Concept Of Society Research Articles

Discounting climate change

In this paper I offer a fairly complete account of the idea of social discount rates as applied to public policy analysis. I show that those rates are neither ethical primitives nor observables as market rates of return on investment, but that they ought instead to be derived from economic forecasts and society's conception of distributive justice concerning the allocation of goods and services across personal identities, time, and events. However, I also show that if future uncertainties are large, the formulation of intergenerational well-being we economists have grown used to could lead to ethical paradoxes even if the uncertainties are thin-tailed. Various modelling avenues that offer a way out of the dilemma are discussed. None is entirely satisfactory.

Imagining the Family

Social work theory and research is increasingly exploring conceptions of the family and the child and the possibilities for recognizing and responding to the `voice' of young people. Media images of the family are likely to contribute to society's conception of what a family is or should be, but often fail to represent the diversity of living arrangements that actually exist today. Focusing on the popular cult TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer we argue that this is an example of popular culture that explores both the advantages and the dangers of non-normative family forms, specifically the non-genetic or `chosen' family. We argue that Buffy endorses a non-hierarchical, `democratic' vision of the family (Giddens, 1992), with relationships between friends at its centre and offers a representation of young people that includes personal agency, reflecting the real choices, tensions and conflicts for people living in today's changing family. We argue that popular cultural forms such as Buffy can generate `interactive social worlds' (Plummer, 1995) that are central to the dissemination of new social practices. Implications of this analysis for social work are outlined, in terms of re-conceptualizing the notion of `family' and of innovations in practice and research.

Mavericks and Other Traditions in American Music

The romantic notion of an artist permanently skulking at society's borders has “special resonance in America,” Michael Broyles contends in his new book, because “the historic lack of an infrastructure has pushed artists further to the societal margins” (p. 65). Yet, Broyles argues, since the colonial period the musician has ironically been both at the margins and at the center. To understand this phenomenon, Broyles turns his interpretative lens on William Billings, Anthony Heinrich, Charles Ives, Leo Ornstein, Carl Ruggles, Henry Cowell, Harry Partch, John Cage, La Monte Young, Steve Reich, Frank Zappa, and Meredith Monk. Through each case study, often supplemented by additional figures, Broyles shows how the often ambivalent relationship between composers and audience limned the outlines of a society's own conception of itself. Broyles starts with Billings's willingness to imagine himself a composer at a time and place when such a profession was unheard of. That act alone, coupled with his embrace of themes inspired by a natural world that still frightened his post-Puritan society, made him a maverick. His successor, Anthony Heinrich, cleverly appealed to the early republic's love affair with the frontier and sold himself as a humble backwoods composer. His clumsiness with accepted compositional rules became part of his charm, and with it came inflated hopes that the nation's musical mavericks would forge an American compositional style. That promise awaited another generation, heralded by Leo Ornstein and his contemporary Charles Ives, who both struggled to introduce musical modernism to skeptical American concert audiences. Their lonely crusade earned them significant helpings of scorn and grudging admiration, but they were so outside the mainstream that they barely budged a conservative public. It took the allied efforts of those such as Ruggles, Cowell, and others who in the 1920s formed a coterie of guilds, leagues, and societies that, though often bitter rivals, by “sheer audacity … attracted a public” (p. 144). Those who followed in their wake—Cage, Young, Reich, Zappa, and Monk—combined what were often radical musical insights with a “movement toward theater, an awareness of the potential of new media, and a breakdown of the classical-popular divide” (p. 317). In so doing, they cleverly tapped into the American obsession with celebrity, but ironically their iconoclasm became such an expected part of their work that they became almost banal. The maverick had gone mainstream.

Humanization of healthcare services and the right to healthcare

This article discusses the possibilities and limits of proposals for the humanization of healthcare. The theoretical references utilized are the concept of "reification" as a causative explanation for the process of man's estrangement from his world and the concept of "radical needs" as a possible way of overcoming traditionalist humanism to achieve transformative practice. From these notions, an understanding of the difficulties and contributions of the movement towards humanization is sought, highlighting the interdependence and limits of sectoral changes within healthcare in light of society's concepts and general values. The article concludes by suggesting that guidelines for humanization/satisfaction, in bringing together the critique of society's general questions concerning the daily difficulties of healthcare services, may keep the comprehensiveness of the right to healthcare open beyond the limits of current social relations, thereby favoring a stance that opposes the restrictive trend of minimal public policies towards healthcare.

