Sociological Definition Research Articles

Framing Vision: An Examination of Framing, Sensegiving, and Sensemaking During a Change Initiative

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this short article is to review the findings from an instrumental case study that examines how a college president used what this article refers to as “frame alignment processes” to mobilize internal and external support for a college initiative—one that achieved success under the current president. Specifically, I explored the social construction processes by which understanding of change come about, focusing on the use of “frames” as the central mechanism through which a leader’s vision is transformed into meaning and action. This article draws on the sociological definitions of framing, as well as recent research on the use of framing methods and alignment processes. An analysis of qualitative data obtained via an interview with one college president reveals that there are at least three types of frames—or framing methods—that can be employed by college leaders to mobilize the support of stakeholders. This study builds on previous studies that examined how leaders on college campuses communicate their visions for change, and supports the notion that leaders can strategically manage their messages to their stakeholders.

Definition of the Subjectivity of Financial Capital in Sociological Science

Background/Objectives: Financiers represent a professional and social group pursuing social legitimacy and self-legitimation on the basis of professional competence, autonomy of action and transformational impact on the Russian economy and Russian society. Methods/Statistical analysis: empirical basis of the paper is represented by the results of independent sociological research, part of which being a survey among the bank employees in Volgograd and the Volgograd region (Volzhsky, Kamyshin, Mikhailovka, Uryupinsk, Frolovo) titled The attitude of the staff to the implementation of social policies by the banking sector (February - March, 2013, n = 350). Findings: agents of financial capital have not exhausted their potential of the independent carriers of social activity in contrast to the traditional agents (political parties, public institutions), since the issue of converting financial capital into human capital has not lost its relevance, but on the contrary, there is an increasing public demand for this. Secondly, while the agents of the financial capital have to develop codes to reconsider the financial activity, in this new situation the financial capital acts as an increasingly powerful tool of innovation, rather than supports the status quo in the society. Thirdly, sociological definition of the subjectivity of financial capital involves an appeal to the invariance of finance as a means of social positioning. Applications/Improvements: concept of social capitalization provides an opportunity to see the logic of an agent acting in the financial sub-field, as well as to track the path of financial resources converting into the power ones.

On the Ontology of Archaeology

Being an archaeologist requires social legitimization and acceptance within a community of archaeological practice. The term “archaeologist” is unsettled at an abstract level but is well defined in local contexts. A sociological definition is offered for "archaeologist" that is based upon a philosophical understanding of "archaeology." Archaeology has qualities that make it special and only those willing to advance through accepted legitimating processes achieve the title "archaeologist." Thus, not everyone should be an archaeologist.

Misurare l'immateriale: il caso dei beni relazionali

The paper discusses how to measure the social intangible goods called «relational goods» (BR). In order to define these goods and carry out a survey to measure them, the authors adopted the paradigm of relational sociology which has been developed in Italy in the last three decades. After clarifying the sociological definition of the relational goods, the authors operationalize the concept in a multidimensional way, as constituted by two relations, the intersubjective relationship (RS) and the reflexivity relation (RI). The methodological and empirical analysis is carried out along various dimensions, from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. The different dimensions of the relational goods are measured through the introduction of items, indicators and sub-indexes, and the use of vector (not scalar) quantities. The empirical survey has been applied to groups of mutual and self-help (third sector) and for profit enterprises. The empirical results show that the proposed model of investigation is valid. It allows the assessment of relational goods produced in different spheres of society, on the basis of the quality and causal power of the social relations constituting these intangible goods

Use of the discourse analysis method to study current political practice (by the example of representation of the political leader image)

The potentialities in the application of the discourse analysis method to study a political discourse as a current political practice are shown. The authors, using the Foucault methodology, offer a sociological definition for the political discourse. It is the authors’ opinion that the approach mentioned allows investigating a political discourse as a practice for the formation of a certain reality, specific agents, institutions and organizations. A political discourse is a simulative dynamic model of political area where various subdiscourses interact, thus creating their own ideas of policy, symbols and images. Subdiscourses of political leaders become dominating. Inasmuch as a political discourse in a current political system is carried out with the aid of mass media, it could be considered as a media discourse of policy. The authors consider the representation as a basic mechanism for the formation of a political discourse, by the example of the representation of the image of V.V. Putin, the President of the Russian Federation. The representation of a political leader image in a political discourse has a number of peculiarities. It is carried out on the basis of certain principles with the aid of the system of political codes. Empiric investigations allowed making a conclusion that the main symbolic image for the Russian President is an image of a super-hero. It is the authors’ opinion, the image of V.V. Putin as a leader super-hero is determined by the specificity of the Russian political culture within the limits of which a leader is a center of power establishing an authoritarian style of ruling. The authors show the process of the political legitimacy displacement from the institutional level to the personal one by means of mass media. A political leader gains a status of a subject establishing moral, social and value reference points for the whole of the society.

