Social World Research Articles

I married a Traveller: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the lived experiences of women marrying into the Travelling community and its impact to their identity

Policy developments associated with increased lifestyle-related regulations have compelled Travellers to re-assess their social worlds and adapt accordingly. Adopting a social constructionist epistemological stance, this qualitative study drew upon the Identity Process Theory, alongside Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) as a broad framework to (1) explore the way in which non-Traveller women experience a sense of community integration upon marrying into the Traveller community, (2) to explicate the extent to which their experiences of integration impact upon their own identity, and (3) to develop an understanding of how these lived experiences inform the changes within Traveller culture through the process of integration. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six women aged between 28–42 years living within the UK. Guided by the principles of IPA, three superordinate themes, each consisting of two subordinate themes emerged from the analysis: ‘Joining the culture’, ‘Cultural Clashes’, and ‘Changes to the self’. The findings highlighted that participant’s experienced interpersonal conflict and continuous negotiations between continuity and discontinuity, that had either positive or negative impacts to their individual identity. This paper has important implications for professionals who aim to provide support and enhance the overall wellbeing of individuals living between these two contrasting cultures.

Robots as addressable non-persons: an analysis of categorial work at the boundaries of the social world

Prompted by the material turn in the social sciences and the development of novel interaction technologies, lively debates in social theory have arisen regarding the agency of non-human entities. While these debates primarily involve exchanging theoretical arguments against the background of different theoretical positions, ethnomethodological membership categorization analysis (MCA) provides an empirical approach to questions of non-human agency. The article discusses the debate on non-human agency, demonstrates how MCA can be used to investigate categorial work at the boundaries of the social, and presents the example of an encounter between two museum visitors and a humanoid robot to show how the robot is categorized in a specific way as an ‘addressable non-person.’ In this way, it becomes clear that social-theoretical debates and empirically oriented MCA can mutually inspire each other and how the ‘basic categorization apparatus’ addresses new alterities.

Thinking Like a Feminist: What Feminist Theory Has to Offer Sociology

What does feminist theory have to offer sociology? Defining feminist theory as work that problematizes the gender binary and the relations of domination that constitute and emerge from it, we explore four key aspects of feminist scholarship. We begin with work that explores gender as a structuring trope. We then turn to how gender is coconstituted with other structures of power and domination. Next, we survey how feminists have theorized the relationship between nature and the social through the body. Finally, we examine feminist epistemological claims. We conclude by demonstrating the inextricability of feminist conceptual work and feminist politics. As we move across these bodies of work, we show how they are linked with one another and suggest some of the ways in which thinking like a feminist would help sociologists better grasp the dynamics of the social worlds we study.

Vexatious or Vulnerable: Permitted Roles for Litigants in Person in Civil Courts

Litigants in person (LiPs) are increasingly prominent players in the social world of the court. There is a growing literature addressing many questions relating to litigants in person and this article contributes to that literature, exploring the creation and maintenance of the social role of the litigant in person. I argue that the high-status actors and those in the inner circle of the social world of the court – the judiciary, lawyers, and court staff – engage in boundary work, defining the role of the litigant in person. In carrying out this work they shape two roles for the litigant in person: the vulnerable and the vexatious. Simultaneously they maintain the fiction that the ideal litigant in person is one who performs the lawyer's role. This role is neither possible nor desired by the high-status actors; litigants in person must remain differentiated. If court reform to address the challenges presented by litigants in person is to succeed, it must account for these role dynamics.

Multidimensional neural representations of social features during movie viewing.

The social world is dynamic and contextually embedded. Yet, most studies utilize simple stimuli that do not capture the complexity of everyday social episodes. To address this, we implemented a movie viewing paradigm and investigated how the everyday social episodes are processed in the brain. Participants watched one of two movies during an MRI scan. Neural patterns from brain regions involved in social perception, mentalization, action observation, and sensory processing were extracted. Representational similarity analysis results revealed that several labeled social features (including social interaction, mentalization, the actions of others, characters talking about themselves, talking about others, and talking about objects) were represented in superior temporal gyrus (STG) and middle temporal gyrus (MTG). The mentalization feature was also represented throughout the theory of mind network, and characters talking about others engaged the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), suggesting that listeners may spontaneously infer the mental state of those being talked about. In contrast, we did not observe the action representations in frontoparietal regions of the action observation network. The current findings indicate that STG and MTG serve as key regions for social processing, and that listening to characters talk about others elicits spontaneous mental state inference in TPJ during natural movie viewing.