Doping: a challenge to the endocrinologist. A reappraisal in view of the Olympic Games of 2004

The aim of this review is to provide an update on drug abuse by athletes, their mode of action and the technical difficulties of detection. The most common doping agents are the anabolic steroids (AS), testosterone derivatives modified to take advantage of the anabolic rather than the androgenic properties of the hormone. However, there are numerous side-effects that discourage their use. Several other substances and hormones, GH and rhEPO are currently used alone or combined to enhance performance. The diversity in nature of the substances used requires a constant alertness of physicians to detect drug abuse in sports. Doping is not limited to the professional athletes. It seems to be a generalized phenomenon that reflects modern society's concept of success. Therefore, the campaign to eradicate doping must also focus on individual responsibility. Since modern-day doping is strongly related to hormonal preparations, endocrinologists may play a pivotal role in providing information, protecting athletes' health and, moreover, retaining the ethical value of sport.

‘Bone and blood a slave’: The construct of the slave and slavery in historical novels for children

This paper discusses the historical development of representations of slavery in children's literature. It argues that the way slavery is portrayed in any text will be the result of the author's own background and beliefs as well as the prevalent social view of the issues at the time of writing. By detailed analysis of a number of key texts, from the nineteenth century to the present day, the paper considers the changing views of slavery and how these developments follow society's changing concept of the child and childhood.

Cartões postais paulistanos da virada do século XX: problematizando a São Paulo "moderna"

Considerando que os cartões postais dotados de reproduções fotográficas começam a difundir-se em São Paulo em fins do século XIX, o objetivo deste artigo é analisar se, enquanto documentação iconográfica do contexto paulistano daquele momento, este material teria veiculado, para a sociedade da época, basicamente representações visuais de uma cidade moderna por excelência - e portanto distanciada dos referenciais culturais rurais e escravocratas originados em seu passado colonial. A fim de responder esta questão, explorei, em imagens postais da virada do século XX que tematizam o bonde nas ruas aparentemente mais modernas da área central da cidade, a relação signo-referente por meio de uma contextualização do dia-a-dia vivenciado pelos transeuntes nas ruas retratadas. O estudo revelou que a associação comumente feita entre as vistas urbanas paulistanas da virada do século e a imagem da São Paulo "moderna" não dá conta da lógica que norteia a concepção que a própria sociedade teria tido a respeito das fotografias, em seu tempo.

Youth and Authority: Formative Experiences in England 1560-1640

It is now well-known that there was a separate age of youth in sixteenth-and seventeenth-century society (and before) but in much of the writing on this subject, youth has emerged as a passive construct of the adult society, lacking formative experiences. Paul Griffiths seeks to redress this imbalance by presenting a more 'positive' image of young people, showing that they had a creative presence, an identity, and a historical significance which has never been fully explored. The author looks beyond the prescriptive codes of moralists and governors to survey the attitudes and activities of young people, examining their reaction to authority and to society's concept of the 'ideal place' for them in the social order. He sheds new light on issues as diverse as juvenile delinquency, masculinity, the celebration of Shrovetide, sexual behaviour and courtship, clothing, catechizing, office-holding, vocabularies of insult, prostitution, and church seating plans. His research reveals much about the nature of youth culture, religious commitment, and master/servant relations, and leads to the identification of a separate milieu of 'masterless' young people. Contemporary moralists called youth 'the choosing time', a time of great risks and great potential; and the best time to incalculate political conformity and sound religion. Yet the concept of choice was double-edged, it recognized that young people had other options besides these expectations. This ambiguity is a central theme of theis book which demonstrates that although there was a critical politics of age during this period, young people had their own initiatives and strategies and grew up in all sorts of ways.