Sociological Approaches to the European Union in Times of Turmoil

AbstractThis contribution aims at questioning the explanatory capacity of sociological approaches to European integration in times of crisis. Its main argument is that in times of turmoil – perceived or real – analysis of actors’ strategies and cognitive frames is crucial for understanding the emergence of solutions proposed to remedy the problem. Starting from a sociological definition of crisis, the article illustrates through empirical examples how the cognitive frames in which actors evolve determine their analysis of problems as well as solutions. Sociological approaches to public policy, which reject the basic assumption of actors behaving solely according to a presumed material cost–benefit analysis, help us to better grasp the complexity of decision‐making. The main reason for this is that they allow for linking the domestic and European levels when analysing cognitive and decision‐making processes, instead of concentrating on either European citizens or European elites separately.

Review Article: Recent Theorisations of Trauma Fiction, Postcolonialism, and the South African Novel

Drawing on both psychological and sociological definitions of trauma, the essay collection The Splintered Glass engages with the intersection between individual and cultural trauma, while simultaneously warning against the blurring of the distinction between the two. In line with this, trauma is defined not only as a wound of the mind of an individual, but also as a link between cultures (x). While bearing a remarkable resemblance to the Freudian haunting inherent in most definitions of historical trauma (see also Erikson, Tal and Caruth), the concept of cultural trauma, as utilised in this collection, is situated in the present and seeks to transcend this haunting by gesturing towards a safe post-traumatic space (6). A traumatic history established and sustained by power structures, social agents and contending groups in a constant, recurrent struggle that stirs up a troubling memory (xii) is shared by many, if not all, postcolonial societies.

Theorizing Diaspora and Music

This article sketches out a synthesis of issues that have emerged in the study of diaspora and music. The author identifies two broad approaches in the literature: 1) diaspora as social formation and 2) diaspora as metaphor. By “diaspora as social formation” is meant approaches that stress a sociological definition of diaspora and that emphasize the historical facts and material conditions of diasporas, with empirical enquiry focused on the social networks that maintain diasporic communities and the role of music in articulating such networks. In contrast, approaches that evoke “diaspora as metaphor” emphasize the interpretive possibilities that the idea of diaspora enables in regard to the historical and contemporary global flows of music. The article ends with a brief discussion of the metaphor of the rhizome as a way of thinking about the non-hierarchical nature of diasporic networks, and of the way music may articulate the different nodes of these networks while providing a vehicle for the imagination and performance of diasporic consciousness.

F-formation detection: individuating free-standing conversational groups in images.

Detection of groups of interacting people is a very interesting and useful task in many modern technologies, with application fields spanning from video-surveillance to social robotics. In this paper we first furnish a rigorous definition of group considering the background of the social sciences: this allows us to specify many kinds of group, so far neglected in the Computer Vision literature. On top of this taxonomy we present a detailed state of the art on the group detection algorithms. Then, as a main contribution, we present a brand new method for the automatic detection of groups in still images, which is based on a graph-cuts framework for clustering individuals; in particular, we are able to codify in a computational sense the sociological definition of F-formation, that is very useful to encode a group having only proxemic information: position and orientation of people. We call the proposed method Graph-Cuts for F-formation (GCFF). We show how GCFF definitely outperforms all the state of the art methods in terms of different accuracy measures (some of them are brand new), demonstrating also a strong robustness to noise and versatility in recognizing groups of various cardinality.

Suicide as Protest in the French Workplace

France has experienced a sharp rise in work-related suicides in the 2000s with unprecedented numbers of workers choosing to kill themselves in the face of severe pressures at work. Drawing on testimonial material linked to recent suicide cases, this article examines the ‘social meanings’ of these suicides as defined by suicidal individuals themselves. Suicide and its causes have long been a central preoccupation of French theorists since Emile Durkheim's Le Suicide (1897). Recent suicides share a communicative, expressive and vindictive purpose and seem to contradict Durkheim's classic sociological definition of suicide. In a context of deteriorating working conditions and a collapse of collective forms of mobilisation, recent suicides may represent a new and extreme form of protest.

