Larger Social Change Research Articles

Labour and Education Markets in Industry 4.0

Abstract Introduction: The current development of the world economy defined as the Fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) is rather determined by a larger social change caused by the interconnection of the physical, virtual, and social worlds. It affects the market of products, production factors, sectors, services, education, research, social systems, the labour market, the education, and specialization, including the legal framework, and the use of digital technologies for production and education purposes. Purpose: The aim of the literature review will be the description and analysis of Industry 4.0, which are digitization and the application of digital technologies, associated with new emerging jobs in the circular economy, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, development, sales of products and services and the focus on human resources, as Industry 4.0 requires new standards regarding Education 4.0. Methods: The study, analysis, evaluation and comparison of selected scientific papers and research reviews of international organizations (European Union, OECD, etc.) related to Industry 4.0 and Education 4.0 resulted in the need for a significant transformation of education and labour markets, because of newly emerging professions demanding new profiles of graduates. Conclusions: Calls for changes in the educational structure and new qualifications will be formulated regarding the Slovak economy by 2030. A successful transition to Industry 4.0 paradigm requires the linkage between industrial policy and educational, scientific, technical and innovation policies.

The Dialectics of Stigma, Silence, and Misunderstanding in Suicidality Survival Narratives

ABSTRACTModern suicidologists have noted a dearth of qualitative research on suicide. The first author conducted 20 in-depth interviews with formerly suicidal adults to understand how they accounted for their experiences contemplating or attempting suicide. According to participants, stigma necessitated impression management, which contributed to the production of silence and misunderstanding. Silence and misunderstanding reinforced stigma. This complex, dialectical, belief system about stigma yields insight into the interpretive culture of surviving suicidal ideation or a suicide attempt. These beliefs about suicide may serve as a barrier to individuals seeking help, recovering from suicidality, and larger social change regarding attitudes toward suicide.

To know what’s what: Forms of migrant knowing in Monica Ali’s Brick Lane

Monica Ali’s novel Brick Lane focuses on how claims to knowledge are made in relation to migrant subjectivity and the experience of migration. As the protagonist, Nazneen, an immigrant from Bangladesh who eventually comes into her own in London, develops, the text foregrounds the provisional and partial nature of self‐ and situational knowledge gleaned through everyday processes and operations. Self‐reflexive about the way knowledge is constructed, the text critiques hybridity as the only or ideal migrant condition through its often comic depiction of Chanu, Nazneen’s husband. This article suggests that Ali’s novel illustrates that recognition of the contingent nature of knowledge claims and the instability of knowledge are the necessary first steps towards an ethics of modest morality leading to larger social change.

Social change through photographs and music: A qualitative method for teaching

This paper examines the use of qualitative methodology in the sociology classroom by demonstrating the use of photographs and music in teaching the human element of social change. The authors maintain that traditionally only one side of social change is taught to the students; the objective view with facts and figures. By adding the other side of social change, the subjective view, the students are better able to appreciate the significance of the larger social change process. The authors maintain that photographs and music best relay the subjective view to the class. By using the modernization of American society as an example, the authors proceed to identify specific pictures and music which they feel most accurately depict this view of social change. A detailed description of their selection process is also presented.

THROUGH A LOOKING GLASS DARKLY: CONSIDERATIONS OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION IN AN AGE OF DIVERSITY

As the ever‐changing social matrix affects all public institutions, so does it affect the public school. In fact, because of the school's unique status as the repository of our collective aspirations and its accessibility to the general public, the school frequently becomes the central agent in the drama of larger social change. By assuming the role as mediator between present and developing values, the school in effect sponsors its own institutional transformation. Against a background of emerging social trends, this paper attempts to explore a number of such transformations and the pedagogical “futures” which they suggest. Specifically, this discussion centres on the administration of public education in Canada, and to a lesser extent that of the United States. For the most part, focus is directed at separating administrative characteristics which might be labelled “constants”—that is, those that are unlikely to change over time—from an array of other organizational elements which are likely to experience profound revision (for example, the role of the principal). As might be expected, this is a speculative venture.