Sociological Interpretation Research Articles

PERFIL SOCIOECONÔMICO DE ESTUDANTES DE QUÍMICA: O CASO DOS CURSOS DA UNESP – ARARAQUARA

SOCIOECONOMIC PROFILE OF UNDERGRADUATE CHEMISTRY STUDENTS: THE CASE OF UNESP-ARARAQUARA COURSES. Considering the recent expansion and democratization of access to Higher Education in Brazil, this article aims to characterize and compare the socioeconomic profiles of students who are entering the Bachelor (BAC), teacher education degree (LIC) and Chemical Engineering (ENG) at UNESP - Araraquara. A quantitative, longitudinal study was performed according to sociological interpretation of Pierre Bourdieu. The data stands for a socioeconomic questionnaire and the performance on the entrance exam of 1544 students between 2003 and 2018. A Socioeconomic Index was built through a Factorial Analysis and a Multiple Correspondence Analysis was performed to compare he profile of students of three courses. The results show that the students’ profiles are different, despite becoming similar in recent years, and the demand for these courses has been decreasing since 2016. There are three factors that explain these changes: i) young people’s lack of interest in scientific careers; ii) low attractiveness of the teaching career; iii) the creation of a new course modality in the institution (the ENG). Studies like this can contribute to identify, evaluate, and implement actions to democratize the access and permanence of students in Higher Education.

Sociological Interpretation of Revolution: Understanding Transformation under Justice and Development Party Rule

Sociological Interpretation of Revolution: Understanding Transformation under Justice and Development Party Rule

FORMATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE STATE HUMANITARIAN POLICY OF IDENTIFICATION OF THE NATIONAL CULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL SPACE AT THE CURRENT STAGE IN UKRAINE

The article determines that the need for a state policy of identification of the national cultural and educational space is due to the transformations that modern society is experiencing, the processes of globalization that are intensifying, and the definition of the main tasks in the humanitarian sphere. Understanding the challenges facing society required an analysis of the cultural and educational space in order to determine the direction of its prospective development. Today, it is necessary to create a functional model of the national cultural and educational space, describe its essential characteristics and properties, reveal its potential and determine the conditions for the development of a socially responsible individual. It was found that the identification of the national cultural and educational space should be carried out on the basis of the analysis of individual facts and phenomena, the sociological interpretation of the most significant events that have a historical and current dimension, the disclosure of pedagogical conditions for the formation of the identity of a citizen of one's country, conditions for the development of human potential. One of the directions of actualization of the socio-cultural potential at present is the formation of a single cultural and educational space that integrates various social environments and systems that exist separately in the modern cultural and educational space. It is proven that during the development of cultural and educational potential, prospects for finding forms capable of accumulating human potential, supporting and stimulating the innovative direction of the nation's development, forming a productive socio-cultural environment, and jointly using the potential of education and culture systems are opened. The problem is that now a general idea of the cultural and educational space as a system has not been formed, the mechanisms of public management of its functioning have not been developed, and the institutional aspects of its implementation have not been analyzed. It is substantiated that today scientific reflection is aimed at understanding the extent to which the value core of culture and education determines the state and dynamics of the development of the cultural and educational space. This approach is dictated by the identification of the properties of the national cultural and educational space, which characterize it as a complete entity. The key issues focused on are the representation of the national cultural and educational space as a system, the identification of opportunities for the interaction of the spheres of culture and education, as conditions for the actualization of human potential through the formation of state humanitarian policy, and the determination of the main directions of its implementation.

Theory of (Un)Planned Behavior? How our behavioral predictions suffer from “unplanned” actions

An influential model in micro-sociology, the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) provides one of the most popular instruments for the prediction of social actions. Its focal point is the assumption that intentions are obligatory mediators between initial behavioral factors and corresponding actions. If some people break their intentions, TPB interprets this as those intentions have been “inflated” under the pressure of external factors. TPB does not claim to explain these factors, but rather argues that there is a gap between “perceived” and “actual” control over behaviors. In this way, the concept of “unplanned behavior” caused by some uncontrollable external factors emerges. This contribution proposes an alternative approach. Here, we examine an assumption of the existence of internal factors of behavior which are still not accounted for by the current TPB model, but can explain “unplanned” behaviors. As an example of these still uncounted-for factors, we chose an implicit component of general attitudes which is in line with the sociological interpretation of the Dual-System Theory. By demonstrating how this factor contributes to behavior bypassing intentions, we can expand the TPB model to include at least some variants of behavior, which, for now, are counted as “deviant” from predicted behavior. Theoretically, this may lead to a restructuring of the TPB basic model through its enrichment by this factor. In practice, at least some fractions of “unplanned” actions will become accessible for prediction.

