Sociological Lens Research Articles

Motivation and investment

Abstract The purpose of the present study is to offer insights into how Spanish undergraduates, who were mid-way through an English-medium programme at a university in Catalonia, articulate their past decision to study an academic subject in English. Economics students (34 in total) completed an oral elicitation task and the monologues yielded were analysed using thematic analysis. Three dominant themes emerged: (1) The right fit for me; (2) To practise my English; and (3) English comes with benefits. Each of these themes is presented as a composite description of the students’ ideas about their past choice from the temporal position of the here-and-now, and explored through distinct but complementary social psychological and sociological lenses. The present study finds threads running through the students’ narratives of a near effortlessness to choose to learn in this way, as well as an understanding of the capital value of English. For some, their sole stated motive was to develop and preserve this linguistic asset.

Youth athlete learning and the dynamics of social performance in Norwegian elite handball

This study examines how the social interactions of youth handball players are entangled with the ideals, beliefs and norms associated with youth athlete learning in Norwegian handball and communicated through coaching practice. This qualitative study uses Goffman's interactional sociological lens to explore how players strategically manage their interactions with peers and coaches by balancing the risks of overuse and injury with the need to be seen as promising, committed players. Our data collection was based on four focus group interviews and five individual interviews with 24 female youth handball players. The athletes reported that they conformed with the social rules and expectations of acceptable behaviour in handball because they wished to avoid being discredited in the eyes of their peers and coaches. Additionally, they engaged with these expectations through self-censorship and behavioural caution, because doing so allowed them to sustain their identity as promising athletes within the current framework of athlete development. They also feared being perceived as less committed to their development. The findings highlight how the normative expectations of youth athletes affect their sense of agency and control, the behaviours they engage in, and their understandings of what it means to be a good athlete. An understanding of how athletes perform socially in ways that facilitate opportunities for ongoing development will help to facilitate more productive, ethical and meaningful practice and pedagogies.

PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE: AN EVALUATION OF PREVENTIVE MEASURES AGAINST COVID-19 AMONG STUDENTS AT TERTIARY LEVEL

This research paper attempts to examine the adaptation of preventive measures of COVID-19 among students at the tertiary level align with sociological lenses. As several preventive measures were opted to minimize the risk of current pandemic situations. A cross-sectional study was conducted and a sample of 1226 was taken from students study at the tertiary level. Further, a well-structured questionnaire was constructed and Google Forms was used to collect data keeping in view the physical distancing rules to minimize the spread of the outbreak. The study findings asserted that students had differences in adaptation of preventive measures of COVID-19 as per their field of study, gender, rural and urban residential backgrounds. However, the results revealed that students had no differences in adaptation of preventive measures based on their marital status and COVID-19 infection. The study found that the adaptation of COVID-19 preventive measures was linked significantly positively with family monthly income. The study recommended that physical distancing, hand and respiratory hygienic conditions should be improved with the practices of personal protective equipment to minimize the spread of current pandemic situations i.e., COVID-19. Keywords: COVID-19, Preventive Measures, Tertiary Education, Students, Infection.

Ageing with (and into) assistive technology: an exploration of the narratives of amputees and polio survivors

Purpose Assistive technologies (AT) perform an important social role, interacting with cultural systems to produce or hinder accessibility to biosocial environments. This interaction profoundly shapes not only how an individual body can be experienced by users but also produce and hinder accessibility to biosocial environments. AT users have historically been viewed through a medical model, which deems them disabled by their impairments and by dominant ableist narratives. Therefore, this paper serves to provide an insight into the importance of ageing with and into AT. This paper aims to investigate polio survivors’ and diabetic amputees’ experiences of assistive technologies in order to better understand impacts upon narrative and identity. By applying an anthropological and sociological lens, a holistic view of the experiences of polio survivor and amputee AT users is developed. Method This paper draws on 16 in-depth interviews with polio survivors and diabetic amputees in the United States (US) and Australia, which were analysed using an experience-centered narrative approach. Both projects were approved by ethics boards. All participants provided written consent. Results Five themes were identified: a) disruption to biographies, which reflected AT impact on how narratives become altered; b) impacts to autonomy, which reflected the importance of regaining previous daily activities; c) re-engaging with community life, which highlighted how AT supported participation in valued activities; d) self-perceptions of assistive technologies, which act in opposition to external perspectives and challenge ableist narratives; and e) an intergenerational comparison of new and older AT users highlights the importance of temporalities. Conclusion This paper offers new perspectives on ageing with assistive technologies, with a focus on identity and narrative. The importance of this paper is to contribute to the existing literature that demonstrates the cultural implications that arise through embodiment and assistive technologies. IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION The use of assistive technology can help individuals regain function, but the individual circumstances require consideration The use of assistive technology is a complex entanglement of bodies, environments, biographies, and imagined futures. The use of assistive technology can provide participants autonomy over their narratives and assist with maintaining their identities