The hunt for red elixir: an early collaboration between Fellows of the Royal Society

The early history of the Royal Society has been depicted as the triumph of Baconian empiricists who tested their observations of nature openly, while their foes were superstitious dogmatists who speculated by conjuring hypotheses in secret. We now appreciate how broad the Royal Society's conception of natural philosophy was, especially since so many of its early members had hermetic interests. This essay shows, by examining an early collaborative effort of two fellows, that the actual practice of natural philosophy was broad indeed and hardly revolutionary. Our view of these shadowy figures is usually obscured by the backdrop against which they are set, a backdrop that was created as the category of ‘natural magic’ disappeared, with part becoming science and the rest discarded as superstition. The evidence to be examined includes an alchemical treatise in the British Library and the correspondence discussing it.

Of Birds and Gifts: Reviving Tradition on an Indonesian Frontier

Not long ago, I came across an interesting article in Anthropology Today. In Images of an Ethnic Minority in Indonesia, Mike Hitchcock of the Horniman Museum in London analyzed illustrations of Jayans in booklets he purchased in 1982 during his fieldwork in the province of Nusa Tenggara Barat.1 Published in Jakarta, the nation's capital, the series depicted Indonesia's regional cultures. Examining the volumes on dance, clothing, weaponry, and wedding dress, Hitchcock likened the treatment of subjects the naive manipulation evident in early anthropological photographs. To satisfy their society's conceptions of propriety and truth, the Indonesian photographers, like their turn-of-the-century predecessors, had equipped their models with costumes and props to obtain the images they desired (Hitchcock 1985:2). After an astute evaluation of representations that were simply labeled Irian Jayan, the article ended with a description of a portrait of a wedding couple from Waropen, the only ethnic group from the province specified in the series. The bride and groom are wearing belted tunics, decorated with factory-made braids and fringes and the same beads that adorned the regional costumes from Kalimantan and East Timor (see Figure 1). But most striking of all are the large complete birds worn atop their heads: images which are a constant source of amusement for Indonesian schoolchildren (1985:4). Hitchcock concluded:

Jewishness and Gender: Rethinking Social Scientific Constructions

106 SHOFAR Fall 1995 Vol. 14, No.1 JEWISHNESS AND GENDER: RETHINKING SOCIAL SCIENTIFIC CONSTRUCTIONS by Riv-Ellen Prell Riv-Ellen Prell, an anthropologist, is Associate Professor of American Studies at the University ofMinnesota. She is the author of Prayer and Community: Tbe Havurah in AmericanJudaism (Detroit: Wayne State University Press) and Fighting to Become Americans: Jewish Women and Men in Conflict in the Twentieth Century (New York: Basic Books, forthcoming) Over the course of this centuryJews have thought of themselves, and been thought of, as a race, religion, culture and ethnic group. Each category has been embedded within American society's conceptions of cultural differences, and within the conceptions that its leaders and scholars advocated as they addressed these differences. Since World War Two, Jewish historians and social scientists have settled upon an understanding ofJews as American ethnics who share a religion, although Jews are bound to one another by more than shared religious doctrine. These scholars have studiedJewish economic mobility, marriage patterns, and the maintenance of cultural uniqueness. Studies in the last twenty years have been more likely to compareJews with other ethnic groups to understand varying strategies for Americanizing.1 However, none of these categories IThomas Kessner, The Golden Door: Italian aruijewish ImmigrantMobility in New York City, 1880-1915 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977); Joel Perlmann, Ethnic Differeru::es: Schooling arui Social Structure Among the Irish, Italians, jews, arui Blacks in an American City, 1880-1935 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Andrew Heinze, Adapting to Aburuiaru::e: jewish Immigrant Mass Culture arui the Search for American Iderltity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990); Judith Smith, Family Connections: A History ofItaliarl aruiJewish Immigrant Lives in Provideru::e Rhode Islarui 1900-1940 (Albany: SUNY Press, 1985); and Susan Glenn, Daughters ofthe Shtetl: Life arui Labor in the Immigrant Gerzeration (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990). Rethinking Social Scientific Constructions 107 has attended to internal differentiation among Jews, most obviously by gender. None of these frameworks asks what American Jewish experience looks like if we think ofJews as men and women. None of these studies has explored in any depth what the category "Jewish" means to the people who identify themselves as such. Nor have most of these studies considered how self-definition as "Jewish" is integrated with other self-definitions , such as gender or nationality, although most have paid attention to social c1ass.2 Preceding and paralleling scholarly studies about American Jews are Jews' own innumerable ways of expressing perceptions of themselves. These expressions, in striking contrast to scholarship, pay close attention to differences between Jewish men and women and attribute blame and virtue very systematically to each.3 Indeed, all dimensions of Jewish culture-music, film, theater, and literature-not only include men and women, but make relationships between men and women central.4 In these works, Jewish culture is dynamic. The conflicts and relationships between Jewish men and Jewish women change over time, and change in response to a variety of factors, including their economic positions. Fundamental definitions of Jewish manhood and womanhood, and of parents and children, shift dramatically from decade to decade, from urban settings to suburban ones, and from one sort of definition of Jewish religious practice to another. In contrast, those who study Jews as an ethnic group assume that its members constitute a single "interest group." They see internal stratification , whether by class or gender, as less compelling than Jews' difference 2More recent studies have dealt with gender, although they assume that "Jewishness" does not require investigation; it is simply group membership. For examples, see Glenn, Daughters; Heinze, Adapting; and Smith, Family Connections. ~In her work on emancipation in the nineteenth and early twentieth century in the U.S. and Europe, Paula Hyman discusses why women are portrayed first as parochial, and then as irresponsible in the handling of their children's Jewish educations. See her Gender and Emaru:ipation (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995). 'Phyllis Chock calls for an anthropology of ethnicity in the United States which locates "scholarly discourses on ethnicity in their relationship with indigenous discourse." See her "The Landscape ofEnchantment: Redaction in a Theory ofEthnicity," CulturalAnthropology 4 (1989): 163. 108 SHOFAR Fall 1995 Vol. 14, NdDIi...