Društvena i ekonomska kriza kroz prizmu Kondratijevljeve teorije dugih talasa

The scale of the modern economic crisis has refuted theories of a linear and self-regulating market. Adam Smith's "invisible hand" turned out to be nothing but a myth which served the purpose of maintaining the monopoly. In pursuit of alternative interpretations, we have decided that this paper should investigate the scale of crisis in the world and how major powers respond to it, as seen through Kondratiev long wave theory. Initially, we present the basic theoretical presumptions, to which we added modern sociological interpretations. This section is followed by explanations of socio-technological factors which are crucial for the intervals of long waves. Finally, we give a general presentation of the relationship between major powers and their future geocultural strategies: This paper aims to fathom the mechanisms of structurally conditioned crises and to indicate the need to apply Kondratiev long-wave theory when creating highest-level strategic documents.

Television Series as Critical Theories: From Current Identitarianism to Levinas. American Crime, The Sinner, Sharp Objects, Unorthodox

Abstract Critical theory with emancipatory aims today to find a source of regeneration in ordinary cultures, and in particular, in TV series. Certain series can play a role in reinventing critical theories, drawing on the tradition of the Frankfurt School but shifting some of that School’s formulations through contact with current forms of interpretive sociology and pragmatic sociology. This requires a cross-border dialogue between the “language game” of TV series and the “knowledge game” of political theory, to use concepts inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein. In this article, I will focus on four series: seasons 1 of American Crime (2015) and The Sinner (2017); Sharp Objects (2018); and Unorthodox (2020). The resources provided by these cultural works can help us formulate a critical decoding of important aspects of the current ideological context, in particular, the intersecting identitarian and ultra-conservative tendencies we find in France, Europe, the United States, and Brazil. These critical resources bear affinities to a political philosophy of the opening of being inspired by the ethical reflections of Emmanuel Levinas.

Globalization processes in the modern city

The pace of urbanization at the beginning of the XXI century is accelerating. For large cities, the processes of globalization are becoming significant. Globalization has become one of the powerful factors that determine the formation of both visual-architectural, and cultural-behavioral and economicpolitical spheres of city life. Globalization creates and sets the general trends of behavioral patterns of society, determining their frames of unified processes at the global and regional levels. Ukrainian sociological thought lacks a reception of Western discourses of the city's globalization. The article analyzes a number of theses of modern Western scholars on globalization and urbanization. The interdependence of globalization processes, communication and urbanization is revealed: along with the acceleration of communication processes, globalization, which affects urbanization, is also accelerating. The potential of globalization phenomena in transformational-urban processes is understood: socio-economic, sociopolitical, socio-cultural. Emphasis is placed on the fact that the globalization of the world economy with the simultaneous erosion of national sovereignty of modern states, fragmentation of social and class structure, value transformation in the direction of strengthening the individualistic orientation of mass consciousness, commercialization of higher education forms a new configuration where the most successful and urbanized cities become centers of technological, economic and cultural innovation. The processes of unification and interdependence, which are clearly traced at all levels of globalization practices, especially in the life of cities, are considered. The world is unifying, which causes both positive and negative receptions in social and scientific discourses. The article focuses on the sociological interpretation of the city in the context of urbanism as a way of life (Urbanism as a Way of Life): the influence of urban lifestyle on the transformation of gender roles, the potential of universal inclusion in everyday life – a big city should be tolerant and multicultural.

Conceptual interpretations of law in foreign sociology and their importance for effective public administration

The goal of this research lies in determination of the core philosophical-legal concepts in foreign social philosophy and sociology, which are relevant in modern era for the effective solution of political and administrative tasks. The article examines the views of the prominent foreign philosophers and theoreticians in the field of sociology of law (M. Weber, E. Durkheim, H. Kelsen, D. Nelken, D. Balkin, and others). In light of the uniqueness of their views, they can be encapsulated into the following perspectives: law is the order of relations between people who comprise the society, i.e. social order; politics is one of the regulators of social order, determines the relations between the government and individuals; such political order alongside the economy and culture is one of the three global social systems that are closely intertwined with each other and permanently affect each other. The essence of sociological interpretation of legal ideas can be formulated in three positions: 1) law should be understood as an aspect of social relations, since it is utterly associated with coexistence of individuals in social groups; 2) social phenomena of law should be viewed empirically, through detailed consideration of variability and continuity of social coexistence in the actual historical models, rather than in respect of idealized or abstractly imagined social conditions; 3) social phenomena should be examined systematically: from the empirical fact of social reality to socio-philosophical theory. Sociological comprehension of legal ideas methodologically expresses the own disparate and diverse characteristics of law. It must inform about the legal ideas and provide their interpretation for solving particular tasks of politics and public administration.