A Sociological Lens on Linguistic Diversity: Implications for Writing Inclusive Multiple-Choice Assessments

Multiple-choice questions (MCQs) are widely used in large introductory courses. Recent research focuses on MCQ reliability and validity and overlooks questions of accessibility. Yet, access to the norms of academic discourse embedded in MCQs differs between groups of first-year students. We theorize these norms as part of the institutionalized cultural symbols that reproduce social and cultural exclusion for linguistically diverse students. A sociological focus on linguistic diversity is necessary as the percentage of students who use English as an additional language (EAL), rather than English as a native language (ENL), has grown. Drawing on sociology as pedagogy, we problematize MCQs as a medium shaping linguistically diverse students’ ability to demonstrate disciplinary knowledge. Our multimethod research uses two-stage randomized exams and focus groups with EAL and ENL students to assess the effects of a modification in instructors’ MCQ writing practices in sociology and psychology courses. Findings show that students are more likely to answer a modified MCQ correctly, with greater improvement for EAL students.

Race Lessons: The Role of Place in Shaping Black Parents’ Racial Learning and Educational Engagement in a Predominantly White Suburb

While a large body of literature examines Black parents’ racial socialization, few studies have employed a sociological lens to explore parents’ own racial learning and how it relates to the implicit and explicit messages they send their children. Based on an ethnographic study of Black parents’ experiences and educational engagement in a predominantly white Midwestern suburb, this article uses a racial learning framework to examine how Black parents’ own racialized, place-based experiences relate to the lessons they attempt to teach their children about race and racism. The research reveals that parents’ racial socialization practices were influenced by their own racial learning and experiences in the predominantly white suburban context, their children’s experiences in the local schools, and for some parents, the things they learned with and from other Black families in school and community organizational spaces. The research findings illustrate the importance of understanding Black parents’ own place-based racial learning and how it shapes and informs their efforts to support their children’s wellbeing and academic success, particularly in predominantly white school districts and communities.

Re-thinking childhood in Peru: A critical discourse analysis of Peruvian early childhood policies

Early childhood has become a priority in national and international political agendas. In the last decade, states have elaborated social policies and launched a variety of programmes for young children. Using Critical Discourse Analysis, this research explores the most prominent conceptualisations of children and childhood underpinning official Early Childhood policies in Peru, drawing on theoretical frameworks from childhood studies. The study identified the existence of a convergence of discourses about children and childhood in the policy documents which are based on different perspectives: developmental psychology, human capital theory and a children’s rights-based approach. From this analysis, I argue that early childhood policies in Peru evidence a developmentalist predominance that has problematic implications in the context of the country’s bicentennial anniversary of independence. I analyse how this developmental focus leads to a lack of sensitivity about the impact of cultural factors on children’s experiences and on the exercise of their rights, particularly on children’s right to participation. Finally, I argue for a rethinking of Peruvian early childhood policies and future policymaking processes using a sociological lens, in order to accomplish the State’s objective of building a post-bicentennial nation that is able to secure improvements on children’s lives and advance social justice.

Sharpening the Identities of African Churches in Eastern Christianity: A Comparison of Entanglements between Religion and Ethnicity

Although at first sight Eastern Christianity is not associated with Africa, the African continent has shaped the establishment and development of three of the four main Eastern Christian traditions. Through a sociological lens, we examine the identity of the above African churches, focusing on the socio-historical entanglements of their religious and ethnic features. Firstly, we study the identity of the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and the Eritrean Orthodox Church belonging to Oriental Orthodoxy. We focus on these African churches—and their diasporas in Western countries—as indigenous Christian paths in Africa. Secondly, we examine the identity of Africans and African-Americans within Eastern Orthodoxy. We consider both to have some inculturation issues within the Patriarchate of Alexandria and the development of an African-American component within Orthodoxy in the USA. Thirdly, we analyze the recent establishment and identity formation of African churches belonging to Eastern-rite Catholic Churches. In short, we aim to elaborate an overview of the multiple identities of African churches and one ecclesial community in Eastern Christianity, and to compare diverse sociological entanglements between religious and ethnic traits within them. A fruitful but neglected research subject, these churches’ identities appear to be reciprocally shaped by their own Eastern Christian tradition and ethnic heritage.