Protecting Motherhood: Women and the Family in the Politics of Postwar West Germany.

Robert G. Moeller is the first historian of modern German women to use social policy as a lens to focus on society's conceptions of gender difference and woman's place. He investigates the social, economic, and political status of women in West Germany after World War II to reveal how the West Germans, emerging from the rubble of the Third Reich, viewed a reconsideration of gender relations as an essential part of social reconstruction. The debate over woman's place in the fifties was part of West Germany's confrontation with the ideological legacy of National Socialism. At the same time, the presence of the Cold War influenced all debates about women and the family. In response to the woman question, West Germans defined the boundaries not only between women and men, but also between East and West. Moeller's study shows that public policy is a crucial arena where women's needs, capacities, and possibilities are discussed, identified, defined, and reinforced. Nowhere more explicitly than in the first decade of West Germany's history did, in Joan Scott's words, politics construct gender and gender construct politics.

Piaget's enduring contribution to developmental psychology.

Piaget's transformation of society's conception of childhood thought and intelligent is described in 4 periods in the history of his research program, which spanned from the 1920s to the 1980s. The account stresses the enduring contribution to developmental psychology of Piaget's constructivism, his description of developmental mechanisms, his cognitivism, his explication of structural and functional analysis, and his address of epistemological issues and nontraditional methodologies

Time as a Commodity: Reflections and Implications

American society's conceptualization of time as a commodity has supported occupational therapy practice since its inception. This article discusses numerous contemporary media messages about time both because they are pervasive and because their meaning often escapes us. Popular magazines, greeting cards, and cartoons weave themes about time into the fabric of other messages. There is remarkable coherence in the themes that cut across these three sources of time messages. Commercial images reveal the ideas that we are asked to accept about time; satirical images ask us to reflect about the ideas that we have accepted. A preponderance of images suggest that we control time and live in style. These suggestions constitute a cultural force that shapes personal values toward an end that we rarely consider. Occupational therapists need to recognize the presence and power of media images that radically challenge the meaning of living a satisfying life.

The blood transfusion taboo of Jehovah's Witnesses: Origin, development and function of a controversial doctrine

Jehovah's Witnesses are not allowed to accept a blood transfusion. According to the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society this therapy is a transgression of divine precepts. Additionally, in the judgement of the believers, secular proof is abundant these days; to them AIDS is a powerful justification to abstain from blood. Founded on the work of the anthropologist Mary Douglas, it is argued that the rejection of this medical therapy is based on perceptions of pollution and purity inherent in the Watch Tower Society's ideological concept of anti-worldliness. Rooted in the movement's pre-war opposition to vaccination the implementation of the taboo was triggered by the prevailing social-political climate surrounding the Society during the Second World War, resulting in this intriguing and controversial religious proscription. For the community of Jehovah's Witnesses the blood transfusion taboo still functions as a significant mechanism of sectarian boundary maintenance.