Оценка как социологический концепт: к постановке проблемы

The present research featured the role of evaluation in sociology and the sociological interpretation of its components. Evaluation is a complex perceptive procedure. Social reality is conditioned by the existence of man, who shapes it through evaluation, which includes cognition, evaluative comparison, and the implementation of the resulting information in social interaction. First, people form initial ideas that are chipped into a set of knowledge about social reality. The perception is then transformed into a mental-comparative act. On this basis, people perform actions and choices that correlate with the values. Norms determine the nature of perception and evaluation. Therefore, people embody their social functions through social behavior, relationships, and interactions, thus learning about the world and evaluating various social phenomena on the basis of the obtained assumptions. In that way, people develop and translate stable forms of perception. Evaluation can serve as a measure in sociological studies, i.e. as a means of studying social reality. As a result, the relationship evaluation – cognition – value – norm – public opinion becomes obvious and can act as a methodological basis for sociological research.

Biographical studies of prisoners’ families. Methodological notes

The article deals with the life situation of the families of prisoners, in particular, parental relationships connected with the experience of incarceration in a correctional institution. During the realisation of the research I noticed many difficulties in finding contact with potential interlocutors, therefore I considered the families of prisoners as an environment “invisible in the research field”. In addition, I defined families of prisoners as marginalised and stigmatised environments. The main aim of the article is to show selected methodological dilemmas that can be encountered through the design and analysis of biographical research of family members of prisoners. The theoretical introduction of the paper as an extended definition of the penitentiary crisis allowed to characterise the dominant trends and directions of research on prisoners’ families. Further, it focused on selected problems of realisation of qualitative research (especially biographical research). I analyse the literature and present my own methodological approach based on the direction of interpretative sociology. Using the potential of the autobiographical narrative interview technique (of the German sociological school of Fritz Schütze), I collected 31 interviews with adult children of prisoners and 30 interviews with parents of prisoners. Finally, I refer to my own research experience and discuss the “usefulness and ineffectiveness” of an autobiographical narrative interview. Moreover, I characterise key reflections on the role of the researcher in obtaining autobiographical narrations. The article is an invitation to discuss the improvement of research procedures, especially in the area of research on family members of persons in prisons.

Risk, causation and containment of Covid-19 pandemic in India: a sociological interpretation

ABSTRACT Pandemics have a collective character. They compel us to reflect upon our collective norms, values and behaviour forcing us to abandon, alter and renew our collective ‘normal’. The paper cogitates the implications of Covid-19 in India through a multi-disciplinary perspective. The boundaries between biology and culture, self and the other, individual and the collective stand reconfigured in the wake of the epidemic. The analysis of emergent infectious diseases reveals that cultural and anthropogenic factors have a predominant role in shaping the progression of pathogens to a disease outbreak. The epidemic has precipitated an atmosphere of risk and uncertainty. Risk Theory provides the theoretical underpinnings to interpret the sociological impact of Covid-19. An overarching discourse on risk has shaped the decisions at the international, national, and inter-personal level. The heightened perception of the risk of the other is mitigated by exclusionary practices, stigmatizing and blaming of the other. Reliance on digital surveillance apps to negotiate the risk, lockdowns, quarantines, containments, surveillance, and social distancing norms that have imbalanced power dynamics between the State and citizens, demonstrate the Foucauldian concept of ‘biopower’. The pandemic calls for adoption of a sociological approach and to revisit the epistemes of Sociology to accommodate the new normal.

Unemployment, religious disintegration and suicide fluctuations in Alberta.

This study looks at the relationship between unemployment, religious disintegration and suicide in Alberta during 1997-2015. Religious disintegration is operationalized as the percentage of population with no religious affiliation. Economic theory predicts suicides increase when unemployment rates are high and decline when unemployment rates are low. Sociological theory calls for suicides to vary inversely with the degree of religious integration in society. Multivariate analysis supports both economic and sociological interpretations. In Alberta, periods of rising unemployment (recessions) produce more suicides, and increased levels of religious disintegration are positively associated with the incidence of voluntary deaths.