Infância e alteridade: experiência e criação na relação entre crianças e adultos

The objective of this paper is to make visible and reflect upon the lives and experience of children from the perspective of alterity, Contesting a traditional gaze that understands childhood from the perspective of lack and negativity. The researchers–a doctoral researcher and an early childhood educator– conducted the study with two groups of children aged between four and six years old, in early childhood educational spaces in two distinct and socially unequal contexts: a group of children living in a favela and a middle/upper class group. Data was produced from observing the interactions of children in play situations, and from individual and collective interviews, photographs and photo exchanges. The researchers sought, through the theoretical lenses of philosophy, sociology, and geography of childhood, to reflect on how children signify their experiences and how they announce new possibilities of relating to school culture. Play is identified as an experience that unites them as a social group, regardless of the unequal conditions in which they live, and through which it is possible to create escape routes, transcend institutional limits, exercise otherness, and produce joyful interaction. Through the ways in which they exercise their relationships with with the world through play, spaces become places and territories of childhood, expressing assigned meanings that interrogate those conventionally instituted by adults; and time is lived by children from the perspective of experience and reiteration, which confronts the chronological, linear time of rigid and standardized routines. Finally, looking at childhood from the perspective of alterity provokes us to think and produce other modes of relationship between adults and children, beyond a colonizing and tutelary perspective, as an opening and reinvention.

Confronting xenophobia in South Africa and the concept of foreigner in Deuteronomy as an act of ‘othering’

This article explored the theme of xenophobia and ‘othering’ (violently targeting African immigrants in particular) as a complex and highly relevant theme in South Africa in order to move towards addressing it for the sake of unity in Africa. This research article has adopted a sociological lens that critically examines the issue of xenophobia within a 21st-century South African context. It then considers Deuteronomy and its context from a literary approach to understand how the book deals with ethnic exclusion, also known as xenophobia. South Africa, because of its history, has seen xenophobic sentiments manifest themselves in a particularly violent manner in its short democratic history. Xenophobic violence is seen as an ever-present fibre built into the make-up of South African culture, which is always ready to spill over and negatively impact society.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article critically engages the topic of xenophobia and frames it around the theme of other and/or othering others. It then evaluates how the book of Deuteronomy and how the 21st-century African, particularly South African, have misappropriated the issue of immigrants. An African hermeneutic has been implored to explore all this.

Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Curriculum Within an Introductory Bioengineering Course.

Curriculum initiatives that provide the societal context of engineering practice can contribute to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) within the profession, as well as within the communities served by engineers. JEDI curriculum can foster diversity and inclusion by acknowledging and addressing social justice issues, providing a safe and inclusive space for students’ voices to be heard, and advancing a productive dialogue within their institution of higher learning. Furthermore, such curriculum initiatives can empower students with the theoretical frameworks, analytical tools, and knowledge base to recognize and address ethical challenges and opportunities related to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in their field. This Teaching Tips paper offers a description of a pilot program to incorporate JEDI material within a core bioengineering course modeled on evidence-based curriculum programs to embed ethics within technical courses. The author and collaborators sought to achieve two aims with the JEDI-focused material: (1) for students to learn how justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion intersect with bioengineering practice through an interdisciplinary lens of history, philosophy, sociology and anthropology which provide strong scholarly frameworks and theoretical foundations and (2) for students to participate in and foster an inclusive environment within their own educational institution through effectively communicating about these topics with each other. At the conclusion of the semester, a student survey indicated an overwhelmingly positive reception of the material. This paper will discuss the interdisciplinary curriculum development initiative, how the learning objectives were addressed by the specific lesson plans, and challenges to be addressed to create a sustainable educational model for the program.

Reasons for not/choosing chemistry: Why advanced level chemistry students in England do/not pursue chemistry undergraduate degrees

AbstractThere are international concerns about decreasing rates of chemistry degree enrolment. This article seeks to understand students' reasons for not/choosing to pursue a chemistry degree, drawing on (i) open‐ended survey responses from a sample of 506 students in England aged 21–22 who had studied advanced level (“A level”) chemistry at age 18 (as either a full A level or a half “AS” level) and had either chosen (n = 70) or not chosen (n = 436) to pursue undergraduate chemistry and (ii) 185 interviews conducted with a subsample of 18 young people who had been longitudinally tracked from age 10 to 22 (with 17 of their parents) who took advanced level chemistry and then either did (n = 5), or did not (n = 13) go on to study for a chemistry degree. Analysis revealed four key reasons for not/choosing chemistry that were present to varying extents in both the quantitative and qualitative data (relative interest, connection and options; experiences of chemistry A level; feeling “not/clever enough”; and views of chemistry jobs). Four additional factors were predominantly found in the qualitative data (associations of chemistry with masculinity; encouragement from a significant adult; views of higher education; and chemistry work experience/outreach). Applying a sociological lens, we suggest that not/choosing chemistry was a relational process, produced through interactions of habitus, capital, and field. We identify conceptual and methodological implications and extrapolate reasons why chemistry degree enrolments may be declining, offering suggestions for how chemistry education might further support participation.