If not me then we: Goal tradeoffs in decision-making for the self, ingroup, and outgroup

Navigating the social world requires individuals to balance multiple goals, including the drives to improve one's own outcomes, aid ingroup members, and help or hurt outgroup members. While self-interest and intergroup bias are both well-established motivational phenomena, less is known about how these goals may interact. Here we examine the nature of goal tradeoffs in intergroup decision-making using a novel task in which participants simultaneously make monetary decisions for themselves, an arbitrary ingroup, and the corresponding outgroup. Across four behavioural studies and one eye-tracking study (total N = 704), we find that goals in intergroup contexts are pursued sequentially rather than concurrently, with non-linear upweighting of group-related goals when self-related goals cannot be pursued. Further, we find evidence for stronger self-ingroup than self-outgroup tradeoffs, which manifest in both altered attention to information and altered use of the attended information in decision-making. The results shed light on the cognitive structuring of interrelated goals in intergroup decision-making, furthering our understanding of when and how both intergroup biases and prosocial behaviour may emerge.

Modernism, modernity and contemporality: conceptualizing the modern in Scotland’s modern studies

ABSTRACT This paper offers an analysis of Modern Studies, a school subject unique to Scotland. First taught in the 1960s, Modern Studies was originally conceived as an option for students discontinuing their studies in history and geography. Since then, though, Modern Studies has carved a distinctive curricular niche and has become one of the most popular subjects in Scottish schools. Despite this popularity—or, perhaps, because of it—Modern Studies has not received the same critical analysis as other subjects in the school curriculum. The subject remains one defined by its content (political literacy, social issues, and international relations), rather than by its disciplinary or epistemic underpinnings. This paper uses Toulmin’s (1990) conception of modernity to analyse course documents and examination papers. This analysis suggests that Modern Studies was imbued from the start with three foundational assumptions. First, a positivist ontology that believes certainty about the social world is possible. Second, a belief that Weberian means-end rationality is the most appropriate approach to evaluating and making sense of social relations. Third, a telos which positions liberal capitalism as the inevitable end-state of human affairs. Modern Studies is, therefore, not just ‘modern’ but modernist. The paper explores and develops these critiques with reference to specific examination questions and concludes by proposing a programme for renewing and reinvigorating the subject in an age of epistemic uncertainty and global environmental crises.

The Social World of the Abbey of Cava, c.1020–1300, by Graham Loud

<i>The Social World of the Abbey of Cava, c.1020–1300</i>, by Graham Loud

Imagined otherness fuels blatant dehumanization of outgroups

Dehumanization of others has been attributed to institutional processes that spread dehumanizing norms and narratives, as well as to individuals’ denial of mind to others. We propose that blatant dehumanization also arises when people actively contemplate others’ minds. We introduce the construct of imagined otherness—perceiving that a prototypical member of a social group construes an important facet of the social world in ways that diverge from the way most humans understand it—and argue that such attributions catalyze blatant dehumanization beyond the effects of general perceived difference and group identification. Measuring perceived schematic difference relative to the concept of America, we examine how this measure relates to the tendency of U.S. Republicans and Democrats to blatantly dehumanize members of the other political party. We report the results of two pre-registered studies—one correlational (N = 771) and one experimental (N = 398)—that together lend support for our theory. We discuss implications of these findings for research on social boundaries, political polarization, and the measurement of meaning.

Critical peace education and critical hope: co-researching with middle school students in India to imagine possibilities for social change

ABSTRACT An existing culture of conflict tends to shape practices within schools, which often maintain and in turn, contribute towards perpetuating stratifications at the societal level. Through this study, the author seeks to challenge this culture of conflict by creating a pedagogical space and facilitating possibilities of collective thinking, relationality, and action, with a focus on nurturing a culture of peace. With a goal of gaining insight into how middle school students from two school sites in New Delhi, India, are embodying and interacting with notions of peace and conflict as they make meaning of their social worlds, the author conducts a youth participatory action research (YPAR), which is complemented with semi-structured interviews. A total number of 12 participants collectively engage in a YPAR process across 13 virtual sessions, which were held on a bi-weekly basis. Guided by a critical peace education and critical hope framework, the author examines a ‘moment’, which reveals complexities around how pedagogies of critical hope can engage young people in affective, ethical, and political sensibilities to imagine possibilities for social change.