A historical–discursive analytical method for studying the formulation of public diplomacy institutions

The aim of this study was to present a method of interpretative sociology for studying the formation and development of national public diplomacy institutions. Our goal was to apply cognitive analysis to public policy and to use a historical-discursive method to interpret the institutionalization of public diplomacy by a government. For us, cognitive analysis of public policy coordinates new perspectives and methods, especially the fruits of historical and discursive institutionalism, both to identify the cognitive and normative frames of policy formulation and to outline the dynamic relationships among institutions and political actors. By conducting an illustrative case study of China’s public diplomacy institutionalization, we demonstrated the potential of historical–discursive analysis to shed light on public diplomacy institutional change and various social and rhetorical phenomena related to Beijing’s efforts to rationalize and legitimize its foreign policy.

The digital habitus of the unwedded emerging adults: a sociological interpretation of male-female differences in Facebook behavior

PurposeBy considering Facebook as a social context of manifesting digital habitus, this paper aims to explore the differences between men and women in the compensatory use of Facebook, their engagement in crafting and exhibiting virtual self-representation, and addictive traits associated with it. It is argued that while Facebook compensates for the negative consequences of real-world experiences by allowing users, particularly women to display an ideal self or a true virtual self and so aid in socializing, users eventually develop an addiction, which results in various social difficulties.Design/methodology/approachThe study surveyed 511 male and 413 female undergraduate students who were between 19 to 26 years of age and reported being unmarried. Psycho-Social Aspects of Facebook Use Scale was used to solicit the responses. The factors were quantified by the items selected from the scale, and confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the construct validity and reliability of items to check the usability of the scale in cross-cultural contexts. The Independent Samples t-test was used to check whether statistical evidence exists that the related sample means of men and women vary significantly.FindingsWhile there is no difference in virtualizing the self by gender; women perceive Facebook as more compensating than men. Likewise, compared with men, women are found to be more self-presenting, more addictive and highly involved in socializing. The item-wise differences show that Facebook comparatively enhances the self-esteem of the women and women are more adventurous than men in Facebook interaction.Originality/valueThe study argues that there is a strong connection between the digital habitus and the social world. Social values and conditioning constrain people’s intention of being in the digital world and reflect their intention and decisions. Overall, the study is the most elaborative quantitative examination of how men and women differ in their Facebook behavior.

A Conceptual Framework for Social Currency Innovation: A Service Design Perspective

Early-stage entrepreneurs struggle to find financial access to different types of services that help develop their businesses. In recent research, complementary currency systems have been identified as promising alternatives to the deficit of money for accessing goods and services. The purpose of this study is to explore the potential of service design as a tool to create more resilient currency services that enable the exchange of digital credits between entrepreneurs. The theoretical investigation focused on relationships between complementary currency systems as resilient strategies and sociological interpretations of value exchange. Furthermore, service design tools, methods, and approaches are applied to the thinking towards social currency innovation. The resulting Conceptual Framework for Social Currency Innovation (CFSCI) highlights the potential of service design in making services more accessible, transparent, and affordable. Service design is relevant in understanding financial transactions, as it helps to perceive exchanges between entrepreneurs as services. Service design research can contribute to a reframing of issues of unaffordable services by conceptualizing service systems that enable skilled individuals to exchange their knowledge through social currencies. These new currencies make transactions between entrepreneurs possible and the service design perspective makes them more meaningful for the users.

Sport and fitness app uses: a review of humanities and social science perspectives

Sport and fitness mobile applications (SFMAs) have led to significant changes in how people engage in sport and physical activity. This development is part of a broader trend of self-tracking (the ‘quantified self’) and gamification, whose effects are discussed in an increasing number of publications in the humanities and social sciences. The aim of this interdisciplinary literature review is to provide an overview of the main research results on these apps. It summarises their emergence and the discourse of those who promote them, the factors leading to their adoption, their uses in practice, the reasons for their abandonment or rejection, and the risks and perverse effects linked to their use. The main sociological, psychological and philosophical interpretations of the phenomenon are also outlined: mobile applications as a tool for behaviour change, the agentive capacities of these sociotechnical systems, and the contemporary imperative of self-management. Some users find real support in SFMAs to set goals, plan their sessions, and/or to make physical activity a regular routine. However, for others, their use becomes excessive, leading to frustration or changes in social behaviour. Many studies point out the difficulty of engaging athletes in the use of SFMAs in a lasting way. While instances of long-term and balanced use are not uncommon, they coexist with use that borders on obsession, or even forms of dependence. We conclude with current research priorities and highlight avenues of research that merit further study.

“I’m a sociologist too, right?” Cinema and the representation of contemporary violence in Spain

The Spanish director’s oeuvre offers a unique vision of the various forms of violence at work in contemporary Spanish society. This study aims to encourage social scientists to reflect on their own practice and identify potential blind spots in their work. More broadly, the young Spanish director’s output can be viewed as the product of a particular socialization (both familial and academic) and his belonging to a generation uninhibited by the codes of classic Spanish politics. In this sense, his is a “post 15-M1 cinema,” part of a “second transition.” These are the factors that must inform a sociological interpretation of three of his most representative works, and the reading of the interview that follows.