Expecting in Unexpected Times

This article explores the complexities and contingencies of pregnancy during the COVID-19 pandemic. The author uses autoethnography to describe the lived experience of navigating the conflicting feelings and nuances of daily life as an expectant person during a global health crisis. In particular, the author is attuned to how one must grapple with both the positive feelings of joy and excitement that accompany many pregnancies, with the more somber emotions of guilt and sadness from losing out on many of the anticipated normalcies of the pregnancy journey. This narrative highlights emergent themes that are likely relatable to many pregnant people at this particular moment in time due to framing experiences within a larger societal context and through a scholarly, sociological lens.

Can People Be Managed through Fear? An Enquiry into Arab Culture.

This research scrutinises the fear-driven management of Arabs. It conceptualises fear as a structural component of Arab society through a sociological lens and, by drawing upon the reflections of 28 Arab experts, philosophises on the potential of fear to develop into a well-configured managerial system (‘feararchy’) that regulates public and private lives. This research finds this system to rest upon a foundation of three forms of fear: ontological (the normalisation of fear), epistemological (the utilisation of fear to shape knowledge) and axiological (the influence of fear on acceptability). This article makes five contributions. First, it shows how, through turning fear into a collective status, Arab managers exploit fear for social control. Second, it demonstrates the institutional nature of Arabs’ fear, making it worthy of attention from the field of management. Third, it investigates fear as an individually internalised, socially constructed feeling that is psychologically manipulative. Fourth, it presents fear as not merely a natural psychological sensation but a managerially distorted contextual frame within which current (and future) members think and operate. Fifth and finally, it exposes the contextuality of fear: sources of fear in one context may not be sources of fear in another.

Can Capitalism Solve Its Own Rural Problems? Japanese Lessons for the World Bank's Vision of Rural‐Led Development

AbstractRecent research and policy advice by international development organizations have, by their own account, sought to reverse a prior neglect of conditions in agriculture and rural areas. In pursuit of this, they have developed a vision of dynamic but incremental development in rural areas, anchored in a smallholder‐based and economically diversified market economy. This vision, articulated in the World Bank's 2008 World Development Report and continuing to animate research and policy advice today, presents itself as a solution to persistent poverty in the world's least developed countries. This paper adopts a historical sociological lens to use the case of Japan, in the period from the latter half of the nineteenth century to the opening decades of the twentieth, to assess how realistic this vision is. This analysis shows that the lessons of Japan's experience are chastening for this vision of rural development. The mechanisms of growth in Japan were remarkably similar to those advertised by the World Bank's vision. However, its rural economic dynamism was based on deep socioeconomic inequalities and brought improved material conditions and greater economic security to agricultural households only with excruciating slowness, if at all. Rather than demonstrating the potential of incremental, market‐oriented rural development to offer a path towards widespread poverty reduction, Japan instead serves as a warning of this development model's limitations.

A green skills framework for climate action, gender empowerment, and climate justice

SummaryMotivationAs governments move in earnest toward a green economy, few countries are considering education policy that can facilitate the development of green skills for such transitions. Where policy discussions are happening, green skills are often conflated with science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) skills, with little attention to the breadth of green skills needed to achieve climate justice.PurposeWe present a green skills framework to help support policy stakeholders imagine a continuum of green skills for a just transition.Methods and approachThis article applies a critical feminist lens to understand how green skills have been conceptualized across the gender and adolescence, greening and sustainability, and education fields. It also integrates the perspectives of stakeholders from climate, education, and gender‐focused multilateral, government, and non‐governmental organizations working on green skills.FindingsThe analysis finds that green skills coalesce around three distinct but overlapping paradigms. The first understands green skills through a technical lens as the specific capacities needed for green jobs. The second and third paradigms understand green skills through a sociological lens, seeking to tackle the behaviours and social structures driving the climate crisis. As such, they centre on cross‐cutting generic capacities and transformative capacities, respectively. Taken together, the article offers a new definition of green skills for policy stakeholders.Policy implicationsThe three approaches to green skills outlined in this paper constitute the pillars of a new green learning agenda for climate action, climate empowerment, and climate justice. This green learning agenda fills a significant void in both climate policy and education policy, and could help governments address current capacity building needs while setting their populations up for the long‐term social transformations required to achieve a just transition.