The Social Transformation of Vice

What is vice, and how does it differ from crime? Why does society's conception of vice shift over time? Which social and cultural factors lead to reassessments of the moral blameworthiness inherent in the concept of vice? This article considers these questions and argues that, because vice both represents and results from moral ambivalence, it is distinguishable from the concept of crime;1 vice is continually subject to reevaluation. Attitudes toward vice are thus inherently unstable. Further, moral ambivalence varies, depending upon how the particular characteristics of a vice map on to basic cultural values.2 Values are often inconsistent with one another and drift over

Exchanging Territories for Peace: A Macrosociological Approach

The Israeli public experienced much confusion during the removal of Israeli settlements from the Sinai Peninsula. The author discusses this confusion and its sources: problems and contradictions related to the society's concept of peace and its value, and the conflict between Israel's desires for peace and recognition versus fears of reversing the settlement process and of losing Israel's identity through integration with the Arab states. The evacuation proceeded as scheduled and without civil war, according to the author, because Egypt's offer was highly desirable, because those opposing withdrawal were not as powerful as the government and military and were unable to attract a broad cross-section of the public, and because the government made a firm decision to negotiate with Egypt and offer territory for peace.

Psychology as a quantitative rational science (excerpts)

The purpose of the Psychometric Society is to encourage mathematical psychology. This article justifies the emphasis on quantification, and upon rationalization in science, as well as the Society's conception of the fundamental nature of science.

A consideration of the ethics of brain death--what are the ethical guidelines for physician, family and society in dealing with brain death?

There is at present considerable confusion with respect to ethical guidelines that should govern the behavior of society and the physician confronted by problems resulting from recent attainments of medicine and science. The use of life supporting devices raises the problem of determining when death has occurred and what is proper ethical procedure in dealing with the deficient half life caused by "Brain Death." Some guidance is obtained from a consideration of the nature of life, the nature of death, the nature of man, and the essence lost in death of man. A parallel consideration of the nature of ethics, the bases of ethics and of ethical decision can be helpful. An individual may have ideals which control behavior, even elevate ethical standards; others entertain concepts that destroy social ethics. Ethics control and direct social interactions; ethics determine the quality of social behavior--ethics are established by societies not by individuals. Numerous commissions have endeavored to define the requirements of physicians for diagnosing brain death and for appropriate subsequent actions. The rationales presented, however, are not invariably accepted by lay society. The problem is created by numerous trends. Among them are the "rightest" movement which, though possessing many virtues, has its excesses such as expressed in the "right to life movement." These have not been beneficial and have necessitated "right to death movements." Opposition is also due to the fact that society's concepts of the medical profession have changed. The practice of organ transplantation has created problems. Finally, the concept of death as other than evil is no longer generally accepted. As more biological manipulations are possible ever more difficult ethical problems will arise. It is a certainty, however, that when brain death has occurred life of man and that of the individual has ended. Although others might not agree, our ethic requires us to use life assist techniques to preserve the vegetative man, the individual who can still breathe spontaneously though lacking consciousness and behavioral ability. All the codes of medical ethics state that a physician shall not kill--this does not mean he cannot permit the terminal phases of death when the essence of human life is lost. A major question is the ethical responsibility of one society toward another. Can an affluent society squander its resources in the preservation of ineffectual life in the body after "brain death" when others are without the medical assistance which would permit total living?

Time in the Streets

The influence of society on the conceptualization of time was noted by Durkheim when he argued that the very concept of time is social in origin. A society's conception of time is an essential part of culture, influencing and being influenced by many other key concepts, including those of the person and proper conduct. Time images are the symbolic representations of time available to persons in a given society. For an alcoholic who envisions no real hope of returning to normal society and who has experienced destitution and powerlessness, the arrival of a check signifies some claim to power. The weather is, of course, a major factor in this cycle since the street people are exposed to it to a far greater extent than anyone else in American society. The relationship between time image, time orientation, purpose, and behavior is of crucial importance given the social situation in the United States.