Sociodynamics of Students’ Digital Capital in the Context of the COVID-19 Epidemiological Crisis: an Experience of a Mixed Strategy of Empirical Research

Introduction. The sociodynamics of students’ digital capital in the context of an epidemiological crisis has acquired special characteristics. The speed, focus and technologies for the formation of digital capital have changed significantly and are expressed in new content features and characteristi cs of sociodynamics.Methodology and sources. An integrative approach to the study and analysis of the digital capital sociodynamics is used, which consists a set of theoretical and methodological positions in the study of digital capital proposed by resea rchers earlier. An approach to the sociological interpretation of the concept of digital capital, which is characterized by systemic and integrative characteristics, is presented. The formed theoretical and methodological platform served as the basis for c onstructing an empirical research methodology.Results and discussion. Methodological approaches to the digital capital definition as an object of research are generalized. The contradictions and fragmentation in the interpretation of digital capital in private research and the relevance of sociological understanding of the essence of digital capital are shown. The tendencies and trends of the sociodynamics of digital capital during the pandemic have been empirically confirmed.Conclusion. The article presents some trends in the sociodynamics of students’ digital capital in a pandemic: first, the stimulating role of the pandemic in the development of digital competencies; secondly, changes in the direction of mastering digital competencies; third, analysis of the activity and intensity of changes in digital competencies; fourth, the intensification of the development of digital technologies related to the social aspects of interaction in the context of a lockdown.

Transfer of Students’ Human Capital in the Russian Education System

The article is dedicated to the sociological interpretation of such a phenomenon as human capital transfer in educational communities. The first part reveals the content of the concept of «transfer of students’ human capital», while justifying its application in the study of the educational failure/success of schoolchildren and students. The second part presents a theoretical model of the considered phenomenon through such structural elements as goals, subjects, processes and mechanisms. The third part is devoted to the contradictions in the transfer of human capital within educational communities in Russia. The contradictions between goals and interests of the subjects of education are regarded as the key ones. The final part expands on how significant the concept under consideration is to sociology of education. The results of an interdisciplinary study conducted in 2019–2021 in Sverdlovsk region’s educational facilities (schools, colleges, universities) serve as the empirical foundation for the article. It is shown that transfer of students’ human capital is a kind of capital movement, with its features determined by the social nature of educational activities and interaction. The process under study is associated with such a phenomenon as academic success/failure of students, given that while it unfolds the human capital of schoolchildren and students can either be developed or depleted. The transfer of human capital involves three groups of education subjects — actors, agents and participants who perform certain social roles and possess varying opportunities for regulating this process. The empirical data is interpreted based on the proposed theoretical model, with the results indicating the contradictions of the goals, vectors and results of the transfer of human capital among Russian students.

The origins of the theory of values in sociology and directions of its development

Since the first stages in the development of society and its scientific models, the term value has become a center of theoretical and applied concepts. On the one hand, in everyday life, we all understand the importance of value diversity; however, on the other hand, it is not clear how this diversity can be combined with the social order. The article presents an attempt to identify those interdisciplinary origins of the theory of values that are the most significant for the conceptual definition of value and for the empirical study of the value system of the contemporary society in sociology. The author identifies two conditional trends in the development of the theory of values, which are fundamentally important for sociology: the first trend is presented by the development of a kind of axiological concept which was originally purely philosophical. As a rule, the origins of this trend are found in the works of I. Kant (morality as duty, its relationship with freedom and natural aspirations, objective goals, absolute values, etc.), since all subsequent philosophical interpretations of values either followed or criticized his transcendental approach. Thus, representatives of neo-Kantianism focused on such concepts as revaluation of values, value devaluation, imaginary values and guiding cultural values, values and estimates. The origins of the classical sociological theories of values are found in the works of E. Durkheim: he believed that values formed a kind of objective reality on which social harmony can and should be based; therefore, the main social phenomena (religion, morality, law, economics, aesthetics) are systems of (very different) values, or social ideals. The evolution of sociological interpretations of values was determined by the gradual departure from purely theoretical concepts to generalized methodological models, which allowed to describe the role of values in the institutionalized performance of the functions of preserving and reproducing a cultural model, and then to empirical-instrumental models based on the terms value orientations and social attitudes. Thus, the second conditional trend in the development of the theory of values in sociology is determined by the introduction of methods for the empirical study of value diversity in the historical and comparative perspectives.