetery caretaker after the Civil War and until his death. With the ending of slavery, the black church emerged as the central social institution for black people. The churches, through the ministers, were the voice to the white society, the sources of educational opportunities, community bonds, and social status. Much like the white churches of Appalachia, the black churches emerged after slavery with land adjacent to the church for a cemetery. This was the pattern in Haywood, Jackson , and other counties in the mountains where blacks were found. From 1840, Asheville had a common cemetery which predated the establishment of the black churches. Though it is not clear when the Burial Association/Cemetery Board was founded jointly by St. John A. Baptist Church and St. Mark AME Church, the Asheville Colored Cemetery became the place for burying members of the two churches as well as other black residents of South Asheville. When my family came to Asheville in 1922 we joined the St. John A. Baptist Church ... I found that there was already what was called the Burial Association/ Cemetery Board which was staffed by members from the St. John A. and St. Mark Church ... I remember Mr. John Ragsdale was a member of the Board . . . Both churches took care of the cemetery . . . and as far as I knew both churches owned the land that the churches and cemetery was on . . . If you or your family member were not a member of either St. John A. or St. Mark, then there was a burial fee of between $75 and $85 to be paid . . . There was also a fee of $15 to be paid to the gravedigger ... In those days that was considered a lot of money and some families would dig their own family members' graves to save money ... the burial fee at South Asheville was low 27 compared to most burial grounds who were charging $115 and higher. The arrangements for burial were made between the members of the Cemetery Board Committee and the undertakers. One of the undertakers would notify the committee that they had a body and that the family requested burial at the South Asheville Cemetery. . . . The committee would review the request and grant permission for the burial. (Rev. Benjamin F. Brewer, August 19, 1989) During the second or third decade, blacks were allowed burial in a portion of the city-owned Riverside Cemetery. Individuals not having burial insurance or the fees for the South Asheville Cemetery were buried in Riverside Cemetery. Now back then Riverside was the only white cemetery that would bury blacks . . . but they put all the blacks down on the back side of the cemetery. (Ms. Annie Mae Bolden, August 15, 1989) Most of the cemetery was made up of family plots. Families would use small fences, vegetation, or markers to distinguish their plots. It was a beautiful headstone with praying hands. . . . There used to be three headstones out there. . . . We had a plot [that] was fenced in at one time. . . . My grandmother had a headstone, my aunt Delia had a headstone and there was one headstone...

Literacy and Revolt: Some Empirical Notes on 1789 in France

It has been widely argued that the growth of mass literacy is critical for the development of modern forms of contentious politics. Recent Scholarship, however, has challenged this view. This study explores the relationship between levels of literacy in rural France toward the end of 18th century and the extent and nature of peasant mobilization at the beginning of the French Revolution. It is found that literacy did not promote rural disturbances as such but that the forms and targets of peasant actions in the more literate areas difered from those in the less literate. The less literate districts were notable for mobilization against rumored but nonexistent invasions, whereas the most literate districts nurtured attacks on the central social institutions of the Old Regime.