Exploring identity: A Critical Discourse Analysis on “Nepali Women in Politics Success and Challenges”

The research paper explores the idea placed in the article “Nepali Women in Politics: Success and Challenges” by Bishnu Raj Upreti, Drishti Upreti and Yamuna Ghale published in the ‘Journal of International Women’s Studies’ on April 2020 from the perspectives of CDA, a relatively recent approach to analyzing discourse. The paper provides the definitions and overview of some CDA models mainly of Norman Fairclough, Ruth Wodak, T.A. Van Dijk and so on. Language, ideology and discourse are inseparable notions as we talk about media, translation and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). We get information from many sources which we use to interpret the world. Personal interactions with others provide us the insight with their knowledge and experience, cultural conventions and practices in their social world. On the other hand, television, radio, newspaper and magazines, the internet and many other sources with their different values provide us information. Language is the main mood through which most of the sources give information and most of these sources can be interpreted and analyzed using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The paper will discuss how the discourse used by the three authors in the article shows women’s struggle for equality in Nepal for the establishment of their identity in the society by exposing themselves in politics.

Toward an Expressivist View of Women's Autonomy

Feminists have disagreed about whether women can choose gendered subordination autonomously. Less attention has been paid, however, to the socio-ontological questions that underlie this debate. This article introduces novel cases of ‘thwarted autonomy,’ in which women pursue autonomy but in ways that reinforce gendered subordination, in order to challenge dominant proceduralist and substantivist views, as well as motivate an expressivist view of the social self as a promising foundation for an account of autonomy. On this view, which draws on the Hegelian tradition, agents must embody their desires and values in the social world to achieve self-understanding. Social meanings and norms therefore mediate the form an agent’s expressive activity takes, and the sense of self she develops. An expressivist view, I argue, allows us to reinterpret women’s outward acquiescence to gendered subordination as an attempt to express autonomy in an oppressive social context. It also points towards a robustly social conception of autonomy to aid in the diagnosis and redress of patriarchal oppression.

Is it personal or is it social? The interaction of knowledge domain and statistical evidence in U.S. and Chinese preschoolers' social generalizations.

Children make inferences about the social world by observing human actions. However, human actions can be ambiguous: They can be sources of information about personal, idiosyncratic characteristics of individuals or socially shared knowledge. In two cross-cultural studies (N = 420; Mage = 4.05 years, SD = 0.77, 47% female), we ask if U.S. and Chinese children's inferences about whether an action is personal or social vary by domain, statistical evidence, and culture. We did this with a generalization method: Preschoolers learn about one agent's actions and then are asked what they think a new agent will do. Low rates of generalization suggest children inferred something unique to an individual, while high rates suggest that children inferred that the action represented socially shared knowledge. In a mixed between- and within-participant design, children observed agents demonstrate sequences of statistically random (or nonrandom, between participants) actions that were verbally framed as relevant to a particular domain (agent's personal preferences, labels, object functions, or game rules). We found that children's social generalizations about actions were on a continuum: with linguistic conventions (e.g., labels) being the most social, preferences being the most personal, and nonlinguistic conventions (i.e., object functions, game rules) falling somewhere in between. Furthermore, the influence of statistical evidence and cultural variation varied for each domain. These findings highlight how children combine knowledge and evidence to infer social meaning from actions and have implications for rational constructivist accounts of cultural learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Seashells and sound waves: modelling soundscapes in Chacoan great-house communities

Humans inhabit rich social and physical worlds and archaeology is increasingly engaging with the multi-sensory experience of life in the past. In this article, the authors model the soundscapes of five Chacoan communities on the Colorado Plateau, where habitation sites cluster around monumental great houses. The work demonstrates that the audible range of a conch-shell trumpet blown from atop these great houses consistently maps the distribution of associated habitation sites. Staying within the audible reach of great houses may have helped maintain the social cohesion of communities in the past which, the authors argue, also has implications for the management of archaeological landscapes in the modern world.

Studying ‘Religion’ Critically and the Decolonial Turn: Lessons for Critical Terrorism Studies

Abstract Being ‘critical’ when studying religion, whilst it does not have to be limited to studying religion’s discursive (and colonial) employments only, it certainly has to begin with it, if we aim to contribute to much-needed decolonial efforts across the social science disciplines. Critically studying religion, as I argue in this article, means starting with a normative and moral responsibility and aspiration towards a more just, equal, and progressive social world that grapples with the coloniality, and structures of white supremacy we are all embedded in. In this article I will reflect on the contributions of Critical Religion (CR) especially to fields like (Critical) Terrorism Studies and related disciplines which regularly discuss ‘religion’ and religiously-inspired violence but never actually acknowledge ‘religion’s’ colonial and gendered implications, definitional instability, or Euro- and Christian-centric invention. The work Critical Religion does in uncovering and excavating the modern-colonial origins of the term ‘religion’, I argue, is essential in realising and contributing to the decolonial turn we are currently experiencing and which disciplines like (Critical) Terrorism Studies can only benefit from.

Possibilities of Free Will in Different Physical, Social, and Technological Worlds: An Introduction to a Thematic Issue.