Sociologia política e processos macro-históricos

Neste artigo, parto de uma breve exposição sobre algumas das muitas maneiras de se fazer sociologia política, para ilustrar a diversidade da área. Em seguida, comento uma dessas várias abordagens - aquela que privilegia as análises macro-históricas, salientando a preferência dessa perspectiva pela observação de grandes processos de transformação. Por fim, adotando essa mesma opção, discuto algumas das transformações em curso para sugerir que elas colocam desafios teóricos e metodológicos consideráveis para a sociologia política. Reconhecendo que os desafios em questão se colocam para além dela e, efetivamente, interpelam todas as ciências sociais, argumento que a justificativa para meu exercício é a convicção de que a sociologia política macro histórica é especialização vocacionada a refletir sobre tais transformações e a lançar luz sobre a obsolescência de certos esquemas analíticos consagrados pela tradição sociológica.

The Institution of Marriage: Mediation of Nature and Culture in Cross-Cultural Perspective.

It is no coincidence that dictionaries choose “marriage” to illustrate the sociological definition of “institution.” To appreciate this, and to understand marriage as an institution, I will discuss in this chapter (1) changes in modern scholarship on marriage; (2) the universal, nearly universal, and variable features of marriage; and (3) a case study of three universals in premodern, complex societies from a comparative perspective on world religions.

Science, reform, and the ‘science of reform’: Booker T Washington, Robert Park, and the making of a ‘science of society’

This article examines how Robert Park’s work, first at the American Congo Reform Association (ACRA) as a secretary/publicity agent and later at Tuskegee Institute as Booker T Washington’s researcher, ghostwriter, and co-author, influenced how he conceptualized what academic sociology could do and should be. Once he secured an academic position at the University of Chicago, Park, like many of his peers, sought to establish his difference from and superiority over practical reformers by defining his object of study – society – as a ‘social organism’ which was governed by natural laws. Park’s definition of sociology and its object of study made it possible not only to exclude non-academic researchers from the discipline but also to place his own actions as a ‘reformer’ (i.e. imperial consultant at Tuskegee and the ACRA) beyond scholarly inquiry. Park’s relationship to Washington helps to explain the relationship between sociology’s separation from the reform movement and the erasure of colonialism and imperialism from disciplinary history. It also partially accounts for why contemporary sociology’s analytical structure still struggles to account for and theoretically capture the complexities of colonial history.

A pragmatic way of achieving Highly Sustainable Organisation: Governance and organisational learning in action in the public French sector

Sustainability is becoming more and more the key challenge for organisations. Sustainability depends on internal and external characteristics of the organisation that should or must be preserved within the time and depends on the definition of what is a suitable state of the system (organisation and its environment) within medium and long terms as safety can be seen as feature of sustainability. The concept of sustainability is a key concept for safety researchers and practitioners. The reverse is true as safety concepts are useful to think sustainability which is still rather new. They share common research grounds on management and organisations sciences.In France, as exemplary organisations, public organisations are working on issues related to both the assessment and governance of sustainability. In this paper we propose a “proactive-based assessment” designed to measure an organisation’s ability to govern and achieve sustainability.The proposed assessment method relies on three new concepts: “critical capital”; Highly Sustainable Organisation (HSO), and learning stages within an HSO.Although there are some elements of unpredictability in complex systems, sustainability for an organisation is based at least on its ability to learn and adapt. There are different ways of conceiving sustainability for public organisations. Even though there is no consensus on the way public organisations are conceived, there is still a philosophical and political agreement on the need for more sustainability. However, it is still unclear and sometimes not even pointed “what should be sustained for public organisations?”. We suggest that the “critical capital” is characterised by internal and external aspects of the organisation that should be preserved within the time such as (i) the way of functioning of the organisation, (ii) the way the missions are performed or exercised by the organisation to meet what is contextually referred as being of public and common needs and (iii) the “organisational memory” that represents the identity of the public organisation and the assets of the public organisation. The term “Capital” does not refer to its definition in economy but to its given definitions in sociology (see for example Ferragina, 2010) and ecology (see for example Jansson, 1994). Criticality is fixed “according to the way public service is conceived, to the contextual constraints (such as economical, environmental, social, cultural and ethical) and according to the degree and the nature of threats (natural and manmade hazards).We suggest that organisational sustainability is the ability of the system to preserve and to maintain, within the time, a critical capital and to adapt to its ecosystem. Accordingly, a loss of organisational sustainability indicate whether the organisation is prone to shift to an undesirable organisational state that would decrease the ability or even cease to provide services to the ecosystem and to maintain its identity. In other words, it is an organisation that loses part of its critical capital.Accordingly, we have proposed a development stage model to make explicit the way we have observed in these organisations a common progression in the initiatives they have taken to address sustainability challenges and build learning and innovation capabilities.The three concepts arise from a four years investigation and observation of more than 60 public organisations in France and the coordination, at a national level, of the French working group on ”governance of public organisations” that end up with the publication of four national guidelines in March 2013.

