Social Groups In Society Research Articles

USING THE MULTI-ETHNIC GROUP MEASURE AS AN INDICATOR OF MALAYSIAN ETHNIC IDENTITIES

Understanding ethnic identity has gained increasing theoretical, empirical, and practical salience in Malaysia due to developments in economics, national desires and social structure of society. Social psychologists’ interest in identity is centred on feelings of belonging to a group and the consequences of identification with one’s social groups in society (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). This study examined ethnic identity among undergraduate students of a public university in Malaysia. Data were collected via a survey questionnaire (the Multi Ethnic Group Measure) from 498 undergraduates who were studying at 15 different faculties of the university. Findings of the study can add to the knowledge base for studying ethnic identity in that there is variability in trajectories among ethnic groups in different geographical locations and most importantly, the study confirmed that ethnic identity can be measured .

TÜRKİYE BÜYÜK MİLLET MECLİSİ'NDEKİ SİYASAL SEÇKİNLERİN SOSYAL YAPILARININ İNCELENMESİ: 23. DÖNEM MİLLETVEKİLLERİ

Elites are found in the summit of each social groups in society. Elitesof each social group effective the own group management. Political elites effective the state management, decision process, control and use the sources. Analysis carried out periodically on the Turkish political elite. The purpose of this study was to analyse the Grand National Assembly of Turkey 23. Period Parliamentarians’s social structure and distribution to political parties. Therefore, analysied the parliamentarians’s age, gender, profession, education and foreign language. Information about Members of Parliament were obtained the Grand National Assembly of Turkey’s 2010 datas.

In Defence of Monarchy

Aristocracy in the Colonial American ImaginationHistorically American opposition to monarchy has beenconnected to a wider opposition to aristocracy. What hascometocharacteriseAmericanattitudestoindividuallibertiesis a long lasting hostility to the ‘idle rich’. In this respect, theThorstein Veblen’snotionofthe‘leisure class’ was an ironicreflection on American social structure; leisure was notofficially an important aspect of core American values. Thedefinition of citizenship in this context came to be associatednot so much with the need for ‘honest toil’, but with theautonomy and self-respect that attended employment as aworker. Judith N. Shklar (1991:67), arguably the leadingpolitical writer on American citizenship, claimed that ‘Weare citizens only if we “earn”’. From a jurisprudentialperspective, there is a necessary connection between rightand duty, and therefore earning an income is crucial ifcitizens are to fulfill their obligations to the community inpaying their taxes, and maintaining a household.However, for writers like Shklar there is deeper moralmeaning to working for a living. In colonial America, thetwo social groups in society not involved in working for anincome were slaves and aristocrats—the former wereinvoluntarily excluded from the dignity of waged work,while the latter were privileged by the inheritance of wealthand could voluntarily avoid the necessity of work. Theaccident of birth either as a slave or as an aristocrat was tobe expunged from the social landscape of a revolutionarydemocracy. The problem of aristocratic privilege is noteasily resolved and for Shklar (1991:85) these attitudespersist in contemporary America: “Resentment of the idlemonopolist and aristocract, and fear of being reduced to thecondition of a black slave, or of a black second-classcitizen, have not disappeared, because they are grounded inlasting political experiences.”The founders of Jacksonian democracy feared thataristocracy could be easily re-established in America andthat constant vigilance was required to prevent such aregressive development. In the European context, aristoc-racy referred to the privileges associated with the hereditaryownership of land and the privileges, titles and status thatcame with it. In the American colonies, it came to meanelitism of any sort, but more specifically it referred to thefew who would scheme and plot to use the powers ofpolitical office against the many. In the 1780s there waswidespread anxiety among country democrats that thewealthy men who sought to run the state would reducethem to a new form of vassalage. These democraticimpulses for social equality were further enhanced by thespread of evangelical influence with the New EnglandGreat Awakening which pitched evangelicals from the ruralhinterland against the Anglican gentry of the seaboardstates. These country democrats joined hands with the‘urban yeomanry’ of New York to oppose any legacy ofaristocratic privilege, including clerical privilege. Forexample, they opposed the draft provisions of the 1780Constitution that required public financial support forCongregational churches (Wilentz 2005: 19). These demo-crats feared a ‘new aristocracy of monopolists andespecially the men who ran the Bank of the UnitedStates’(1991:66) and therefore they assumed there was adanger that the rights of the industrious working classwould be ‘sapped by crafty and indolent bankers’(1991:74). Attempts to introduce property qualifications

Social status of Hungarian (sports) women before and after the 1989-1990 political system change