‘I will marry Ruth so that the name of the dead will not be blotted out’: Exploring הסך (hesed) in Ruth 4:1–13

The literary construct of Ruth 4:1–13, which borders on the marriage union of Boaz and Ruth, is underscored with the loving-kindness of God. Boaz was not obligated under any legal requirement to marry Ruth. However, following the kinsman-redeemer’s abdication of his right of inheritance, Boaz declared in an unrestrained utterance before the elders of the Israelite society his intention to marry Ruth (the Moabite woman and the wife of the dead Mahlon) in order to perpetuate the name of Mahlon. It was considered a great misfortune in ancient Israel for a man to die without having a son to continue the family name. This decision of Boaz in accepting to take the responsibility of a redeemer for Ruth is arguably a demonstration of kindness, for this gesture surpasses the call of required responsibility. This study adopted a literary approach to read the text of Ruth 4:1–13 against the sociological lens of ethnic exclusion.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The pericope of Ruth 4:1–13 celebrated Boaz’s marriage with Ruth in order to perpetuate the name of the dead amongst his clan in Israelite society. Boaz truly understood the threat of family extinction that weighed upon Naomi and Ruth, and hence, he was stimulated to take the responsibility of a redeemer for Ruth so that Elimelech’s family would not be blotted out amongst his people. Disciplines implicated were Old Testament exegesis and sociology.

Profanity of Witch Hunting in Rajasthan: An Overview through Historical and Sociological Lens

Profanity of Witch Hunting in Rajasthan: An Overview through Historical and Sociological Lens

Clinical Sociology and Mixedness: Towards Applying Critical Mixed Race Theory in Everyday Life

Research on mixed racial and ethnic identities has developed rapidly over the past decades, increasing in theoretical scope and depth, and exploring mixedness across a growing range of national and social contexts. Recent research has highlighted the huge variations and shifts in conceptions of mixedness around the world, and the different pathways to understanding what it means to be mixed through migration, development, postcolonialism and different forms of nation-building. This paper seeks to connect theory to practice, approaching mixedness through the lens of clinical sociology, applying sociological theory on the ground and exploring the utility of critical mixed race studies in everyday life. Clinical sociology as a practice is first outlined, juxtaposed against the development in theorizing around mixed racial and ethnic identities on an international level. The paper then looks at some possibilities for practical impact: by acknowledging the complexity of mixedness and everyday life, research on mixed identities can go beyond the development of theory and case description, with applied and clinical impacts ranging from the level of the individual to the level of the state. Research on mixedness worldwide illustrates the diversity inherent within ideas of mixing, and the micro, meso and macro applications and potential outcomes of such theories. This paper draws on new and shifting conceptions of mixedness, emphasizing that the sociology of mixedness can have considerable value in effecting positive social change: positioning the (mixed) individual within the (mixed) society and allowing sociology to become action. The development and use of theories around mixedness emphasize the importance of clinical sociology as a practice: a reason for theory, connecting the abstract to the everyday.

"I'm not listening to my teacher, I'm listening to my computer": online learning, disengagement, and the impact of COVID-19 on French university students.

In a French context where universities are thought of and analysed as “weak institutions” that leave learners to themselves, the effects of the pandemic present great risks to students who already face structural obstacles to their education. This qualitative paper is based on the experience of 19 students in a typical non-selective university in France, who have disengaged or have thought of dropping out during the pandemic. We examine how lockdowns and distance learning have impacted French students’ learning and living conditions unequally, unpacking ideas of student engagement and disengagement through a sociological lens looks at students within their social context and places importance on the role of institutions in “holding” students. By unpacking our participants’ narratives, we address the implications of online learning for educational justice and the long-term opportunities of students. Our analysis shows that students’ well-being and learning are entangled with an attachment to the institution, with seeing the worth, purpose, and recognition for what they do and the importance of emplaced learning to do so. We therefore highlight the importance of recognition and regulation in the learning process itself. Our findings allow us to also offer nuance to existing research and discourse about the French university system being a “weak” institution that forces individuals to be autonomous. The article also points to the strategies employed by students and teachers with a view to maintain engagement that contribute to considering solutions to help student retention for the sector as a whole and in our pedagogical practice.