Redefining Art and Culture: The Welsh Arts Council’s ‘Art and Society’ Exhibition Series 1969–76

Between 1969 and 1976, the Welsh Arts Council (WAC) organized a groundbreaking exhibition series called ‘Art and Society’, which explored how particular themes – war, work, worship and sex – had been interpreted across different media. Combining ‘high’ art with ‘popular’ culture, this series attracted international attention for challenging cultural hierarchies and advancing a broader, sociological definition of ‘art’. Yet it also attracted controversy, both for rejecting critical standards and for the theme of its final exhibition, ‘sex’. This article examines ‘Art and Society’ in its broader historical context. It argues that the series demonstrates WAC’s contribution to key cultural debates in post-war Britain.

Социологический вклад Южакова / Пер. с англ. К.К. Оганян

The article examines the sociological contribution of S.N. Yuzhakov in the sociology of his country presented in: Hecker J.F. Russian sociology. A contribution to the history of sociological thought and theory. New York, 1915 (p. 156–172). Yuzhakov’s sociological system is analyzed through the following: the definition of sociology and its main issues; organico-physical, ethical, and economic aspects of sociology. Special attention is paid by J. Hecker to the analysis of sources of Yuzhakov’s philosophical and sociological views. Socio-political factor had a particular influence on his outlook, as he was a populist leader and contributed to the development of the subjective school holding the same views as P.L. Lavrov and N.K. Mikhailovskiy in quest of Russian people to implement social reforms.S.N. Yuzhakov defined sociology as a science of laws that controls the life of the group, as well as its origin, development and degradation. Sociology summarizes the results of other social sciences, such as political economy, ethics, law, linguistics. Based on this understanding of sociology, S.N. Yuzhakov shows that the relationship between the individual and the group forms morale and create an ethical problem. Moral progress is to adapt the activity of the individual to the social context, and this adaptation is reflected in the creation of the perfect ideal of sociability and in perfect proportion of the ideals of the epoch and people's feelings. Consequently, the development of morality becomes the process of adaptation of life to social existence. In this process, a crucial role is played by the activity of a person, manifestation of his personality in the struggle for culture.Summarizing Yuzhakov’s basic sociological views, J. Hecker concludes that, generally, Russian sociologist continues to develop the basic ideas of P.L. Lavrov, N.K. Michaelovskiy, et al. Having not created a properly designed system of sociology, S.N. Yuzhakov emphasized several very important truths that are common today.