Since the change in the Hungarian political system in 1989-1990, many different articles have been written about the position of Hungarian women, but there appear to be few studies focusing on the social status of sportswomen. The major aim of this paper is to fill this gap and to explore Hungarian sportswomen’s social position before and after the political system change. During state socialism, in spite of the politics of “state feminism”, equal opportunities were not established for women and men; the only result was an increase in the number of women who were employed. In this era, sport was one of the most successful institutions, with female top-level athletes having a higher standard of living than most others in the population. In the first part of this study the author analyses the social status of sportswomen in comparison with non-sportswomen and sportsmen before the democratic changes.After 1990, the privileged status of sports was discontinued, which changed the sportswomen’s situation fundamentally. Today they usually face similar social problems that affect other social groups in society as well. In the second part of this paper the author makes an attempt to explore the present situation of sportswomen from the same point of view as mentioned before. Data was collected by structured interviews with retired and active female athletes. The results are analysed according to the following dimensions: income, possibilities for studying, preparation for civil life, social capital and opportunities to translate social capital to economic one.

Rap in Indonesian Youth Music of the 1990s: "Globalization," "Outlaw Genres," and Social Protest

Throughout the 1990s, ‘‘alternative’’ musical genres such as rap, punk, and hard rock, derived from North American and European commercial cultures, captured the enthusiasm of large numbers of Indonesian youth, propelling the songs of local Indonesian rock/punk groups such as Slank and rapper Iwa-K to the top of the Indonesian pop charts. Rap music had become popular enough that by January 1995 the Indonesian government, in the person of then minister of research and technology and now former president B. J. Habibie, publicly denounced the genre as crude and alien to Indonesian culture and values (Kompas January 8, 10, and 15, 1995). Indeed, in a nation with an astonishingly rich variety of traditional musical forms, it may seem yet another lamentable instance of global commercial culture’s erasure of local variety that Indonesian youth were so powerfully attracted to these musical forms. Yet, I will argue that the appropriation by Indonesian youth of genres like rap and punk actually reveals a far more complex story. It is a story in which particular aspects of global commercial culture, although certainly displacing elements of previous traditions, may also be seized upon and deployed in specifically local struggles. These genres serve as weapons of social protest and/or as expressions of a desire to create a new social space or even identity that flaunts its difference from or rejection of the kinds of social identities and behavior authorized by an authoritarian government and the dominant social groups in society. The possibilities of this deployment are particularly germane to situations, such as that in Indonesia, in which the regime in power seeks to engineer modern culture while also, in order to aid in its pursuit of comprehensive control over all aspects of society, endeavoring to monopolize authority to determine the practice and meaning of ‘‘traditional’’ culture.

Bringing Social Action and Situated Rationality Back in

The social order and the organizational forms in our so-called capitalist era did not emerge from a tabula rasa. What Marx labeled capitalism never emerged in any ideal or pure form but was itself a result of specific historical processes in social contexts where social groups already had social positions in relation to the production and trade of goods, as well as the regulation of these activities. Indeed, the capitalist era and its specific forms of economic institutions, organizational forms, social division of labor, and positions of social groups in society took root in, rebuilt, and transformed existing social formations. However, in each social context, the emerging institutionalized standard of capitalism got its own face or color. Today, specific versions of the universal capitalistic institutions such as the market economy, the private ownership, and the political superstructure, are taking root in and creating new social orders in Russia, in the former East European countries, in China, and in Africa. In these social systems, existing social groups, social positions, and the production of trade and goods are not deleted overnight but provide the very background for building new forms of capitalism, or new business systems. The contemporary role of the Russian mafia and the political-bureaucratic elite provides one of many examples of how the past social structures shape the future even if there is a radical shift in the regime type (see also Michailova, 1997). Another example

Equity in the Brazilian Health Care System: a contribution for debate

In this article it is discussed some relevant issues in regard to inequalities in the consumption of health care services and the construction of more equitable health care system in Brazil. The concept of inequalities in health is distinguished from the concept of inequalities in the consumption of health care services. It is argued that the geographical dimension of health care service consumption differs from the social dimension. This implies that a better distribution of financial resources between geographical regions acts at the level of regional inequalities but might not have a positive impact on existing social inequalities. A more equitable system depends on a greater participation on the financing of the system of the richer people. It depends on the solidarity of the different social groups in society. The present situation of great scarcity of financial resources calls for a definition of priorities. Nonetheless, it is argued that the establishment of priorities in the availability of health care services is an ethical approach only if it is assumed to be a transient strategy directed to the construction of a system based in universal access for all those in need.