In this introduction to a thematic issue dealing with free will, some possibilities of free will in different physical, social, and technological worlds, as well as discussions of the possibilities are considered. What are the possibilities and limitations of free will in various other worlds differing from our world? What are the possibilities and limitations of free will in different species, both in our world and in other hypothetical worlds, including future species, naturally evolving, and artificially modified? What are the possibilities and limitations of free will related to the development of AI? How can the diversity of free will levels in an agent be related to possible levels (depth) of its self-knowledge? What can agents differing in levels of self-knowledge know and think about the issue of free will? How do different societies (social worlds) support and inhibit different manifestations of free will in different areas? What is the role of hard neurodeterminism and "mindless neuroscience" in general neuroscience? What are ethical aspects of the questions, including the initial one: "If a neuroscientist denies free will, how can they write a text of voluntary informed consent and propose to sign it?".

학교폭력 소재 웹툰의 ‘다른 신체 되기'와 계급주의 -&lt;외모지상주의&gt;와 &lt;인생존망&gt;을 중심으로-

This study examines the characteristics of “bodily transformation” depicted in webtoons themed around school violence, focusing on Park Tae-jun’s webtoon “Lookism” and the collaborative work “Survival Guide” by Park Tae-jun and Jeon Sun-woo. This theme involves powerless victims overturning their relationships with cruel perpetrators by obtaining supernatural bodies through chance encounters. However, despite this theme, the webtoons do not challenge the premise that the hierarchical order within the classroom is established and maintained by a group of class-conscious guardians who faithfully fulfill their roles. Characters do not share their miraculous achievements with others or attempt to change the injustices of their social world. Through these webtoons, the limitations of adolescent portrayals are observed, characterized by the absence of imagination regarding life outside school in the webtoons and the entrenchment of narrative grammar where violent problem solving, perpetrators becoming victims, and victims recovering all revolve around violence.

Analysis of the Development Trajectory of Marxs Historical Philosophy

In his early years, Marx, inspired by Hegel, believed that history is a process of dynamic evolution. Therefore, he also paid attention to the replacement of social forms and the differences in social forms among different ethnic groups. While Hegel believed that the driving force of historical progress lies in spirit, Marx focused more on the role of material in it. Thus, in his theories of social forms and world history, Marx emphasized the historical progress brought about by changes in the mode of production. Based on this, Marx expounded his views on the evolution of social forms and the development status and prospects of world history. He consistently held a equality political inclination and continued to pay attention to the oppression suffered by backward nations. This paper summarizes Marxs social form theory, world history theory, and his related discussions on backward nations in his historical philosophy. It outlines the global perspective from the internal social evolution of nations to the coordinated development of the world, and then to Marxs humanitarian care for backward nations.

The Challenge of Gender Diversity for Case-Based Instruction in Entrepreneurship Education

The purpose of this study was to address case-based instruction in entrepreneurship education from multiple instructors’ perspectives and describe their experiences with this approach as it relates to gender diversity. This study answers the call for more substantive research focused on issues related to entrepreneurship education, including an examination of specific teaching methods and an in-depth exploration of gender and entrepreneurship education. The findings suggest the role that case-based instruction can play in efforts to advance gender equality as part of the diversity imperative in education. Instructors considered gender diversity in case selection but found it to be a challenge. Moreover, the descriptions of the entrepreneurs and their venture behaviors in the cases were gendered, which might have resulted in unintended discriminatory gender lessons. While none of the women were portrayed in a specifically negative light, underlying assumptions about gender roles infused the cases. While the instructors considered gender diversity in case selection, they did not necessarily consider gender stereotypes, which is problematic because gender stereotypes are cognitive schemas that influence the ways in which individuals make sense of their social world and may discourage some women’s aspirations to become business owners.

Imagination vs. routines: festive time, weekly time, and the predictive brain.

This paper examines the relationship between societal structures shaped by traditions, norms, laws, and customs, and creative expressions in arts and media through the lens of the predictive coding framework in cognitive science. The article proposes that both dimensions of culture can be viewed as adaptations designed to enhance and train the brain's predictive abilities in the social domain. Traditions, norms, laws, and customs foster shared predictions and expectations among individuals, thereby reducing uncertainty in social environments. On the other hand, arts and media expose us to simulated experiences that explore alternative social realities, allowing the predictive machinery of the brain to hone its skills through exposure to a wider array of potentially relevant social circumstances and scenarios. We first review key principles of predictive coding and active inference, and then explore the rationale of cultural traditions and artistic culture in this perspective. Finally, we draw parallels between institutionalized normative habits that stabilize social worlds and creative and imaginative acts that temporarily subvert established conventions to inject variability.