"Max Weber Gesamtausgabe": Interim Report and Future Volumes

[MWS 14.1 (2014) 113-118] ISSN 1470-8078 Max Weber Gesamtausgabe: Interim Report and Future Volumes Christopher Adair-Toteff The publisher of the Max Weber Gesamtausgabe has recently an nounced the publication dates for the remaining volumes, so this is the appropriate time to briefly consider the most recent volumes and to offer some indication of what is yet to follow. Since the first volume appeared in 1984, J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) has published more than thirty volumes. Most of these are found in the division (I) containing Weber's writings, while six are in the division (II) con taining letters and five are in the division (III) containing lectures. Beginning in 2009, six volumes have appeared; five of them will be briefly reviewed here because they are from Weber's later years. Of these five volumes, the oldest chronologically is the one de voted to the section on law in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Recht. (Band 22-3). While Weber wrote most of it before the war, he was drawing on decades' worth of personal training and critical inter action. Many of us have a tendency to think of Weber as a sociolo gist or less frequently as an economist; accordingly, we lose sight of the fact that he was educated as a jurist. As a result of his training he frequently brought a lawyer's approach to social and economic problems. Weber often had strong opinions, but it is in the area of legal theory that he seems to have had the strongest convictions. This helps explain why he made frequent and furious denuncia tions of the Neo-Kantian legal philosopher Rudolf Stammler. And, it also helps explain why he was so complimentary about Georg Jellinek and Hermann Kantorowicz. Weber strongly objected to the pseudo-scientific and value-laden writings by Stammler, but he clearly approved of the developmental notion of law utilized by Jellinek and he rather liked the notion of legal struggle endorsed by Kantorowicz. In Weber's view, laws, and especially founding laws and constitutions, cannot lay legitimate claim to being eternal ) Max Weber Studies 2014, Clifton House, 17 Malvern Road, London, E8 3LP. 114 Max Weber Studies and objective forms. Instead, they are between old and new legal forms, and t influenced by economic, political, and The latest volume (Band 1/23) is the 'Fir Gesellschaft and rather than being part of volume. The Editors have chosen this form because this section is the latest and the only part of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft to have Weber's final approval. Unlike the subtitle to the other five volumes, this vol ume has the subtitle Soziologie. The book has three major chapters; the fourth chapter is comprised of only a few pages. The first chap ter contains the fundamental sociological concepts and includes Weber's famous definition of sociology as social action. But, it also contains definitions of many other basic concepts—'custom', 'order', struggle', 'power', and 'domination' ('Herrschaft'). The lengthy and complex second chapter contains the basic sociological categories of economics. Again, it is comprised of numerous definitions and explanations; ranging from the basic forms of economies, to the prin ciples of exchange, to the different forms of banking and trade, to the fundamental orders of economic transactions. It also contains a lengthy appendix on Georg Knapp's theory of money, which shows how Weber carefully read current works and it demonstrates his mastery of economics. The third chapter contains some of Weber's most extensive explorations of the three pure types of 'Herrschaften': 'traditional', 'rational', and 'charismatic'. Two things stand out in con trast to his discussions of 'Herrschaften' in the sections of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft that were written prior to the war: the importance of 'legitimacy' and the emphasis on charisma. As with the other vol umes, this one contains extensive editorial material. Some of it is rather helpful, like the Glossary, and the Indices, but the 100 pages of Weber's own 'page corrections' will likely be of interest to a few spe cialists. The 100 page Introduction serves as a valuable guide to each of the three sections and was written by some of the most knowl edgeable experts...

Building Trust in Inter-Korean Relations

The Park Geun-hye administration in South Korea has made “trust building” the focal point of its North Korea policy, with emphasis on improving the lives of the average North Korean citizen. Bearing in mind the longstanding and deep-rooted political competition and structural divide between the two Koreas, how can South Korea realistically and viably begin to build trust with North Korea? This article provides a sociological definition of trust and trust building so as to prescribe how the trust-building process might best begin between the two Koreas. Considering the hardships of the North Korean people due to the chronic energy shortages, insecurities of the leadership in Pyongyang, and shortcomings of Seoul’s “trust-building process,” South Korea should look toward supporting nongovernmental engagement with North Korea, with a focus on renewable energy assistance as part of its initial and long-term future engagement strategy.

Is Public Administration a Profession?

Public administrators are often said not to constitute a profession for one or more of at least ten reasons, for example, that they are not independent consultants but employees (and therefore lack “professional autonomy”). Yet, many public administrators seem to believe they belong to a profession. This paper argues that they are probably right. Doubts about the professional status of public administration seem to rely on one or another sociological definition having little to recommend it outside sociology. With a better definition, public administration looks very much like a profession. The question remaining is whether public administrators want their occupation to be a profession—and who they want to include in that profession.

Role of the university librarian: a review

The paper tries to analyse the role of the university librarian using a sociological definition for the role. Considers the University as a social institution and how the role of the librarian evolved to meet the changes taking place in the Universities. Elaborates management and functional competencies, qualities, technological and human relations skills they need to develop in order to cope with the modern Information environment. Journal of the University Librarians Association, Sri Lanka, Vol. 16, Issue 2, July 2012, Page 83-100 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jula.v16i2.5201